How wide is the gap between the Steelers and this year's Super Bowl teams?

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 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. Without trying
to do any outtakes, that introduced my good colleague Apala one,
mister Brian e.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Roach.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Brian, if they only knew some of the things that
we said behind the scenes, How you doing, my friend?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm not commenting because I'll start laughing again. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, I imagine you watched some of the Super Bowl. I
know you're not the biggest fell big fan of the
what'd you think? I mean, like, were you surprised the
Eagles like just handed it to the Chiefs? Because I,
quite frankly, I wasn't. I actually didn't think they would
maybe do it as easily as they did, I guess,
but I was expecting a little bit more resistance maybe.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
So everybody has asked me. If people ask me all week, oh,
who's gonna win? Do you think who's gonna win? And
I'm like, here's what should happen I'm like, the Eagles
have a better team, pure and simple. They have a
more dominant defensive line, they have a more dominant offensive line.
It shouldn't really be that close of a game. But
the difference is that somehow the Chiefs have drunk the

(01:26):
magic potion all year long, winning games they have no
right to win, finding ways to be in games they
have no right to be in. So I don't know.
I think the Eagles will win. So when you say
was I surprised, I guess I was only surprised that
the magic had worn off and finally reality came crashing

(01:50):
down upon the Chief's head.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know what, man, this is like.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
We've got some other topics to cover here, but that's
the crux of what we're talking about today, primarily is
the gap between the Steelers and the Super Bowl teams.
But before we get there, and especially with the way
that the Chiefs played, we'll come back to it. Some announcements,
somehouse keeping. Steelers have a new defensive back secondary coach,
Gerald Alexander, formerly of the Raiders, apparently an up and

(02:18):
coming young mind. Congratulations to him. It's about all I've
got to say about that one. For now. Steelers going
to kirk Park out in Ireland officially announced. What was
that Friday, Dublin. You were just there on a vacation. Man,
looks like a beautiful place.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Scotland.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh you're in Scotland, that's right, I'm sorry, you know.
And then there's that whole thing about well Great Britain,
and then this part's the United Kingdom, and then there's
like different Ireland's there's Northern Ireland, there's Ireland. There's like
a whole ven diagram or something.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
That I was in Ireland sixteen years ago.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Oh okay, plan on going. If I can get my
hands on tickets, I'm going back.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, I see that the seating capacities like sixty nine
thousand in there for football, absolutely nice. But the Steelers
with their ties, we don't have the date yet, we
don't have the opponent yet. We have an idea of
opponents because they got to it's gonna be a home game,
so there's a We already know who the home opponents

(03:14):
are based on the scheduling the way it works every year,
we just don't know the when. We know the where,
we just don't know the who. So there's always you know,
the teams within the division, the Ravens, Browns, and Bengals,
and then they're gonna be facing teams from the AFC
South and NFC West and AFC West. So anyways, just

(03:37):
it's the two divisions that they face. So they're gonna
have the Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins,
Minnesota Vikings, and Seattle Seahawks. And I strongly surmise the rumors.
Right now, the betting favorites I think are the green
Bay Packers because of the way that fan base travels,
but I wouldn't necessarily rule out maybe the Seahawks or
the Vikings just because it's an NFC opponent. They might

(03:59):
do a non conference It's kind of thing with that
home game playing it overseas and not have like a
divisional game, you know, where everybody has to travel over
the pond, and these games, like, you know, they mean
a lot more, and that would kind of negate the
home field advantage for the Steelers, even if Ireland is
their you know, marketing territory that that they were rewarded

(04:19):
last year by the NFL. So we shall see, we
shall see, my friend.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
But this is what I want to have happen if
I go. The only thing that matters to me is
that they play Renegade in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, that'll be fun. Moving on from that, we had
another big thing that dropped last week. You and I
were texting about it. Never saw someone that was so
vehemently the adamant about their position that Russell Wilson is
not wanted back. So Jake Glazer drops the shoe first
right from Fox Sports, and he says, you know, the

(04:53):
Steelers aren't gonna bring Russell Wilson back or whatever. But
then Jay was kind of mum on both quarterbacks, to
be fair. But Djian Kovasovich from dk Pittsburgh Sports the
founder there, and he has an exclusive Russ isn't wanted back.
Here's the reasons why I'm not at liberty to engage.
But he said, and not saying every syllable, it won't

(05:13):
be here, no chance, none, is what he says about
Russ Wilson. Then he comes back like a day later
and he goes one thing about reporting business I found
to be true my whole career break one story and
another soon breaks. So in another exclusive, he goes how
much the Steelers like Justin Fields and he starts to
go through these things about oh, making his reads, they

(05:36):
thought he was through the roof, dropping back, the accuracy
of his passes, whether caught or not, the accuracy of
his passes. I'm like, wait a minute, if their accurate passes,
should they not be caught? And it just seems like
all of this then you have Tom Pilisaro, who's higher
up the pecking order. Now, sometimes I don't give credence
to the NFL quote insiders, right, they're.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Covering the whole league.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
They kind of sometimes they just get be it and pieces.
They're not as plugged in as somebody like DK, right,
but man, DK has had an axe to grind with
Russell Wilson going back to training camp. He's much of
the source for the quarterback controversy quarterback competition that wasn't
in constantly kind of dumping some fuel on the fire

(06:19):
as to whether or not Justin Fields could have been
a starter last year coming out of camp and stuff
like that. So Mark Cabally probably says it best. Formerly
of the athletic kind of he's on his own, kind
of independent right now. You see him on Pack McAfee's show.
But Cabally said you know, like, you know, consider everything
you listen to, but believe nothing or something along those lines.
That's where I'm at right now. Because pil Sero then

(06:41):
says Steelers are undecided on both quarterbacks. It's just like,
my goodness, folks, this is the Friday news dump before
the Super Bowl. I need attention, I need focus, I
need clicks. It's like, man, we ain't gonna know anything
for probably several more weeks free agency starting about a
month from now. We're about thirty or so out if
I check the calendar.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
So buddy of mine texted me when when that hit,
and he's like, oh, I hear rustles out.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Is this true?

Speaker 4 (07:09):
What's And I said, you know, this is the season
of lies, It's the season of misinformation. It's the season
where you shouldn't believe anything, you know. I am clearly
not going to say Dijon called his sources whatever whoever
they are, and that they lied to him. I'm not

(07:31):
saying that. I'm not saying he's making it up, right.
What I am saying is everybody has an agenda, and
you should take the position that you will know who
the quarterback is for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
When somebody signs a contract.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, and speaking, you know, I've been I've been hard
on fields, but I also want to be fair. But
just some of the things that Djan saying here are
really just opinion. Sometimes I try and root it some
of the facts when you're talking about somebody being gun shy,
or you're talking about his reads and making the right reads,

(08:07):
and you know, Okay, his ability is his mobility, his
behavior and the way he handled everything. Yeah, all that great,
you know, great teammate, right, But he took sixteen sacks
and he had a four and two record, and there
were only two of those teams were playoff teams, one
of them with the rookie quarterback Bo Nicks in his

(08:27):
second ever start, right the other one hold on the
other one the Chargers justin Herbert didn't even play a
full game. And you go back to Kenny Pickett twenty
twenty three, same record, four and two, took the same
amount of sacks, threw the same amount of touchdown passes,
but played five playoff teams out of the six. So ooh,

(08:48):
that's so tough for me. And when you've got a
guy that takes this many sacks, you look at both
of those quarterbacks, and it's just like, yeah, I'm not
seeing much of a difference. I mean, when you're talking
about like a guy throwing some around twenty six twenty
seven passes to thirty five passes per game, and you
have a game where you're only throwing one hundred and
thirty one yards completing fifty five percent of your passes completing.

(09:11):
This is the reason why we weren't so like over
the Moon with that Vegas Raiders win. Right, he was
fourteen to twenty four, fifty eight point three percent for
one hundred and forty five yards, no touchdowns, no picks.
It was great that he limited his mistakes, and it
was great that the defense was opportunistic, But if you're
looking at it from any more of a game manager standpoint, Okay, now,

(09:31):
the Russell Wilson fire, I have no idea. There's people
that are asking him. There's Pete Carroll going to the Raiders.
You know the Raiders need a quarterback. We know Russell's
gonna They all need contracts. All these guys are looking
for opportunities to play, and all of a sudden, everybody's like, well,
the Giants needed a quarterback, and you know, they looked
into him last year in the same staff's there, and
it's like, well, yeah, but he chose not to go there.

(09:53):
He didn't have a whole big market. Neither did justin Fields. Like,
both of these guys are in play, and I'll and
I've been honest with this, Brian, It's like, Okay, if
Field is gonna be a game manager type or all
you get is the Russell Wilson from the five games
on in that losing streak, like and that's all the
better it's gonna be. It's it's not gonna be enough
either way that you look at it, but one of

(10:17):
these two guys at least coming back is better than
starting just from scratch. Because some of the other names
that are out there. I was asked if I was
going to talk about Aaron Rodgers, and there's like there's
these betting odds that are out there and everybody's talking
about you know, Okay, Russell Wilson. He's becoming a diva.
They're already trying to put out there that some of

(10:38):
the problems. The same thing with Denver. He's blaming the
coaching and he's doing this and it's like, like we
just said everything is hearsay, everything is rumored. We don't
know any of this stuff. He could be signed tomorrow,
and all of a sudden, some of the people that
are reporting this, they're gonna feel like blindsided because we
don't know how deep their sources are, how close they are,
or if the sources themselves just have their own opinions.

(10:59):
There at a table with ten other people and saying, hey,
you know what, I feel very strongly Russell Wilson shouldn't
come back, and one other guy at the table's like, hey,
you know what part of what you said I agree with,
And all of a sudden it's a consensus, and it's not.
It doesn't work that way. So but I can tell
you one thing, I don't think there's a love affair
or flirting with the idea of bringing Aaron Rodgers to town.

(11:20):
If we're talking about maybe not paying top dollar to
Russell Wilson or Russell Wilson isn't getting enough done. I mean,
quite clearly, the only thing I would say that Justin
Fields has in his favor. Don't forget Fields did not have.
They were trying to trade him. They knew they were
gonna take Katle Williams. They had the top pick. The
Chicago Bears did. They did not have the trade partners.

(11:43):
The Steelers kind of panicked after the Kenny Pickett situation,
just went to crap. I know you said, didn't panic,
but who else were they going to get at this point,
right as a backup quarterback in that position? They decided not,
we're not going to tolerate this with Pickett. Pickets decided
to be a cry baby. We're gonna trade him. And
now Fields is there, and they got Fields for what

(12:03):
like a conditional fifth or sixth round pick, just a
Day three.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
That's why I don't say it's a panic. They got him.
To me, not panic, but well they're the only team
he was gonna get probably gonna get released regardless, like
there wasn't any they weren't in.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
A bidding war for Justin Fields. That's probably a better way.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
That's why you get him for a fifth or six right,
a conditional pick. And it's that's the difference you make
that deal when it's like, well, I there's too many
other chances that we don't get him. We have enough
interest that we won him and we don't want to
risk him going on the market and not getting him right.

(12:43):
This way, we control the we control the the outcome.
So like, I don't have any problem with that, I don't.
I don't know that I consider a panic. I think
they might have been panicked if they couldn't get him.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, that's kind of it was such a rush to
add him when it wasn't a priority already otherwise. Right,
And I've seen comparisons made to the quarterback market entering
this year, the same thing as the don't wait around,
sit on your hands like Brandon Ayuk, assume that that's
going to happen and then it doesn't. But if you

(13:14):
think Aaron Rodgers or Kirk Cousins is going to be
any better of an answer at this position that I'm
bringing Wilson er Fields back for the familiarity of the
offense and to see if it could progress any further.
But my expectations really aren't much further than maybe to
get to the divisional round. But how big is that gap?

(13:35):
I don't know. But there's also people that are like, look,
can you Pickett won a Super Bowl title before this?
Brian's saying why, it depends on where it's at. Obviously
at the quarterback position. It's probably wide, right, but can
he Pickett? Come on, man, it was a participation trophy.
That just drives me wild.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (13:55):
My wife actually said to me, she goes, well, I
guess he made the right decision. I said, he didn't
make any decison at all. I'm like, he didn't get
to choose. That's where he went. That's just who got
the deal. Look, he lucked into being getting a ring.
He didn't contribute. He wasn't really you know, a huge
success there. You know, fine, I don't have I hold

(14:16):
no grudges against Kenny Pickett. Right, he's fine, do what
you're doing. It's all good to address the the title
of the show. And yes, you know there there's more.
There's more width in more areas. The gap is wide,
in my opinion, in more areas than it is close. Yeah, quarterback,

(14:37):
clearly right, they're not there's not even a I don't
think you can you know, there's a line in friends,
just like you know the line is a dot to you,
and that's what it is. It's like, the gap is
so wide I can't even see it. It's it's not
even a gap. It's just field there. It's just open.

(14:58):
That's how I that is. But there's a gap at
a defensive line, you know, there's a gap at offensive line,
there's a gap at wide receiver. There's a gap at
running back. You know, and we've talked about this. You know,
maybe maybe they're linebackers. Are you know, at least on
par I don't think the corners are. I don't think that.

(15:19):
The way they use their defensive backfield is that's pretty
you know, Okay, special teams there, Yeah, they're in special teams.
Chris Boswell is as good as anybody out there.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, with Jake Elliott crushing the ball and everything like that.
But so that's like the building blocks of what I
wanted to discuss here, because you've got a lot of
Number One, just to close the book on the fields thing,
Jalen Hurts. They could have had Jalen Hurts the Steelers.
The Steelers, so could thirty one other teams. I believe

(15:51):
everybody had a pick before it. Hurts was off the
board in the second round, and he wasn't drafted very high.
He was the fifty third overall pick. Keanu Benton went
higher than that. Jalen Rager on the same team was
the Eagles' first round pick, the twenty first pick overall,
what's he doing these days?

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (16:11):
So that was in twenty twenty, and I know the
Steelers didn't have a first round pick. So then the
criticism is as they took Chase Claypole, that is where
they needed to go. Nobody was complaining about this when
it actually happened. Claypole was on fire as a rookie.
You had I think we both owned his jerseys and
we were totally on board with them. So the hindsight's
always twenty twenty. But you also looked at like Jalen Hurts.

(16:34):
You looked at his statistics. He was ready to be
run out of town. He had like sixteen interceptions the
year before. He goes from that to be in the
Super Bowl MVP. A lot of it predicated on defense.
But in twenty twenty, you had a COVID season, you
had you still had Ben Roethlisberger who was just coming
back from having his elbow surgery.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
This team went what like eleven and ode start that season.
Nobody was sitting there saying, if anything, it would have
been this was a wasted draft pick. If he didn't
have a Chase Claypool to throw the ball to why
are we not supporting Ben Roethlisberger in his twilight ears
and blah blah blah. So it's funny how the narrative
always turns round and Jalen hurts, Yeah, he's playing fine
above the line. Do I still think he's Josh Allen,

(17:21):
even Lamar Jackson, even Patrick Mahomes. But you take a
look at the way. Let me switch over to the
Chiefs real quick. Before we compared to the Eagles, Patrick
Mahomes got rattled.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
We saw Patrick Mahomes miss and Kelsey drop passes in
the same way that Wilson and Friarmuth missed. Xavier Worthy
got some of his stuff done right. He made a
few impressive catches, almost seemed like too little, too late.
But where was DeAndre Hopkins sometimes? Where was Mahomes at
at all? We talk about mobility with the quarterbacks, look

(17:54):
at the offensive line with the Chiefs. Now, I'm not
saying anybody's gonna be out there, and I'm not by
all means the team say three super bowls straight. I'm
not trying to make an actual apples that apples comparison,
but I'm just trying to view it through the lens
of a Yinser that would be like fire Andy Reid
because they didn't win the Super Bowl. Wasn't good enough?
It was it was they didn't win the super Bowl.

(18:15):
Can't have just a winning season and that's all the
board the Chiefs had was a winning season. But boy
did they get rocked. And you he addressed it at
the very beginning of this with the with the line
play on both sides. And there's so many dudes with
the Eagles that we would have loved for the Steelers
to have drafted, but they had other needs at the
same time, so well.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Most of them they didn't get the opportunity to.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
Yeah, I mean, you're not getting Jalen Carter, You're not
getting the other guy from Roger who I can't remember
what his name, Jordan Davis. Jordan Davis, like we wanted
them both. You're not gonna get him, right, You're not
gonna get him.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
And that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Look, the Eagles have a window right now, right because
they've got stud guys on their defensive line that are
still playing under rookie contracts. They they're not gonna be
able to keep them all when it comes when it
comes time to start paying you know, they're gonna have
the same problem that every good team has, right It's
why it's it's really super difficult to have a long

(19:12):
running dynasty anymore because you know, eventually you just can't
pay them all and they start to break up. So
you know, you either have to retool and go along
or whatever. So but right now, the Eagles have a
window where if their defensive line and their offensive line
continue to be as dominant as they were, that they

(19:33):
can they could repeat again. And then and yeah, maybe
those rookie contracts start to wear off, and uh, now
you gotta gotta.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Figure out who's who's necessary.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
To keep and who's not. Right, Okay, so Jalen Hurt's
got a big number two.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
So yeah, I mean there was there was a lot
of players that went before Jalen Hurts in that draft,
some better, some worse. Makai Becton ends up on that
Eagles roster and switching over for being a bust at
tackle to playing guard and reclamation type stuff. The Steelers
did this in the past, where they picked up somebody
else's old first round picks, like a I think of

(20:09):
like Tyson Alulilou. But that's just like one of the
He wasn't a first round pick though, Dude, he was
like draft but he was. I'm just saying he was
because he wasn't in the same position as you know,
the Steelers fit him into.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
And you gotta you hit.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
When you hit on some of those then you're gonna
you're gonna do better than you're gonna do worse. And
there's players that, uh, when you look at the draft
or the drafts that the Eagles have had over the years,
I just for number one Hurts probably isn't playing in Pittsburgh.
I'm trying not to jump around too much. And by
the time he does play, I want a boomerang back

(20:45):
around to the talk about Justin Fields because everyone apparently
is patient to allow him to develop, but they're only
thinking about it through the lens of playing six games
in Pittsburgh as a starter, not forty four total games
in the NFL. They did not have the same measure
of patients that'll allow can't he Pickett? Same record? A

(21:05):
lot of things that are very similar, And then we
heard the same exact thing what Mitch Trubisky didn't pan out,
Cause Justin Field's very well end up in that same
category he could, and then very likely he may not.
Like when does the switch when you're talking about these
things like through the through, like what Dejian is saying,

(21:26):
and they love like where you know, one of his
criticism into in Chicago holding onto the past or hold
on to the ball too long, or being gun shy
or using his feet, and then that doesn't change, Like
very clearly they didn't stick with him because they thought
they could win with Russ and then that worked until
it didn't.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
And I don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
People talk about like Baker Mayfield, and Baker might be
the only one, and he's an exception, I believe because
he was a top overall first round pick. Not many
of those guys very much bust out right. Trevor Lawrence
has just had bad everything around him, coaching and everything else.
You could make the same arguments for him if you
bring them to Pittsburgh and put him behind that offensive line.

(22:08):
So I'd still leave enough of the benefit of the
doubt for fields. But Jalen Hurts I think has a
very similar kind of feel trajectory. And that's where somebody's
gonna tell you, hey, Joe, there it is. There's the
light bulb mobile quarterback. But she said to be able
to make the throws, you still got to be able
to make the downfield throws in the big plays. Just
the passing aspect of it that isn't there. And don't forget.

(22:32):
I also think that Najee Harris puts up a lot
of yards if he's behind the Eagles offensive line too, right, Yeah,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
The numbers, but he does a lot. He does better.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
No, not, I don't.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I don't even want to say not yet, maybe not
at all. But no, he's still a guy with first
round pedigree. He's still a guy that I think is
a solid running back I would like to do.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Not she doesn't have that home run speed. No, no, no,
he's he's never gonna be. And I you know that's
what I mean. There's there are there's a question in
almost every room, uh at every position room for this
team over the offseason. There just is you know, you
don't have a running back technically under contract. Yes, stealing

(23:17):
Warreant is a restricted free agent, but that's it. You know,
you don't really have any of your top guys under contract.
It The vocalization out in the world about George Pickens
is much more so than me just saying, hey, I
you know it's not gonna be I'm not gonna be
crying any tears if George Pickens gets moved. And it's
not going to be a surprise to me if George

(23:38):
Pickens gets moved. So you're hearing that more often than not.
Now you're hearing you know, we know they've got problems
on the offensive line. We know they have some issues
with the defensive line. We know that the corner position
is there. We the safety play has not been up
to standard to what it should be and whether that's
because of the scheme and how they're doing things who

(24:00):
I don't know. I don't know the answers to that.
But they got a ton of question marks and so
you know, what's how do they address those? Really? You know,
the quarterback we said this last time around, the quarterback
is not is important.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
But there's so much going on here. The people who
are available.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
Nobody's coming in here and turning this into you know,
super Bowl contending team next season.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
It's just not happening.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, among the super Bowl teams with the Chiefs and
the Eagles. Just look at what happens. I understand. You know,
you had Joe Toney, who's like a Pro Bowl, All
Pro guard, laying out a position because of injurie. You've
got a rookie playing another spot.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Sounds a lot like the Steelers' problems with having to
play Mason McCormick and still trying to patch up things
with their offensive line. Would they be a piece or
two a way? Do you trust if the if the
Chiefs were to add a tackle, would solved their problems.
They brought in DJ Humphreyes, for example, and he was
coming off of an injury and whatever, because they were
looking for a veteran that could shore this up. But

(25:02):
you saw even what happens to Mahomes under duress. And
he's got DeAndre Hopkins and you remember Juju, and you've
got a shiny toy and sa if you're worthy, and
you've got you know, a future Hall of Famer and
Travis Kelcey. That's what I'm trying to allude to is
is like any team that has these problems, it's hard
to judge what your other problems might be. So I
think fixing the offensive line is paramount for the Steelers

(25:24):
getting some more guys now in the defense on the
defensive line, Brandon Graham, Cam Hayward. That seems to fit.
The Steelers don't have a Jalen Carter, Ana Jordan Davis
and you know what's his name?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Monty Williams, Milton Williams and Josh Sweat and only cal
do they have a rotation of guys. They've got Keanu
Benton and maybe you can put Larry Okinjobi as a
trusty veteran in that category. And you know, I know
they got Sahi Smith, herbig TJ Watt all pro. You've
got edge rushers and stuff. But man, I'll tell you

(25:58):
you can't compare that on the same level. Well, Peyton
Wilson live up to like a Nakobe Dean as Patrick
Queen the guy. Look at what the Eagles did in
that secondary. He got a new secondary coach coming in.
They're gonna need another corner. What if they land a
home run like a Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper, j John somebody
both of those guys rookies. Did Jan has a freaking

(26:22):
pick six in a Super Bowl because of the pressure
he gets put on there. Maybe they are just a
piece away in areas the Eagles were an early playoff
exit last season as well to a Tampa Bay team
retread quarterback Baker Mayfield. That's a disappointment. That's a are
they gonna fire Nick Sirianni? That was legitimately a conversation

(26:44):
being held by people last offseason. So the knee jerk
reactions are you know, there is a gap definitely with
the Steelers. But if they had enough quality players, could
it turn around?

Speaker 3 (26:56):
It could?

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Would it be surprising? Sure it would, because the Eagles
also had a foundation that just played in the Super
Bowl two seasons ago. Before that, you know, two of
the last three years they're in the big championship game.
So of course some of this said tongue in cheek,
but do we trust Okay, do we trust Omar Khan
as a general manager?

Speaker 3 (27:17):
I believe.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
So it's hard to evaluate what Omar Khan did this
offseason because you never got Troy Fotanu on the field.
That's a first round pick that could come back and
boone the offensive lines immediately in there. Right, you don't
know what Roe who Rumin Wilson is. He could be
a complete nobody. He could be one of these third
round picks where You're like, man, the Steelers really know

(27:38):
their stuff, and they have a wide receiver factory. We
don't know, so it's really hard to evaluate some of
what they drafted this year. Zach Frasier sure as hell
looked good. Peyton Wilson sure looked good, Mason McCormick. The
other guys were out too, Logan Lee, Ryan Watts previous year,
Broderick Jones, jury's out, Joey Porter Junior, Keanu Benton, Darnell Washington,

(28:00):
Dick Kerbick, Corey Trice, maybe even Spencer Anderson. That looks
like a really great draft. You go before that and
everybody's going to rag on Colbert, Yeah, Kenny Pickett. Then
there's George Pickens, Yay Demarvin Leal, Calvin Austin and Connor
Hayward and Mark Robertson, and and then you got a
late round pick, Chris Chris Oladokin. I meant to mention

(28:21):
his name on the last show, Brian, because when people
are talking about Brock Perdy, Tom Brady as like your
final round type of picks, for every one of those guys,
there's like about thirty Chris Oladokins that are floating around there.
That never get a shot. So and then the just
the other draft right before that, Najie Harris, Pat Friarmouth
and then Kendrick Green and Dan Moore. You know that
that didn't work out, but you know what they're trying

(28:42):
to do. But when you hit on some of those
and you compare it to like what the Eagles did.
I mentioned Mitchell dejan the previous year, Jalen Carter, Nolan
Smith before that, twenty twenty two, Jordan Davis, Cam Jurgens
who ends up being centered, not Lance Landon dick who
went the year before, and everybody wanted the Steelers the
draft as a center. He doesn't even play center. He's

(29:04):
just a guard in the NFL. They bring in another
second round pick, he's the center. Na Kobe Dean goes
right after Jerkins. Twenty twenty one was Dickerson, but before him,
Davante Smith, Milton Williams, Kenneth Gainwell even as a role player.
But they miss on Jalen Ragger, they get Jalen Hurts,
they missed on Davian Taylor. You go back, this is
twenty twenty now, and then before that, Andre Dillard, Miles Sanders,

(29:27):
JJ or are Sega white Side. But then you had
Dallas Goddard, Avonte Maddox, Josh Sweat, Jordan Malatta, Derek Barnett,
Razu Douglas, and Sydney Jones that didn't before that. So
you have hit and miss. But like you said, there's
a compact amount of this roster under rookie deals that
are there cheap and for us maybe for a significant

(29:50):
amount of time, it's a good foundation for a team
that already had a pretty solid foundation.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah, that's why they can spend the money on Saquon Barkley, right,
because they have the availability to do so. Right, the
Steelers are are in a different position where the majority
of their rookie deals are expiring or have expired, and
now you know, they're just not in the same boat.
They're just not in the same boat. I mean, just

(30:15):
you just got to look at it that way. You know,
those those I guess you know, spotlight kind of positions
running back, quarterback, wide receiver. You know, they don't there's
not a lot of free money that would normally get
pulled in and tied up in there that that's going away.
They've got a lot of money in their defense, a
ton of money in their defense and it it wasn't

(30:39):
worth what they spent on it last year. So how
do you how do you fix that? What do you
what do you adjust? What do you tweak? I have
a lot of faith in omark On to make decisions.
I think, and I've said this before, I think that
there's gonna be some surprising moves this offseason in how
the player, person and l get gets put together for

(31:02):
the next upcoming season. I think there's gonna be guys
that you never would have thought are going to leave
or that aren't going to be here anymore.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
I don't know who they are.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
I just you know, to me, there's dramatic things that
need to probably happen in order to give them their.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Best chance at.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Repointing the ship in a championship direction, don't I don't
know that.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I believe they can do it in one year.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
So the question really is what's what's the longer term plan? Yeah,
and it all comes down to quarterback. But again, Jalen
Hurts wasn't looked at as.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Being the guy.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
And you know the Eagles they had won one with
Nick Foles too, so with Carson Wentz and none of
those guys are actually highly thought of from several years ago.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I know not all of that team was still there
this weekend, but Brandon Graham was one of those guys
that was, or Lane Johnson was one of those guys
that was. So there's still guys that had done it.
I think one of the bigger moves. And this goes
into maybe a little bit of trade rumor stuff. We
didn't really we talked about Cooper Cup last week. Not
Cooper Cup, but for me, the Eagles one of the
big things, or even for the Chiefs for that matter.

(32:12):
The Chiefs went out, they got DeAndre Hopkins. They added
some veteran guys that are more stable, like Juju for example,
that that's been better than you know, they drafted Rashid
Rice last year in the second round and twenty twenty three,
I should say so almost last year previous season, and
you know what, what's that turning out to be? Like
sky Moore was a guy we liked and has it.

(32:34):
So these teams they have those that same kind of
adversity where not every single pick is a home run.
But the Eagles went out and got aj Brown in
a trade, and I start to think to myself, is
George Pickens's more DeVante Smith than an AJ Brown. The
Steelers needither AJ Brown? What if they add their AJ Brown?
And I'm looking down the barrel of like Deebo Samuel.

(32:55):
Now he's twenty nine. We know that we like DK
and DK is is twenty seven or twenty nine years old,
so he's starting to get toward that age where we're like, Okay,
this guy's a little maybe maybe longer in the tooth.
Would he be worth it? And I'm looking at the
contracts and the way that some of this gets structured, Brian,
as we know, I am looking at the various various

(33:19):
aspects of it and trying to figure out the math
because I think that a Deebo Samuel trade would could
be affordable if the Steelers were able to do it.
He's only got one year left on the forty nine
Ers deal, which has him a lot of bonus money,
and it's already tied up into their accounting. So would
that be something that puts the offense over the top,
It fixed our offensive line, stable quarterback play. I don't know,

(33:40):
I don't know, it's hurt a lot, don't know. You know,
there's the dynamous that I can't say that worked.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Nnamism is probably there, but yeah, he's another guy injury prone,
maybe he's been hurt often, doesn't seem to finish seasons.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
I don't know if there's value there or not.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, he seems to be I'd find him a little
bit better of in a position or And how much
of that is the system in San Francisco too, right?

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
And I don't necessarily know that I trust guys to
come out of just the Kyle Shanahan system. I think
a lot of that is just predicated on Shanahan being
a good coach, and they could be a product. He
could be completely like a nobody if he were to
come to Pittsburgh. The amount of money that they play
with all this restructuring and stuff, My dude only has
a base salary a little over a million dollars. He

(34:32):
has a per game roster bonus of seven hundred and
fifty thousand. If we look at the money that the
forty nine ers would save in the twenty twenty six
season as part of moving on now as one of
their outs, they would save about twelve point three million dollars.
So I think that's about where he's at. Because the
cap number is at fifteen point eight, but he has
a void year next year of thirty three point one,

(34:52):
and that is a boatload of money for a wide
receiver that's about to hit thirty years of age. But
you can get a year or two out of them
and it maybe raises the level of play or opens
up things for George Pickens. Then maybe you'll see some
things be more dynamic with the Pittsburgh Steelers offense. So, Brian,
thank you for joining us once again today. To you

(35:14):
on the flip side, my friend when we talk defense next.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Week, absolutely appreciate it as always.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
All right, folks that'll do it here for us as always,
don't forget the like, comment and subscribe till next time.
My name is Joe, his name is Brian. There's still
a gap between the Steelers, the Chiefs and the Eagles.
We'll still say that and finish off with that. Don't
leave us any hate mail till next time. We encourage
everyone out there to be safe, be good, and we'll
catch you later.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
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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