Fourth-straight loss sends the Steelers spiraling into the playoffs

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 hose.
Joe Kuzma and Brian E. Rose.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the steel
City Underground podcast. My name is Joe Kuzma. Joined here
buy my good colleague. Appeal one, mister Brian, he roach, Brian,
how you doing, my friend?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know, later, stunt it over.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's I'm annoyed.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
But and I told you I'm gonna do this right
away because I don't want to forget and I don't
want to leave it till the last second.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yes, we've we've talked about the captain. Uh.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
This is Captain Scott Wyman, who I gave my Raven's
tickets to when they came, and he sent me this
little note. It says, Brian, thank you again for the
tickets to the Steelers in the Ravens game. My wife
Molly and I had a great time as a munitions
officer in the Air Force. I thought the coaster coin
would be a great thank you. It has imaging of
the shell and flame through its many uses as well

(01:14):
as the history.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thank you again.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Kep Scott mind and missus Molly Wyman, and he sent
me this, which is this this coaster with the thing
and and all the history about it on. It's very
cool and since we know how many of these I
go through through every show, it's actually incredibly useful. And
thank you Scott, uh and and uh missus Scott appreciate it.

(01:37):
Uh glad you guys had a great time.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, long time, long time listener. I don't have anything
nearly as cool as that, Brian. But while you're enjoying
a beverage, I just showed this to you off air,
just in case. Once again. It's printed so it faces
me while.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I drink it.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
But so people don't think I have a blank coffee mug.
Here it says I like the Steelers and coffee. And
I know you're not the host of likes toast or
you know or coffee.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, coffee, that stuff's nasty's bad.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Like I like flavored. I like flavored coffee. I've got this.
You know what Meyer, if you've got the Meyer stores
around you. The Michigan Cherry, I know it's that place
up north. We don't like to say the M word,
but the Michigan Cherry coffee. They're the only ones I
think that make it. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but man,
it's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm not all one hundred percent flavored coffee. There's some
that I can, you know, take her leave or just leave.
Hazel Nut is not in the rotation, for example, but
you know breakfast, bland, medium, rows, some dark ROAs. I
kind of do it all about ninety percent of the
way there. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I like the Steelers
despite that. You know. Of course I got my girlfriend's
name on there too, Art Heather, so yes, and I

(02:41):
told her because she saw when I was facetiming with
her earlier and then she's like oh, and I was like, yeah.
They all make them that way, so they handle so
if you're right handed, you're never going to see what's
printed on it. It don't matter if it's you know, an
official Steeler's mug with the pewter thing on it or whatever.
They just it's just the way it is.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
So you can remind yourself that you like the Steelers
and do you like coffee?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
That's what it is.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Almost spit my coffee out at you, because yes, I
still like the Steelers. I'm still defensive. The Steelers have
they lost four straight? My friend, Yes they have. I'll
tell you what, if the game wouldn't have progressed at
the end the way that it did, I'd probably be
a little more downtrodden than what I am. And I
know we discussed it, and I have like a bunch

(03:24):
of actually handwritten notes for a chain amazing, and I
actually just have names because today's Black Monday around the NFL.
There's lots of teams, not Steelers, not what Mike Tomlin,
like he said, not a black trash bag day for them.
They're down the business. This is this is a new season.
Once you're in the door, that's all that matters. And

(03:46):
I'm trying to think who else was just saying that
there was a coach like Jimmy Johnson or somebody on
one of these pre or post game things as I
was watching the games on Sunday. But there's all the
things that people bitch and complain about with the Steelers.
And we're gonna be kind of focused on looking at
the season, not really looking ahead so much to the
Raven yet. We'll be back later in the week with that.

(04:06):
But this nineteen to seventeen game. There's a lot of negatives, obviously,
and it's easy to just breed negativity. But when the
fan base runs through goddamn mouths all the time taking
the lord's name of Veay and a shame on me, right,
But I just have to be said, because it's like
it's always something. It's Tomlin fire, Tomlin fire, Arthur Smith.

(04:28):
Smith's getting a head coaching sniff or interview with the
Jets or whatever, and people are like take them. And
it's like you tend to forget some of the people
that have been through this door, like Randy Ficktor or
Matt Canada. And when somebody has like one like iota
of success and they're out the door too, usually as
a coordinator if they have the you know, aspirations of
being an NFL head coach. Some do, some don't. You

(04:50):
see what happened with Brian Callahan and the Tennessee Titans
last this year, Right, he goes from the Cincinnati Bengals
and that offense continued just humming along without him. But
he goes down there, he takes his dad with them
to do the offensive line. They got the top pick
in the draft, and they already picked a quarterback the
year before with Will Levis and they got Mason Rude.
Oh I all do down there?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Like seriously, so what are they gonna do when they
got the top pick? Just canning Mike Vrabel, who's gonna
be one of the top probably coaching candidates. You see
what the Patriots did with a black trash bag. They
got rid of Drawd Mayo immediately and Robert Kraft's apologizing.
You know, they were looking to maintain the same thing
from Belichick without Belichick. That didn't work out. So I'm

(05:33):
not here as the Steelers. I know, four game losing streak,
they got ten wins, They're in the playoffs. They're not
necessarily riding a wave of momentum. The situation could be
a lot different and they could be completely out and
people are asking, well, if they lose this or this happens,
are they gone? And the reason I'm like rambling about

(05:53):
this some of this is I have names on my list,
particularly they came to mind yesterday and watching some of
this and just seeing all the comments and social media
on a rapid fire. When you talk about fan bases
and they're getting like all up in their fields. Aaron
Rodgers every single person who wanted Aaron Rodgers a year
or two ago, and look what that did. No, he
finally threw four TD passes in a game where talk

(06:16):
about another dumpster fire team, I gotta have it game
for the Miami Dolphins. You got to Attaga Vailoa, a
guy who just cashed a major contract fifty million a years, saying, well,
if we make the playoffs, there's no way I'm missing
a playoff game. And it's like, in order to get there,
you got this is a playoff game. You gotta beat
the Jets. What can you imagine that? And then you've
got remember when Eric b Enemy was the hot higher

(06:39):
and he was gonna go he was gonna go off
on his own from the land of Kansas City to
either be a head coach or a coortinator or do
no gone it guy is gone twice over, Washington got
rid of him. He couldn't fix anything there. You look
with their teams like now with the coaching change. He
went over to UCLA, gone from there, Byron left Wich.
I'm gonna have to look up Byron Leftwich because to
be completely honest, I don't know where he's at. But

(07:00):
everybody was like oh, hey, look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Blah blah blah, they're doing all this. I have two
on here. And then when you talk about guys like
George Pickens in Divas and hello, Tyreek Hill, he's running
his mouth down. He posted a picture the Antonio Brown thing.
It's Antonio Brown's body and everything he wants out of Miami.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
And when we got the fan base here in Pittsburgh, like, hey,
would you give Tyreek Hill a look? And it's like,
you guys couldn't handle Juju playing Fortnite and riding a bicycle,
how are you going to handle Tyreek Hill? Like the
amount of stuff that people It's like, if it's a win,
and we could talk about how this game could have
been a win, it probably solves a whole lot of it.

(07:43):
But it's like, man, do you people really live and
die so much on like you know, a loss or
a close loss or these multiples. It's just wow, it's
a game, and thank goodness you've got people.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Like Omar Khan. The stability of the Steelers overall is
a free franchise, whether it be Mike Tomlin, the Rooney's
and the ownership and everything else running this ship or else,
things could be far far worse.

Speaker 4 (08:09):
Well, I won't disagree with that. Things absolutely could be
far far worse.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Look, and I say this being as guilty as everyone else.
It's a spoiled pan base. We've talked about it a
million times. Right, We're used to winning. If we don't win,
then something's wrong and we have to do something about it.
The problem is everybody is so reactionary anymore, just in
the world in general. It's like, you know, we Pickens
had a bad game, right, Pickens had a really bad game. Yeah,

(08:37):
let's just not there's no sugar coating. There's no sugarcoating it.
But every time he comes in and he makes it catch,
it's absolutely ridiculous. Everybody's like George Pickens, So what happens yesterday?

Speaker 3 (08:47):
I'm watching the postgame press conference, you know, on Saturday night,
and of course like, get rid of Pickens, get rid
of Pickens. He's the worst, just because you can't.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
People are so flip floppy and reaction after one event, right, Look,
and I'm you know, I was extremely negative about this game, right,
I was extremely annoyed with this game.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I continue to be extremely annoyed with this game.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
But I'm not going to say fire Tomlin because I
don't believe that's the right move. I'm not going to
say get rid of George Pickens because I don't believe
that's the right move. I'm not convinced, because I wasn't
convinced before that Russ is the right guy going forward.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
I don't know that Justin is.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
I don't know that next year is not going to
be a giant cluster f over everything.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
I don't know what next year is going to look like.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
But you know it's not the end of the world,
and we don't have to scrap everything and start over again.
God forbid, we did because we got a lot of
very expensive folks on our defense. Which is the only
positive I will take out of that Bengals game is that,
other than the first drive where they looked like a sieve,

(09:58):
the defense played a reasonably good game against one of
the top offenses in the NFL. As I told you,
losing T Higgins helped, but they were still playing a
solid game. And that's without Jackson, right, so you know
you're still missing a key component in the back end.

(10:19):
I don't want to excuse them, though, right you can get.
As we've talked about before, you can look at the
first three games of this slide and kind of write
it off and say to yourselves, well, that's the maybe
the three best teams in the NFL, or at least
the three of the four best teams in the NFL,
something along that lines.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
I don't know. Maybe I'm not gonna put the Ravens
in that top four. I'll put him in the top ten, though.
But you know, these are some of the top teams
you're playing against, and you didn't You didn't look good, right,
you look terrible the Bengals.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
Here's the problem. This is the problem that I still
have and I will continue to have. The Bengals defense
is ass right.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
They they are horrible.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
The choices that got made on the off offensive side
of the ball to attack this team was like, hey,
it's cold, we're scared.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
What happened. The way they beat the crud out of
the Bengals, the way they took advantage of the Bengals
is they threw the ball now all of a sudden,
the offensive line couldn't block Hendrickson and Russ has no time.
It is I don't know.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
To me, the offense hit a peak and has been
going in the opposite direction over the last three or
four games, and the offensive line has consistently seemed to
me to be on a downward trend, especially as it
comes to pass protection. I feel like I say it
every week. So there's a lot of things that need
to get fixed and a lot of things that are problematic.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
But they're in.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
They're in the tournament, so to say, you know, as
they say, we're in, and we do know how to
beat the Ravens. So you know, I'm not saying we're
gonna We'll talk about it later in the week, but
you know, you can't even have a chance if you're
not in, and at least they're in.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, it starts there. I know people are gonna say, oh, well,
the losing seasons and there's people saying one and done,
just don't even watch the freaking games. Then just you
know what, just go become a Kansas City fan because
apparently they just win all the time. I don't have
the greatest feeling that Kansas City's gonna make it all
the way. I know they're in position too, but man,
you have to think at some point, the odds of
winning these one score games is going to run out.

(12:29):
But some of the nonsense I see around social media
and on the internet and people talking the next day,
and this is antiquated. You can't win games by just
hoping to hold your opponents to twenty points or less
or whatever. And I looked at the Kansas City Chiefs schedule.
I looked at their whole five games they allowed let's

(12:52):
see here, I think it was twenty two or more
points only five games. Two of the more losses, of course,
that includes one of those losses was where they set
everybody down on the bench, right, So yeah, they only
gave up oh to more than twenty I'll say twenty.
It's not even twenty two, because they gave up twenty

(13:13):
four to Tampa that was an overtime victory. He gave
up twenty five to the Bengals, twenty seven to the
Carolina Panthers somehow, and then thirty to the Bills. In
thirty eight, of course, the season high at thirty eight.
Nothing blanking. I mean, that's got to feel good being
the Broncos, even though you're beating up on backups. But
as far as momentum, you.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Got to make Carson Wentz feel really really bad about
himself again.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, yeah, you get to play at home, you get
to ride, you get a must win game to make
the playoffs. I mean that had to feel good for
all of them. You got a rookie quarterback in bow Knicks,
who's you know. Even if it is a system, it
looks like he's learned it and he's done well, especially
since the Steelers had to see them last. Their defense
they've been doing. I've been impressed with the Broncos. They're

(13:55):
finally back in the playoffs for the first time since
Peyton Manning was on this roster. To swing back to
the Chiefs. They've given up seven, ten, ten, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen, seventeen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,
twenty twenty. Those are the game. That's how many points
they've given up in a game, and then they've actually scored.
We get the maps with Joe Graphics somewhere here. They

(14:16):
had about the same exact streak here. It was twenty
two or fewer points in eight of their games this season,
same record where they've only lost two of the games,
so they were six and two.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
So they do ever managed to score over thirty.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
They scored exactly thirty and that was an overtime with
the Buccaneers, and then against the Carolina Panthers, the worst
team in the league. They scored twenty nine against Steelers, unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
So here's what I'm.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Gonna say then. Yeah, the question was did they score
over thirty? Thirty actually equals thirty. There's the mats with Brian.
Thirty is the same as thirty. So they did not
score over thirty points. Oh right, they did not score
over thirty points. Yeah, And the whole point is is
that they've been playing a lot the defense.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
We were talking about that. So once again, the fan
narrative that's out there and the people that want to
talk about you know, Andy ree and this, that and
the other thing, it's like, throw it out the window.
They've been trying to get it done. They've had their
own issues on offense, and they brought a guy Humphreys
off of like the Street to play on the offensive line.
I mean, the Steelers try to do the same thing.

(15:21):
They got Mike Williams. You got what passed that goes
his way, and that comes back around again. I have
some notes here that comes back around to You've got
a bunch of things that we said so offensively, they
were offensive again. The Steelers went the whole year without
scoring a touchdown and their opening drive. That's horrendous. And

(15:41):
that's the only series they had in the first quarter
on offense.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
The bigger thing, Brian, is when you're talking about the
defense and only giving up one touchdown to the Bengals,
who've been just they've been stockpiling points the entire season. Right,
let me see how many games the Bengals have where
they've scored let me see, uh, get it the so
over thirty, we'll get the Here you go, how many

(16:10):
games over thirty points? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
seven games? And they have one rate on the money
with thirty. It's close, and it's close, and the Steelers
only hold the one touchdown. Of course, that was Corey
Trice being targeted three times in a row against Jamar Chase,
a guy who led the league and receiving in catches,

(16:33):
in yards and touchdowns, a triple Crown guy, and then
still t Higgins. Te Higgins still played like sixty percent
of the game. I had his official numbers here, sixty
eight percent. So he got dinged a little later, of course,
and so you're right in that, but man, you're talking
about wide receiver like it's not even wide receiver one

(16:55):
A and B. It's like wide receiver like star Stars
Star or whatever, and then wide receiver star like these
guys are the top top both wide receiver one time. Well,
we'll get into that, of course when we get hopefully
we won't be talking off season for a few more weeks. Here,
there is maybe some optimism. Trying to bring some optimism.

(17:17):
Mike PURSUITA and Charlie Batch had a lot of the
same thoughts on the post game. I was like, thank god,
it's a little more refreshing. I mean, rest in peace.
I love to Stan savergn but sometimes he could be
he could dwell a little bit on some of the
negative tones of the game. And pursuit I actually felt
that the Ravens is a favorable matchup because you know,
it's the devil you know versus the devil you don't.

(17:39):
It's gonna be brutal for either of these teams. They
don't want to see each other on either side. Right,
You come out of like these divisional games and then
you basically get to go into one in the playoffs,
and we know what it's like when you play after that.
At least for like the Steelers, and I mean the
Ravens are in that same boat too. They've been playing
a Saturday schedule, so this doesn't really screw them up
too much. Playing the Saturday night game eight o'clock Amazon Prime.

(18:00):
Everyone's gonna be bitching about that too. You're gonna have
to have Amazon Prime to watch it unless you're in
the local area.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
It's a big Greens map, right, everybody had it, but
only on Amazon Prime.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Ellie if you have Amazon So okay, So getting back
to all right, the defense right, holding them locking up
down for the most part, I mean, could it have
been a little bit cleaner. I mean, the Bengals had
the ball for thirty eight minutes, but that's because the
Steelers offense did not play complimentary enough at all at all. Well,

(18:32):
we will get to that, because of course the Steelers
punt and then touchdown thirteen play sixty three yards but
three plays minus six, three plays seven six for twenty
turnover on downs one the minus nine or whatever in
the end the half, and then you start at halftime,
you get you get the ball, you defer, and then

(18:52):
you punt twice on your two possessions in the third quarter,
three for two yards and five for fourteen. You're damn
lucky that the defense was for whatever the rotations, they
did some different things. You got be you know, still
I want to Still, we'll do defense. We'll do defense,
because your dude, Cam Hayward had one hell of a game,

(19:13):
if not his best game of the season.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Cam's a grown ass man.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
I mean, he continues to be the ageless wonder as
what does I don't remember which Patrick Queen or whoever
to hold us what he's like seventy he's older than me,
and you know, but I mean he had a fantastic game.
He's had a fantastic year. Yes, right, uh it was.
It was nice to see that. It's nice to see

(19:39):
Keanu Benton get in there and get a sack. You know,
at the same time, you have the flips of that, Right,
TJ finally makes a move.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Right, TJ's been invisible for three games. TJ finally makes
a move, gets in there, gets the sack, and bleep, bleep.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
You know, we get a holdly call, which was a
legitimate call. You know, we just there are times when
they just can't get out of their own way. They
could have even been better than they were, and they
were pretty good, but they just keep it, they keep
stepping on their own toes.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, that's something you can't have, is defeating yourself. That
penalty felt. It was hard to see whether or not
what happened. I remember I texted you that officiating crew.
I already was holding my breath with seeing John Hussey
was assigned, and it was everything I expected from that
because they just didn't have It was just sloppy. It's

(20:34):
just messy.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Even if first down no overturned, first down no overturned,
first down no overturned, How did you do it three
times in a row.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
I've never seen it. I've never seen anything like that,
Especially when we're talking, I'm watching other games. Oh, there
should have been a safety in the Lions Vikings game,
or it should have been a safety by virtue of
intentional grounding. I just watched it, so it's not just
a Steelers thing. I watched that very similarly. I saw
something else where they couldn't turn in the nose of
the ball or whatever, because I think the Lions were
wearing like their alternate jerseys with the black and then

(21:06):
the blue helmets or whatever, and I think it might
have been Gibbs or whoever. I had like a long
sleeve like black underneath, you know, and with the football
and then tucked in with the dark jersey, and you
just couldn't see, and it's just like, okay, well, the
call in the field was first down, and then I
don't know, like on one of them it was like boom,

(21:26):
instant judgment from down from the heavens whatever we got
from New York or wherever, just said not a first down.
Then the other one it was like, let's after a
media break. They take a media break, the TV time
out like a full two minutes, come back, and then
they're like, the previous play is now under review. And
I told you if they got right up to the
line where Russ snuck the one and you just ran
the next play, I don't know that replay even intervenes,

(21:48):
but it was almost like they had time to nippick it. Similarly,
the non snap judgment, Mike guy Sicki catches the ball
that very clearly was not a catch that hits the ground,
the Bengals come up right and run that play. I
don't know if that's like a coaching awareness thing. If
that's just like bad luck that you're in two different
kinds of situations where the Bengals are able to get

(22:09):
off a quick snap and then the Steelers aren't. Those
kind of things seem though they'll always be on the
scales of balance. The Steelers are always losing those kind
of battles, I feel like, you know, and he can't
challenge it, or they lose like the overturned overturn plays
or whatever else. But this offense, they finally score a touchdown,
they get Pat Friarmouth involved, and then they go three

(22:32):
and out. After this, the defense forces, you know, two
punts in the fourth quarter. They got the Bengals locked
down to a five play possession for eighteen yards, a
three play possession for minus four and of course they
got to get the kneel down on the turnover downs

(22:53):
in the end. But the Steelers have two opportunities at
the end of this game. And you had pretty much said,
I think Mike Tomlin decides to punt, and you're like, well,
that's game over. And my cousin's sitting there next to me.
Let me tell you, it was a cold game, and
people are gonna talk about the cold, but it was
freaking cold in Cincinnati too. It was like, maybe not
as cold because it was still daylight out there, but
the wind show and everything. It was a cold game.

(23:15):
That was a tough game too. When these teams put
up a lot of offense. This was more conducive to yeah,
this is a hard rock of a football, but you
get a muff punt or you get a guy that
touches the ball. Connor Hayward makes a hell of a play,
stays in bounds, recovers it, and this team they were
gifted some good field position throughout the game. They got
one after forty five yard line, three plays seven yards.

(23:38):
They can't get a yard sometimes and then they're running
the ball twelve times. They ran the ball on first
down in this game, they had to settle for a
field goal. Six plays, twelve yards. I know there's penalties involved,
just self defeating type stuff, but you also had everybody's
gonna remember George Pickens because he had a play that was,

(23:59):
you know, deep. He would have been in the red zone,
maybe even within the ten if I recall correctly, I
think that might have been third quarter. But I remember
Calvin Austin having one off his hands. I remember Van
Jefferson having a ball hit him square in the face mask.
I remember Pat Fryermuth. The one at the very end

(24:20):
was obviously pretty bad too, you know, but he had
one just a little earlier in the game, and he
was having yet another career game against the Bengals. Probably
goes over one hundred yards at the very end, hit
them right off the eighty eights. There was about twenty
seconds left in the game, and you think to yourself,
the Steelers, they probably have enough time if he doesn't

(24:41):
just break free entirely or a touchdown. I don't think
he does necessarily, but they have enough time to come
up clock it. Let Boswell kick Boswell. You know, he
ends the season with forty one field goals. He's shived
David Akers record of forty four in the season. Some
folks thought he might have been able to break it,
just didn't have the opportunities over the last few games.
But he nails a longer kick earlier on the series.

(25:05):
Before it, you thought this was going to be, you know,
the game winning field. George Pickens to me, just kind
of stopped at the top of his route. I don't
know if he realized the ball was coming his way,
lost it in lights, whatever be the case, then tried
to stretch out and make some matrix half ass catch that.
If he wouldn't have held up on running his route,
the pause, the hesitation, whatever it was. I know, some

(25:27):
people said, well, you know of us threw that inside. Well,
Russ very clearly was throwing it toward the boundary because
there wasn't time left in the game. Why would he
throw it necessarily on the inside. There either where the
ball landed, Yeah, was toy It looked like it was
the outside, but that could be a combination of George
breaking the route off earlier than anticipated. It absolutely did

(25:50):
not look like he even thought the ball was going
to come his direction, right. It just looked like he
was not even thinking he was going to be the
target of that play, and yet he was.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
So you know, let's just put it this way. It
was not fourteen's best game. And you know, people were
complaining about not getting him in early. They did get
him in early. They got him a touch almost right away.
Went for nothing.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, but you know, and the Bengals are going to
do what they could do.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
They changed their defensive scheme up they tried to do
some different things, and it clearly had an impact on
what they were doing, but they still they simply didn't
attack the same way they attacked during the first game.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
You know, they took a lot of.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Checkdowns until they took those checkdowns away, and for whatever reason,
they just assumed those checkdowns were going to be there
again and they weren't. They took them away at the
end of the last game. They took them away from
the get go in this game, which meant they needed
to hit those crossers, they needed to hit those seam routes,
They needed to take advantage of the middle of the field,
which was going to be a weakness, and they just
didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
You know.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
I questioned the game planning a lot for that game.
I questioned the offensive play calls for that game a
lot of it. I they just really didn't feel like
there was any adjustment. And I read an article in
The Athletic and I can't help but agree with it.
The Steelers need to figure out who they are, because
who they think they are is not who they are,

(27:18):
right they Yeah, I know, but they they need to
figure it out because they need to make that adjustment.
They think they're a ground and pound team, right, We're
gonna we're gonna run the ball.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
The problem is, you're not good at running the ball. No.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Seventh, you're seventh worst in the league. You're not good
at running the ball.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
You got running backs, but the offensive line and compounded
here by brooken hand now left hand for Mason McCormick,
who is gonna be fitting and fitted with a cast
in hiss to be determined. But he's a rookie player,
and we're talking we're talking about rookie Walls. You gotta
him next to Zach Fraser, also rookie. These guys have
not had any right store a break or anything, and

(28:01):
they're playing now, heading into their eighteenth game. But he's
played in place with James Daniels. I'm like, I would
keep wondering, like, what the what ifs if James Daniels
doesn't get hurt, If Troy Fotanu, the first round pick,
doesn't get hurt, if things are any different with the
way that they pass or run block. You know, it's
hard to say, but you tend to forget this wasn't

(28:23):
the way that he originally had it drawn up, where
you're like, well, this line completely stinks, and that that
goes over to by the way Pikett's plays fifty six
to sixty one snaps, He's on the field, damn near
the entire game in Friarmuth is right behind him at
forty nine outside of offensive lineman and of course Russell Wilson.
But you've got people blaming Russell Wilson on so much.

(28:43):
It's like friar Muth, he had more than one that
was ray Adam that ends up getting dropped. He did
rumble for the touchdown. They started using him on these
out routes later in the game that they just kind
of started breaking down the Bengals defense and it looked
like that they were gonna make this, you know, kind
of miracle comeback. There was enough time left on the clock.

(29:04):
The defense did their job. But Brian, it's like I
see people, yes, play calling Arthur Smith's playbook. I don't
necessarily have as big of a problem with. I mean,
it's not like these Matt Canada plays where things aren't
getting drawn up, they're not taking shots or anything like that.
The bigger problem is, I know we saw eighty four
on the field Cordero Patterson, but you saw Jalen Warren
lip off after a kick return. Maybe that wasn't visible

(29:25):
on TV. I don't know saw it from the stands.
Najie Harris goes into the tent. These guys slam their
head on the cold, hard ground or whatever. Unfortunately, Naj's
starting to get moving and then boom, he's pulled off
the field. But I don't want to see a pitch
out to Cordero. Patterson looks like he's running in quicksand
and at this time. There's certain points in this game
where you look in a third and fourth quarter, I

(29:47):
understand a lot of what you do is determined on
trying to fool the defense into whether you're running the
football or not. But when you constantly do it on
first down, you're not fooling anybody. The whole beauty of
being and the offense is you know what's coming. The
defense does it. But it's almost like the defense is
like how many I wonder how many plays they ran

(30:08):
that was on first down. If it's twelve runs on
first down, you have to think there's maybe eight or
fewer passes. It's over half half the time. You can
flip the coin and just be like, well, we're just
gonna be in run defense.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
I would be interested, and I'm not not. I'm not
gonna be, let me put it this way, not interested
enough to actually do the work to find out. But
I am interested if somebody else would like to do
the statistics to find out how many times they've actually
thrown on first down over the season, because I bet
you it's damn few.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Well, the total amount of first downs the Steelers secured
was sixteen. Uh so you're gonna get a few just
by virtue of you know, change of possession and stuff
like that too. So when you're talking about twelve out
of like you know, a range of probably how many
possessions are there in this game for the Steelers, about
a dozen or so. So yeah, it's it's half or

(30:58):
more in that in that category of just running the football, right,
So just that thirty eight minutes to twenty two minutes
right on the dot too, no change.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
That tells you a lot.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
It tells you. It tells you way too much. The
Steelers four twelve on third downs. Like I said, it
wasn't just pickings dropping the ball. But yet you've got people,
You've got people after Tom and you've got people after
Arthur Smith. I mean, it's all fair, but it still
felt like the coaching and everything was it is good
to be enough to get the job done Tom and
put it in a position where the defense they were

(31:30):
getting their job. They were doing the job to get
the ball back to the offense and the offense just
doesn't do anything. But at the same time, it's like
Smith calls up, they call out Pickens' number, and they
call on friar Mut's number there and these guys don't
come down with the football. Van Jefferson on one, like
I said, it hits them in the face.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Mask.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Calvin Austen, you've seen him make these the routine plays routinely,
as they like to say, and nobody made any of
them routinely, and it just made it harder. So now
you've got all the nut jobs on, you know, social
media and whatnot. All the insurs are out here, pitchforks
and Torch was saying, put in just fields. There was
a justin fields freaking chance in the fourth quarter. It's like,
what do you think this guy's gonna do any differently

(32:06):
but taking run the ball when it breaks down out
of bounds. Okay, maybe he's Uh, it's not like you know,
Ruscott sacked, that's gonna happen. He's gonna hold onto the ball.
He's trying to protect the football. They're trying not to
turn the ball over, which had been a problem in
the previous games. But they take four sacks as many
as Steelers guy on Joe Burrow, and you're calling for

(32:27):
Justin Fields and I'm like, Justin Fields is probably not
gonna make these same reads or passes. It's gonna just
get dropped. Like Pickens had a rate and a bread
basket on the one rire me with right off the numbers.
Like I said, Jefferson off the face mask. I don't
know that he gives you a better opportunity to win.
But yet people are in the press conference earlier asking
by Tomlin do you have packages for him? Do you
have this or that? What do you think in opposing

(32:49):
defense like the Baltimore Ravens thinks when they see Justin
Fields in yeah, and when everybody does it, and when
he does it, you get the result of the Cleveland
Rounds game where he throws the ball. You don't get
a flag with George Pickens and it's game over. Cannot folks,
you can't win. Hindsight's always twenty twenty. It's you got

(33:10):
to suck it up and just accept this as the loss.
And what your hope is going forward is you saw
a defense that maybe woke up. We got some individual
names I would like to throw out too as part
of this as we get over to the defensive side
of the ball once again. But hopefully they can limit
the Baltimore Ravens, who I must remind everybody, but Baltimore

(33:31):
Ravens lost the same teams. Now I think they did
sweep the Bengals. Yeah, the Bengals have been a problem
the skin by the skin of their teeth exactly. Those
were close games. So but during the.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
THI once, last second, once in overtime, I think.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, the three game in eleven days span, you have
the Steelers in Ravens trading, and then you have the
Ravens lost to the Chiefs and they also lost to
the Eagles. So they've lost the teams and they also
lost to the Cleveland Browns at point during the season.
Like everybody just saying this, it's like it's more condensed.
But guess what the guess what the Ravens got. They

(34:09):
got the gift of a bye week before they had
to do the eleven day span and then they got
to go play the New York Giants. They go into
New York. Yeah, okay, they take care of business, and
then they go and they sit players before they play
the Pittsburgh Steelers, and so they get some extra rest
there in both cases, and they're fresh and ready to
go and to host the Steelers at home, and then

(34:31):
after that, you know whatever. So I know that they
got their victories and everything, but man, what a gift
that they got with all this, and they got the
rest guys again against Cleveland this past week as they
just put up some points early on because the Browns,
what were they gonna do with Bailey ZAPPI have anybody
on the field. It was almost like they were just
ready to take.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Well, they clearly were not trying to win that game.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
Everybody was reserve Bailey Zappy out there, and you're not
trying to win a game. I get you're trying to
see what you got, but that you know you're not
gonna win.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, I think they.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
Here's the thing, and everybody knows it. They know how
to play Lamar if they can, if they can be
at or close to full strength so that they can
actually execute that plan, unlike the last time where they
had injuries and they had people missing. You know, if
they can be at full strength or close to it,
they can keep it a competitive game and maybe pull

(35:33):
out the win. They can win in Baltimore. They've won
in Baltimore. Let's not forget that the last time when
they did lose, it was the first in game in
nine games they'd lost. And yeah, I know a lot
of the games in Baltimore were meaningless and they were
all backups. They still know how to beat Baltimore. They
know how to.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Play against them.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
And the best thing you can say about this Bengals
game is that they still had a chance to win,
even though the offense, by all rights, had no reason
to have a chance to win.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
No, you're you're absolutely right there. The offense just it
was bad and you were like, are they ever going
to get this together? And all of a sudden they
zoomed down the field and made it look easy. And
it's not like the Bengals just it's not like the
Bengals just like let.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Up or anything. Back a second, they got two pis
to help them make it look easy.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
On the on the very first strive. But man, some
of those Cam taylor Bridge like, come on, dude, like
he just handfuls of jerseys and arms and everything else.
By the way, you are correct. The overtime game was
forty one thirty eight where they beat the Bengals, and
then the other one was thirty five to thirty four
at their teeth, Yeah, where they won it at home.
So I know a lot's been said about we're gonna

(36:48):
say more about the Ravens and everything like that, but
versus playing the Texans, and that could have been favorable
for either team, They're like, hey, the other team sucks,
we could beat them. Texans got a little bit of
get right with the Titans. I mean, that wasn't very
hard to do, but they had to go play on
the road. But you play it familiar opponent for a
third time, it's gonna be tough for either one of
these teams. I could a vision just in the Ravens,

(37:12):
maybe without Z eight Flowers too, which is a huge component.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
To what they do. Really didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Oh yeah, save Flowers knee injury not looking good for Saturday,
perhaps beyond that, But for Saturday. So keep your eyes
on that, and you never want to see like players.
Hey I'm not surely cheering, Hey players injured this and that,
but when you're down a guy like last year, I
was looking at this from the same viewpoint of last year. Okay,

(37:37):
Steelers had a three game win streak. They needed to
win all three games and get some help with Mason
Rudolph as the quarterback to get to Buffalo, where you
have a game moved in a snowstorm and you're without TJ.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Watt.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
You're playing Michael Walker, you're playing Eric bro you're playing
Miles Jack. Marcus Golden is in place of TJ. Watt,
And what chance did you have against that? So everybody
talking about the one and done, I feel a lot
better knowing that some of the players, even if they
weren't a full one, fully charged battery for this game
against the Bengals, you had a lot of these guys

(38:08):
on the field. There's a lot of Let me give
a quick shout out special teams, real quick too, because
special teams. When you're playing against like John Harbaugh, you
know he's a special teams guy. You know his attention
to detail with all of that Danny Smith, the ability
of these guys to generate turnovers, to be aware, every
one of these players to be is stay in bounds,
Mark Robinson running with a full head of steam, waiting
to just nail someone and knock the ball out of

(38:30):
their hands. Uh, the only problem was Calvin Austin nearly
sunk it.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Let's just make sure give them because they played great
on special teams all season, so let's be fair. Yeah,
Calvin Austin, you know, he kind of he kind of
screwed up. But it is you know, you understand that,
as they said, it is my it feels weird because
as as trending up as they were earlier, they are

(38:56):
playing not their best football right now. So the u
is can you break that spell and start to once
again go back and trend towards playing your best football.
It's all about timing, right, And everybody says the same thing.
You want to enter this tournament playing playing your best ball.
They are not, but they do have an opportunity to

(39:18):
try and write that and maybe they can start to
play their best ball again.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
We'll have to see what happens.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, and I liked some of the things I saw
defensively you mentioned Keanu Benton earlier along with I don't
know if you noticed, but Prestott Smith was playing some
nice game and some defensive lives, playing with his hand
in the dirt along with Benton, and you know he
got the got in there for the one sack. Cam
Hayward was out of his mind. I liked that. And

(39:46):
then he also played on the outside too, standing up.
He got some time there too. But that's what you
got Nick Herbig for. I think Herbig actually drew one
of the false starts. By goodness seventy five is that
Orlando Brown left tackle? Yeah, or jumping every They got
him once or twice for it, but man, he was constant, constant,
and like we've been saying this for the last couple
of seasons now, it doesn't appear that they're ever gonna

(40:08):
call it. Let's call out Beanie Bishop, who just happens
to have a knack of finding the football man, just
some kind of awareness, whatever Beanie magic is there. He
comes up with the ball yet again off a tip pass.
Patrick Queen almost came down with one. But you've got
you had some things that they were trying to do
a little bit differently, even if they were just rushing
for and he still had Beanie got out there. Some

(40:32):
excuse me, they're changing up with Cam Sutton. Yeah, Corey
Trace in there the whole time for Dante Jackson. Yeah,
he did get a little burned earlier, but they put
him maybe because Joey wasn't one hundred percent. But they
did this in the last game where Joey was covering
t Higgins before for whatever reason, he felt like, we're
not gonna let t Higgins beat us and see what
we could do with Chase as kind of.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Tried to play scheme.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
Yeah, that's what they We're gonna We're gonna put Joey
on Tea and we're gonna pry and scheme Chase and
see if we can win. Notice that, when you know,
when Tea went out, Joey went to Chase and that's
the way that they went with that.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
But the defense, the defense had had.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Their moments, you know, they they kept they get they're
the only reason that they were in the game, right,
you know, if the defense has a game like they
did in Cincinnati, this was a huge blowout, Oh yeah, awful.
So the fact that they were able to come up
with ways and they you know, they, as you said,
they did different things. They sent pressure way more than

(41:31):
they have all year against Joe Burrow. They were sending
multiple guys at multiple times, and and some doing a
little thick lebow like where's it coming from right, and
and sending pressure and pulling other guys back. So you
still only maybe had four guys, but they weren't the
four guys you thought you were going to get.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
And you had Elliott playing quite a bit, uh mostly
man coverage over Gaisiki at times over maybe Josevage. He
was on wide receivers, he was on Jamar Chase sometimes
when they threw it in the slot and just had
make a kind of freelancing at the top. They brought
Kyzy in Casey had I think he had some decent

(42:12):
snap counts in this game too. Let me see where
he was kind of interested.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Actually.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Okay, so nine out of the seventy four defensive plays
twelve percent. That's probably a small uptick from him Preston
Smith at twenty six. So you had you had contributions
coming from all over, and they're gonna they're probably they're
gonna do this a little bit differently. Of course against
the Ravens because you got to stop Derrick Henry. You've
got a slew of inside linebackers that can help do that.

(42:37):
I mean, Roberts got he played about thirty eight percent
of the game. Queen doesn't ever come off the field.
He played the full time. Elliott did just a little bit.
He came out for about five plays. Corey Trice did
to Cam Sutton, J Watt eighty percent of the game.
I know they're trying to preserve him a little bit
as they could. Oh the one false start was Jeremiah
Moon and I believe it was the right tackle on

(43:00):
out when I was like, you're scared of forty nine?
Like you just saw the nine on his jersey and
immediately no wrong guy, Like I was kind of I
was cracking up about that one. But I know Beanie
didn't play a whole lot. But I think these are
some of the things we saw, some of the corners
and safeties making some plays against the run. You're not
gonna have to You gotta stop Derrick Henry. We know

(43:22):
that they're capable of doing this. We've seen the Steelers
do it in the past. We saw him do it
this year against the Ravens. Now it's time. They're gonna
have a healthy team. They're gonna have all of the
guys that they didn't have when they played in Baltimore.
And he just got to wonder what that what that
mentality is gonna be like, because in the Steelers' locker room,
they're pissed off. They've lost four straight games. This is
not who we are. We need to correct this. What

(43:45):
did we do and when did we do well?

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Well?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
They don't have to sit in all of these long
study film sessions and be like what do the Ravens
do and everything? What they just need to do is
to tweak. I think, for just paraphrasing what Tomlin said,
you know, the familiarity is now about strategy because if
you go do the same things, there's a familiarity where
the other teams like, ah, I've seen this before. And
for guys that have been there for multiple years in

(44:09):
this rivalry TJ. Watt and Cam Hayward and make it,
they're gonna see that on the Ravens side and say, oh, well,
I've seen something like this before. On the flip side,
you've got like the Marlin Humphreys and you know Rokwan
has been there for a couple of years down and
they're gonna say, hey, I've seen this look before. How
do you disguise that? How do you change it up?
How do you make this different? If what happens, if

(44:30):
you do get into a shootout with this team, I
think it really does lean defensively. It could lean towards
the two kickers, even with Tucker being down and out.
He's rebounded a little bit even since that game, but
he missed two against the Steelers, so at home and
you know, having to healthy Joey Porter, having Jackson back

(44:50):
hopefully but even trace, it gives you some optimism. Especially
against the receivers that they have. They just have to
be able to I don't want to get too much
into the pregame, but we I know what needs to
be done, and it just seems like if they were
able to do this defensively against the Bengals, if they
could clean up just a little bit of this offensively.
You go back to the game that they had in Baltimore.
You had to pick six. That was unfortunate after you

(45:14):
just got that one turnover, but you had Russ not
slide take a nasty hit bubble. They were in that game,
and I think those things just kind of sit there
a little differently than if you had to play the
Houston Texans. Go to Houston, for example, you know you're
going into a hostile environment, but I think that familiarity
and the even if it's could have, would have should have.

(45:34):
You're like, well, you know what I think we did.
We had a chance to sweep this team. I think
so you kind of throw the rest of it out
the window and you're thinking to yourself, Okay, how do
we advance to the next round. You do it over
a divisional opponent, You do it against the team that
you feel that you could beat. And I think that
they have that in the locker room. It's not like
they're going to Buffalo missing a bunch of players and
just like, well, yeah, you go down immediately in that game,

(45:58):
and you know it's all out the window.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
It's gonna be interesting. I mean, if they could put
I'm just gonna speculate. I'm gonna put my Karnak the
Magnificent hat on for a second and and say, you know,
if Denver, so Denver has to go to Houston now
because Denver is the bottom seat, So Denver has there's
a perfectly legitimate thing that Denver, Denver goes to Buffalo,

(46:24):
Chargers go to Houston, then right, Chargers go to Houston.
Chargers probably can beat Houston Denver. Denver could surprise Buffalo, right,
I mean, they have a solid defense, and you never know.
So let's say all those things come to come into fruition.
You know, then we we have to play the Chargers

(46:45):
in San Diego, I guess.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Then.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
But if nobody's gonna play anybody in San Diego, but
or where Los Angeles, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Whatever. Anyway, my point is all the road teams could
win there. There's legitimate threats that all the road teams
could win this upcoming weekend in in the AFC, all.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
The way across the board.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
You got the Packers at the Eagles, You've got that's
the least like I don't think.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
I don't think that one happens.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
The command the Commanders at the Buccaneers, that's very possible.
And the Vikings at the Rams, Oh that that almost
could be a definite. Yeah, I mean it is probably
on the AFC side. The least likely I think to
flip the switch here would be the Broncos against the Bills,
but it is hey, you know, you never know Bills.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Yeah, and they're a very very very good team. But
I mean they they have they've looked pedestrian at times
during the season two.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
That's a good point too, because the justin fields, folks,
I just look at I look at the games like
the Colts game, I look at the Cowboys game, the
ones you wish you could have back, that you could
take back, and what if Russell Wilson played in the
home Man And I understand, I mean, I know Russ
isn't like the Russ of ten years ago. And he's
got some mobility, but he doesn't have all the mobility
in the world. He's a smaller guy than Roethlisberg. You

(48:09):
got to remember that he's got to look over these
hulking offensive a defensive linemen in his face to be
able to deliver this ball at times, and he still does.
But his decisions on what he does pre oh snap,
in many cases, I'm going to take over just the
field's decisions. I just you know, fields, just we saw
like all the upticks and offense that just it couldn't
get it done, even against teams like the Colts, the Cowboys,

(48:32):
or the Raiders. The losses on the schedule. They lost
four games, of course, one to the Ravens thirty five
to ten, schlacking twenty three to twenty all on the road,
by the way, the Buffalo Bills, so they lost to
the Texas, They lost to the Rams on the road
in that shootout, and then they just lost to the Patriots. Anyways,

(48:53):
before I forget, I was talking special teams. What about
Corless weightman and the ball that hits the dirt and
he somehow left footed got off like that one of
the century.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
I mean, you love this guy that you go out
and pay for. Yeah, you had done a great job
and and weight comes in and does a great job.
I mean, he will be employed next year somewhere. It
may or may not be here because we still have,
you know, this free agent that we paid who had
been doing great.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
But he's good. He's earned himself a job somewhere.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, Cameron Johnston, and you go to another yet another
guy that you lost and could have would have should have.
You still didn't know.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
I know.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Somebody made a very void point about the Steelers and
their offense. It was a caller, and I agreed with
them on this one, and it was just they don't
have the personnel, They don't have the talent. Why do
you think they kept looking for another wide receiver. They
just don't have the guys. In some cases, that's a
that's the truth. On the offensive line, that's the truth.
With the receiving options, you got to go with who
you go with, and when you go to your playmakers

(49:51):
like George Pickens and went Pat Fryermuth, you went to
the guys that should be your stars, and those stars
don't make the big plays, and that's how you end up,
you know, narrowly losing a game like that. We're gonna
talk a little bit more. We're gonna preview the Ravens
later this week, so check back with us, folks. But
I think that closes a lot of what I wanted
to get off my chest. It's just it's that time

(50:12):
of the year now where half of the league they'd
probably be envious to be where you're at in the playoffs.
We would like to see Mike Tomlin, you know, get
this chip off his shoulders, Steelers get it off their
shoulder and get their first playoff victory since twenty sixteen.
They were hoping for a home playoff game didn't happen
in so many other years. You've just seen, you know,
the twenty twenty implosion where you lose Devin Bush, they

(50:34):
lose Bud Dupree, you lose TJ Watt before the Bills
playoff game last year. You go back to twenty seventeen,
since that last time they won, and go back out
there thirteen to three without Ryan Shazier and host the
Jaguars in a shootout. You're just tired of missing key
components to this team, and it seems like they have
the key components to make a run. Just don't get

(50:56):
caught up in all the you know, Doug Peterson gets
fired and this guy gets and they're dragging every name
out from underneath the rock. Rex Ryan all of a
sudden is gonna interview for a Jets job.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
And I saw the blurb that teams will be contacting
the Steelers to trade for Mike Tomlin.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
Oh already being pulled out.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Yeah, that's already there, And it's like, come on, man,
nobody's trading for Mike Tomlin. There's parts of me that
wants some fresh ideas. I think, like, if you had
to ask me, Honestly, I don't have a problem with
Mike Tomlin being around extending them everything else. I think
he gets it. I think people say, well, certain things
are antiquated, and it's like, no, I believe that you

(51:34):
get Without Mike Tomlin, you end up being the Tennessee
Titans because Mike Vrabel held a lot of that together.
And these are the guys that get more out of less.
One of the callers that said he gets less less
out of less too, or less out of the more,
and that's what they were talking about, was like, you're
relying on like Calvin Austin and then done doesn't end
up maybe turning out in some games yes, and some

(51:56):
games no. So that's also true. But I think it's
unfair to lay this at is feet when he doesn't
have the full compliment of guys. You go back to
twenty sixteen, and it's still been the same knock. They
end up in the AFC title game because they finally
have l'vy on Bell. They didn't have Bell through the
playoffs the whole time. You go all the way back
to the Ravens of twenty fourteen for that one home game,
it's time for a little bit of payback from the Steelers.
There's nobody left I think sans Cam Hayward and Mike Tomlin.

(52:19):
From that, maybe like Danny Smith and maybe another assistant
or something, but pretty much a fresh slate. But Tom
will bring up the history lessons he noticed is like
a heated rivalry and this will be the first one
of these playoff games. Now that's actually in Baltimore, and
they get Lamar in Baltimore. But imagine the feather in
your cap when you have the guy for the first
time anyone's done this in the NFL. It's thrown for

(52:42):
over forty touchdown passes and fewer than five interceptions on
the season. Yeah, he's been doing He's doing a heck
of a job there. That offense has been, you know,
just humming as of late. But this is Steelers defense.
You throw this all out the window. It's playoff football.
It's gonna be the rivalry. It's gonna be both of

(53:03):
these teams just fighting and duking it out in the trenches,
just hoping, you know, that the Steelers could get the
better end of that. Try to give some people some
more optimism when we come back around to this later
in the week. Brian, thanks for joining me once again,
my friend.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Happy to be here. I wish it was a nicer reason.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah, And you think about it though, if the Steelers
did win this game and fire me with let's say
he catches the ball or pickings and they run up
and they clock it and oswell, HiT's like a fifty
Let's just say it's a fifty yarder. I'm just throwing
numbers out the window here and he nails it, and
you're like, are you feeling that great about the win too?
You're kind of in the same area that you're in.

(53:41):
At least there was some of you.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Do you remember there was a game last year that
after the game we won the game and we both
were like, I don't even I'm not even happy we
won this game. There's nothing like I don't I can't
come away from this win feeling good about this win.
I don't know how we won. We didn't deserve to win. Yeah,
you look, the way played. The wind simply takes the
point where you get to Monday and Tuesday and you're like,

(54:06):
well we won. Now without it, you're just like, yeah,
we stuck. Yeah, you've had a few of those.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
I'd say a few of those last season. Maybe because
I'm trying to think which one of those.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
I don't remember this because I've banked them all out
of my head.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
For some reason. I'm thinking it was like Cincinnati, or
it was before that. You know, they went on the
skid where Kenny Pickett got hurt and then Mitch Trubisky
came in stunk it up and he got to play
like yesterday too, and you're just like, oh, just there's
some interesting It's kind of funny to see some of
the guys that got thrown around because you had Levis
and Rudolph rotating in a game yesterday. You had Mitch

(54:48):
Trubisky playing in a game yesterday because Alan got his
start and then immediately jogged to the sideline so you
could keep his streak intact. You had Joshua Dobbs playing
for the forty nine, or it was just everything was
all over the place. It was kind of comical in
some ways just to kind of see the players that

(55:10):
are still kind of floating out there, still playing. At
least it's not like you still don't see him like
Brian Hoyer get out there, but yeah, Jimmy Garoppolo with
the Rams for example, and.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
That was that was weird.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
It was and it was a ten win team with
the Seahawks, but by virtue of two fourteen win teams
the NFC, they were already forced out of the playoff windows.
So imagine that if the Steelers went ten and seven
and didn't make it the Bengals. This is why some
of these games earlier really count nine and eight. And
it's like, hey, they started winning some games. They went
on like a four or five game win streak, but yeah,

(55:41):
should have maybe won some of the games earlier in
the season. It was good that they got their stuff together,
but it's too little, too late. And I was just
looking for, like some Trubisky stats always fifteen to twenty
one for one hundred and one yards and a touchdown
one hundred and one yards.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
I don't need to wallow in his misery.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Yeah, And then and then Pikett didn't even end up playing.
They played Tanner McKee over with the Eagles, who with
their backups still beat the Giants twenty to thirteen. So
there's plenty of bad situations around the National Football League
that I would rather I would rather not be in.
I mean, you close the book this is where I'm
gonna end this show at you close the book on

(56:22):
this season. If you get a playoff win here, at
least the one win, I think you're feeling pretty good overall.
And I think if you could beat the Ravens, then
you're thinking you could beat anybody. And that's just the
little momentum started that you need. You had the Steelers
do this before as like, you know, like a succeed.
You saw the New York Giants do it before with
you know, just the outed teams that the talented team

(56:44):
that they had, you know, Michael Strahan. It's tough for
me to say Eli Manning talented, but he's got rings right,
and they were able to do what they did. So,
but you look at some of the situations around the league,
like the New York Jets, the New England Patriots, even
the Browns for that matter. You look at Jacksonville, you
look at Tennessee, Indianapolis at eight and nine, and you
really don't know if you've even got you talked about

(57:06):
quarterback two. I'm good, but riding with Russ would have
been interesting to see Russ for a full year. Yeah,
that's good. There's gonna be some there's gonna be some
money things too. I think everybody just assumes the Steelers
will go out and sign a wide receiver too or whatever.
I think they're gonna have to lean on the draft
to fill spots, do I particularly depending on what happens

(57:27):
in the backfield with Najie Harris and Jalen Warren. I mean,
na she's been nothing but dependable, and people say, well
he plods Brown. Well, he's gotten four straight one thousand
yard seasons. He's the first guy to do that since
Chris Johnson.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
But Siman made a good point about that with eighteen
games or seventeen games. Now we have to rethink what
a thousand yard season.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yes, he's on what should it be? Twelve hundred and
you know of SAQ one and going after Dickerson's record,
I get all.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Still he still did it.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
He still did it.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
And I don't know what Naji got.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
I like Naji right, but you know he's not gonna
get premium dollar here and Norton, Do I think he
necessarily deserves premium dollar?

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Is he? Is he a top ten back in the league.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
He's not top five, So I don't you know, he's
not gonna get that kind of cash. Maybe he gets
overpaid in free agency, because everybody gets overpaid in free agency,
So it's not gonna surprise me. If they dip it
running back in the draft. I agree with you. I
think they have to dip it wide receiver in the draft.
And then it's going to really be what's Russ going

(58:34):
to play for? If it's forty million a year, I'm
not sure I'm paying it.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
He might get.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Somewhere in there.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
I already talked about the shenanigans with the Watson contract
that the Browns are trying to do. But let's see
h Nause unrestricted schedule being not unrestricted free agent A
little soon to talk about this, but him and Warren
Warren being the restricted free agent. But you know, with
both of those guys in the backfield donage, he still
gets it done. He gets a done in neck Canada
offenses with some we offensive lines, It'll breaks a lot

(59:02):
of tackles, They'll put s dudes on their ass, you know,
and I'll take that over like I like what the
Steelers have here. If you remember at the beginning, no
matter how this ends up finishing after Saturday, there wasn't
anybody that had this team even making the playoffs, let
alone winning ten games. Everybody looked at us cross eyed,
like we were freaking crazy biased hosts, and we're sitting

(59:24):
here telling you once again it's possible that they could
beat the Ravens. You know they are on this they're
on a bad streak here. But all it takes is,
you know, Ravens played pretty miss for the most part,
mistake free football, and they go to start making some mistakes.
They end up down two scores at home to the Steelers, like,
let's say, a ten point game. I'm sure they think

(59:44):
they could come back with with that offense, but there's
gonna be some doubt that's gonna sit in their mind.
There's gonna be this is not the team I think
that they wanted to face. We'll talk more about that
as we as we continue forward, So hopefully we'll re
uture comments. Folks, don't forget to like comments, subscribe, leave
a rating and review wherever you might be watching or

(01:00:05):
listening from and until next time. We'll be previewing the
Baltimore Ravens later this week. If you happen to be
anywhere where the snow Apocalypse is going on right now.
Please be safe out there. My name's Joe Kuzma. My
buddy over here one mister Brian E.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Roach.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
As we always close out the show, we encourage everyone
out there to be safe, be good, and we'll catch
you later.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
We would like it 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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Fourth-straight loss sends the Steelers spiraling into the playoffs

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