Early Steelers training camp buzz and Hall of Honor inductees

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Underground, The steel City Underground, the black
and gold standard for Pittsburgh Steelers coverage. Now here's your hoes.
Joe Kuzma, Hello everyone.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
And welcome to another edition of the steel City Underground podcast.
My name is a Joe Kuzbay. I'm here. I'm flying
solo on a day off from Pittsburgh Steelers training camp.
The acclamation period, as Mike Tomlin calls it, first four
days of training camp in the books, a lot of
football and shorts, but a lot of things to get
excited about as the team. Hey, there's a full week

(00:38):
of football this week, folks. You got the Steelers. They're
going to be in pads on Tuesday tomorrow, and then
you get to Friday Night lights, which is the big
Late La Trobe Memorial Stadium practice usually like twelve thirteen
thousand people. There are a very exciting time if you're
a fan. You get to see a lot of things.
You get to see some more action and pads, and

(00:58):
then of course Hall of Fame game come out right
around the end of this week as well, so there
was a lot a lot of football ramping up. You know,
you saw all these clips from the back together week
Talk about a little bit about that in a few moments,
but the Steelers also making a pretty big announcement over
this weekend. Three new inductees, obviously no huge surprise here

(01:22):
as to one of them into their Hall of Honor
class of twenty twenty five. Ben Roethlisberger, Marquise Pouncey, and
Joey Porter. The senior who led the team in sacks
very many years, was one of those guys high up
the charts many Pro Bowls three of them, to be exact,
also won a Super Bowl with the Steelers and then

(01:44):
went on and had some success with the Dolphins before
some knee injury slowed him down. He was also a
coach with the Steelers for a little bit of time too,
in case anyone forgot Marquise Pouncey. Of course, kind of
you never thought there would be a time where we
would say Marquise Pouncey was retired and then lo and
be hold. Following the disastrous season that started eleven to

(02:04):
zero and then ended up not winning a playoff game,
Pouncy in that famous amage of him and Ben Roethlisberger
sitting on the bench and Marquees just calling it quits.
There but one of the greats, right alongside the legacy
of other centers such as Mike Webster, Dermani Dawson. Do
believe that Pouncy one day will also be enshrined in Canton.

(02:26):
Multiple time Pro Bowler, All Pro Super Bowl Champion.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Just very.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
A great player. He was the first center in NFL
history he selected the Pro Bowl in each of his
first three seasons in the league. He was a nine
time Pro Bowl selection, including twenty twenty, and he was
voted twice first team All Pro and a second team
All Pro three times as well. So then there's Ben Roethlisberger,

(02:54):
and he pretty much owns every statistic there is in
Pittsburgh Steelers franchise history that a quarterback could have. I
don't think we need to go through Big Ben's accolades
and take away from what will be a kind of
a brief show. We're going to come back around to
you later this week from training camp with some more
insights since news and this time I'm gonna probably be

(03:17):
confined to a hotel room and not my lovely what
do you want to say abode here? Which you know,
things keep moving around here, you know, if you notice
something different caught me out on it. You know, I'm
always looking for I'm looking for space. Got so much
to core, I get so many things. I got TJ.
Watt bubblehead sitting here. This one lights up too, kind
of crazy, big head, kind of like Brian. Brian will

(03:42):
be back soon enough as well, and we'll be talking
about well, by the time Brian's back, we're going to
be talking about actual football games and some previews for
preseason games. But just some quick Roethlisberger fast facts. He
played a two hundred and forty nine games, all but
two of those were starts, with eighteen years with the
Pittsburgh Steelers, three Super Bowl appearance appearances, including winning two

(04:03):
of those. He holds her shares at least fifty two
franchise regular season records and another eighteen franchise postseason records.
He has nine NFL records thirteen times. He was named
a team captain six times Pro Bowl selection. He's ranked
fifth in NFL history with one hundred and sixty five
regular season victories as a starting quarterback. That was at

(04:26):
the time his career was over. In twenty twenty one.
He's six to in NFL history with a zero point
sixty seven regular season winning percentage sixty seven hundred as
a starting quarterback. So man, Ben just some really big,
really big numbers when you think about it. And now
we flip from all of that in the consistency and

(04:50):
the stable quarterbacking of Ben Roethlisberger two the Aaron Rodgers
era in Pittsburgh, and boy, it's been exciting thus far.
I don't know if if you've seen some of the clips,
some of the interviews that are out there, there's there's
been some things that have been made by Rogers. First
off with the defense, but I'll get to them in
a second. You know, the first impressions are, Aaron Rodgers

(05:13):
looks good in shorts, as he should, forty one year old,
a veteran, but it looks like it really sounds like
he's having fun. And for all of the teammates that
have been interviewed, for all of the media that's spoken
to him, he's been very, I guess, open, approachable, just
another one of the guys. I think it was in
New York that this was quoted that he was doing that,

(05:34):
and I think he's doing this again in La Trope
now and he's having lunch with a different player, Like
he goes and sits at a different table or different
teammates every single day. He just doesn't go and sit
with his offensive linemen or going sit with DK Metcalf whom.
You know, there's the dorm room flush story or whatever,
and he's they're happy to be teammates whatever, and stay
away from that one. But a very interesting way to

(05:56):
build team chemistry and get to know people because you know,
when he was in Green Bay, you have carryover a
lot of carryover from year to year with teammates, so
you're familiar with a lot of faces. This is all
new to him and even speaking on that, there are
some great clips out there from Good Morning Football, Kyle
Brandt interviews Aaron Rodgers. If you didn't see that, it'll

(06:17):
be up on Still City Underground dot com. We shared
it on x It's probably everywhere you can go YouTube
everything else. Go check those out. Kyle Brant talks with
Aaron Rodgers and Rogers talks about all kinds of things,
including Terry Bradshaw, including marriage and all kinds of stuff
that doesn't necessarily have to do with just on the field,
which very personable, is about a good ten to twelve
minute clip if you get to see that. Likewise, Brandt

(06:39):
also got some time with Mike Tomlin, who talks about
the various challenges of having somebody like an Aaron Rodgers.
It's been around, You've got a coach guy that's already
seen and done a lot of things that is that's
challenge and even for somebody entering year nineteen like Iron,
Mike should start calling him Iron. Mike has been around
for ever. Doesn't like he has any interest in stopping

(07:02):
just yet, but this could be the retirement tour, so
to speak. For Aaron Rodgers. He's putting some zip on
the ball. There's been some really nice clips of Rogers
throwing the football again and Schwartz no padded practices just
yet until this week, but it's been hot. They've had
some of these camp sessions already shortened due to weather.

(07:24):
But they're getting the work in and he's dazzled. They're
spen a thrower to the DK metcalf already. If you
saw that, that was just incredible. The offense looks like
it's going to be a different animal, a different beast
with Aaron Rodgers at the helm. So just all the
early impressions of them. Yeah, he's thrown some interceptions, and

(07:47):
there's obviously there's been some trash dog, there's been some
fighting at different levels with different players. You've got the defense, right.
Mike Tomin talked about the challenge of having a Darius Slay.
What is Darius Slay now two thirty three years of age.
Jalen Ramsey's thirty. You've got some guys that have been
around the block more than once. And Ramsey's been picking

(08:07):
the pocket of of Aaron Rodgers to start off. And
Derek Harmon's been impressive on that line. Why he Black
the other rookie defensive lineman out of Iowa. They've looked good.
They've looked good against some of their competition. Obviously Black's
not up against starters. Harmon is getting some looks. He's
been expected to jump in and contribute week one. So

(08:28):
that is one thing about Derek Harmon. Now the defense
they're getting to Rogers, Patrick Queen. I guess you know
he has his has an interception of Rogers, like one
of the first throws Rogers has in camp. I take
a lot of that with a grain of salt. But
these guys aren't They're the highest paid defense in the
NFL per average, and they've they've got to show up, right.

(08:52):
There's there's a lot on the line. Ramsey just got
a big contract extension. This could be Slay's last stop too.
They're wanting to win a championship, and for all intents
and purposes, that's what it looks like. The defense is
looking out to do. They're looking to upstage this offense.
They're looking to upstage and you know, kind of mentioning
one of the more I wouldn't say major Andreies. I'm

(09:15):
not sure. As far as like your players that are
going to be on maybe the final fifty three man roster.
You've got Broderick Jones, who's got some mixed reports out there. Now.
He's slimmed down some, so he could be quicker, he
could be a little more agile coming off the left,
but goodness, the guys that he's up against are not
giving him an easy time. So if you think that maybe,

(09:36):
well Roderick Jones is looking bad, well Aaron Rodgers is
looking good too. He's knowing where to look, where to
put the ball, He's knowing where that pressure might be coming. Again,
hard to gauge the performance to somebody like Jones, the
performance of somebody like Black. Until we get those pads
on and you actually get some meat on meat, right
bone on bone, you get some of these guys that

(09:57):
start to just clang a bang for a lack of
better words. Right, There's been some competitive matchups with the
running backs. You've seen Caleb Johnson breaking free and showing
off his speed, seeing mccomlin calls him Kenny g Kenneth
Gainwell up against Peyton Wilson, and that's been a fun

(10:22):
what do you want to say? Battle? Thus far in camp,
there's just been kind of it's hard to say the
things to get excited about which you really want to
look at is for example, I should be remiss not
to mention that Corderol Patterson has been released by the Steelers.
He made some real snyde comment about, you know, this
old slow guy just got fired thirty four, thirty three,

(10:45):
thirty four years of age running back slash wide receiver,
slash kick returner. While the time catches up to everyone.
And that's what we're kind of thinking about with, you know,
like the offense, and they're just kind of are the defense,
I should say, some of these players Aaron Rodgers Darius Slay.
I don't want to be a broken record about age.
Age is just a number. You look at cam Heyward

(11:06):
ages like fine wine. But what we want to look
at is where some of these players are being used.
And Patterson just found himself in an incredibly crowded room
that also, you know, you go further into the depth chart,
maybe he comes up off the practice squad to play
maybe some special teams. But Trey Sermon, who was you know,
a dude at Ohio State two three years ago, was
on the far end of this depth chart that has

(11:28):
Jalen Warren, that has Caleb Johnson. I know a stutter
over Caleb Johnson's name all the time, and I'm just like,
oh geez, don't screw it up. It's Caleb Johnson for
whatever reason I may have said, is given the wrong
last name on the last show, like Campbell, I called
him something like that. I got the names conflated there.
But Kenneth Gainwell, we'll see how the ball security is.

(11:48):
But Gainwell is also a return guy. That made Patterson
very much so expendable for the younger player, younger maybe
snappier player again father time being undefeated. But the other
thing to be looking at. Is Jalen Ramsey playing a
lot of high safety as well, as mentioned in our
camp previews over the last two episodes, this is a

(12:09):
player that the Steelers are going to feature heavily. They
didn't pay him all this money to not have him
on the field. So even if you have Slay and
you have Joey Porter Junior on the field at the
same times, you're gonna find Ramsey along the line of scrimmage.
He's gonna be scooting back. He's going to be trying
to confuse his opposition. You're going to need to do

(12:31):
that when you're up against Joe Burrow with the Jamar
Chase with t Higgins. You know Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson's
got well Jay Flowers and DeAndre Hopkins and they've got like,
both of these teams have a lot of threats, a
lot of weapons that the Steelers they're sitting here right

(12:51):
now and they're planning for. So part of that is
just mixing it up. And that's one of the reasons
why you see the clips. Even on social media, be
careful of what you share out their folks, because I
know a lot of people are like, oh, well that
was really predictable. Like some of this stuff is getting
staged and play on right now, and everybody's just like, oh, hey, look,
give me attention because I posted it on social media.

(13:13):
Please don't do that. But if it's some simple drills,
we've saw some. You see some of the beat reporters
out there, just like a nice little pitch and catch
where Jalen Warren goes up and gets a pass from
Aaron Rodgers. You've got Caleb Johnson. It's been it's been
exciting to watch. But then again, Jalen Ramsey, I don't
know how many interceptions here he has two or three,

(13:34):
and I should say I should mention a name here too.
Brandon Eckles has been kind of a journeyman around the league,
is getting some of his just desserts as he's getting
some looks this week. He's on a very very deep
depth chart here for the Steelers. I don't know he
would have to bump like a Corey Trice James Pierre.
That's if the Steelers keep six corners. I haven't quite

(13:54):
gotten into the hot seat competitions yet or how deep
the depth charts are. We'll start looking at some of
that during the preseason as some of the packing order
begins to pan out. So that's about it. When it
comes to offense defense, some of the names, some of
the big names, it's hard to like just put hey
watch this guy. It's exciting to watch all of the

(14:16):
rookies like the Jack Sawyer's Derek Harmon. But again, why black.
When they're not in pads, it makes for a whole
different kind of a different kind of ball, different kind
of game. They get into pads, things start to get
a little nastier, and it's just it's it's just more
like football, and you get better a better idea of

(14:39):
what Mike Tomlin's looking at there he is right there
with PZ. He was always at camp. What a stealer
for life, right Joey Porter Junior. So just some other
programming notes to the chaos that's going to be at OH.
I should mention there's some of the tight ends too.
Are also getting some acknowledgement here with the Pittsburgh Steelers

(15:02):
early on. And it's not just your usual suspects. They
may keep four that may keep it. They may make
it difficult to be honest, because it really is going
to depend on where does Connor Hayward end up in
this pecking order because you've got Pat Fryarmuth, You've got
John L. Smith, You've got Darnoult Washington. Already there's three dudes,

(15:26):
and then make it a good push, at least for
practice squad. JJ Gallbrith hearing a lot about him early
on if he could be a special teams contributor. Steelers
kept Kevin Raider around for several years, one of my
favorite guys formerly out of Youngstown State. But you know,
Rogers goes for John L. Smith and gets picked off.

(15:47):
It was either Eccles or Ramsey, if I'm remembering correctly.
At this point, I'm not so concerned about the picks.
People will make a big deal in a stat track.
One of the things that was really driving me crazy
early on in all of this process is we already
have statistics for Will Howard, the rookie out of Ohio State,

(16:07):
and somebody was tracking his statistics. I forget what he
was like fifteen to seventeen and blah blah blah. And
keep in mind, Howard's taking like third and fourteen reps
early on. Here he's the low man on the totem pole.
He's against other guys that are, you know, their roster hopefuls,
but nothing's in the bag. More than likely they won't

(16:27):
be employed come September. But it's promising still to see
him ascend and do well in you know, the pro
atmosphere and the show that he belongs, So I won't
take that away from him. But again, let's take all
the stat tracking with a grain of salt. We don't
know what Rogers is attempting to do. What he's attempting
to try something different. The guy's been around for twenty years,

(16:51):
so doing the same old, same old. Maybe it was something,
Maybe it was something that you know, he has a tell,
he has that poker tell. He couldn't bluff on the
play and the defense, the defense snuffs it out. So
programming notes again, be back later this week. Some eyewitness
accounts again from Saint Fitso College in La Trobe Wednesday,

(17:13):
the mad House of the Pat McAfee show, and more
than likely Aaron Rodgers joining that, so we'll see what
that's like Wednesday. I think the gates open there at
like eleven am. That whole thing is going to be
absolutely crazy. So we're really excited to see everybody in
pads really excited to see and hear everything you know
from willhired Mason Rudolph saying, you know, Aaron Rodgers is

(17:36):
a good teammate watching them, just work on timing and rhythm.
The same thing with you know, Zach Frasier. Those little clips.
You know, there's nothing to be taken for granted. Here
every little snippet that you could get from training camp.
Absorb it as much as you can. This is this
is all going to piece together for a Steelers team
that hopes to compete for another Lombardi Trophy this season. Folks,

(17:57):
don't forget the like, comment, subscribe, thank you for watching,
or list thing wherever you may be. Of course, those
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Thank you for watching on YouTube, leave a rating or review,
comment wherever you may be. Thumbs up. We appreciate all
the support that everyone gives us. That's about it for now.

(18:19):
There's not a whole whole lot to cover. I'm going
to get into a little bit more of the position
battles where players are being utilized. Other than Ramsey kind
of had a thought he might be a safety oh,
Chuck Clark getting signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers as well,
and yeah, we're getting signed. They looked at Marcus Williams too,
which I called on this show not too long ago,
about a month ago. I said, look, former Ravens. You know,

(18:42):
the Steelers are looking within division at certain players. I'm
surprised they didn't give a look to some former Bengals,
but then again, their defense been lousy. Clark hits like
a bus. It'd be a very very good Special Teams
and Depth edition because they don't have a whole lot
of safeties. Remember, Miles Killerbrew is a Special Team's ACE two.
So they need somebody who can actually play on the
field other than one Thornhill and another former Baltimore Raven,

(19:04):
Deshaun Elliott. And then Thornhill also from within the division,
having formerly played for the Cleveland Browns last couple of seasons.
So Chuck Clark, welcome to Berg folks. Thank you again
for joining wherever you may be till next time. My
name is Joe Kuzma, and we always encourage our our
friends and fans that are out there to be safe,
be good, and we'll catch you later.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
We would like to thank you for listening, and remind
our listeners to follow us on social media and our
website www. Dot steel City Underground dot com

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