Late breakdowns cost Steelers in Thursday night shootout

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. I'm joined
here with the one mister Briany Roach. Brian, I know
how I'm feeling, so I'm not gonna ask how are
you feeling? I'm just gonna say, how do you feel
in regards to life outside of the Pittsburgh Steelers right now?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, you know, it's a little hard to differentiate those
things after the shit.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Show that was last night, So we might be swearing today, folks.
It's it's one of those there's no might I'm going
to be and I'm not sure. I got to figure
out where that goes. There's like these boxes I tick
when I upload the YouTube. Is this suitable for children?
And we may have to put a little notice out
in front a little overview of this game. I'm still

(01:16):
feeling it a little bit from last night. I had
a few adult beverages before I walked into paid Course
Stadium just to try and take the edge off of
listening to all of the Bungles fans say who day?
And I was texting you this during the game, but
this is kind of I think this is kind of funny.
It's like you've got the Uh, You've got the Bengals,

(01:40):
and they try and make a game day environment that
their stadium is the Jungle, and they do this thing
like they do the Ruler of the Jungle, and they
do they play Welcome to the Jungle from Guns n'
Roses and they play it like almost on continuous loop.
And I think he gave me a headche Cuns of

(02:01):
Roses one of my favorite bands of all time. In fact,
I saw them when they came to PNC Park a
few years ago, and a lot of people were all
over Axel Rose for that. But they played for like
three straight hours and the guy's like almost sixty and
he loses a little bit of his voice, apologizes, drink
some water, and continues going, I don't care. That was great,
But we're talking about one of the stingiest cheapest voted

(02:24):
by the player. Things owners bad, ownership, bad, locker rooms bad.
Tried to charge for drinks out of a vending machine
with Mike Brown and the Bengals. I guarantee you only
if he did license it. Maybe there'll be a lawsuit
in the future. He only paid the license like one
song for their game music in the stadium, So that's
one thing. I was shocked that they did all the
white banners and actually changed some things over and gave

(02:45):
that stadium a little bit of a personality. But it
was hilarious to see. The ruler of the jungle was
Andrew Wentworth, who's part of the Amazon Prime crew to
begin with, with the pre games and the halftime show
or whatever. So Mike Brown didn't have to pay for
a ticket to bring this guy in. He's so goddamn cheap.
And that's the way I feel about the Bengals. They

(03:06):
didn't go out and get like a great quarterback or
anything with Joe Flacco, and still he made the Steelers
look silly in a thirty three to thirty one loss.
I think that's where we're really kind of pissed off
this morning or this afternoon, even less than twenty four
hours after a Thursday night game. There's a few things

(03:26):
that really pissed me off about this game, Brian. One
of them is Joe Flacco's been there a week, and
he puts on the kind of showing that he does.
The Bengals a two win team going into this maybe
should have been a one win team. Definitely a team
down on their luck, that can't defend the run, that
can't run the ball on offense themselves, and seemingly they

(03:50):
were able to do both against this Steelers team. And
I'm also pissed off and peoed or ticked off or
whatever you want to call it, because when we win
in to looking at this from a cursory overview, before
the season started, we looked at the schedule. Hell, we
looked at this when the schedule came out and we said, well,
set up to fail. Well that was with Joe Burrow, obviously,

(04:13):
but after playing the Browns, or playing the Ravens, or
playing the Bengals, then you got to play one of
them on a short week on the road almost every
damn time. The schedule makers make this for the Steelers,
and I'm just sick and tired of it from an
overview standpoint of that. And I'm also kind of sick
and tired of the NFL officiating, which we'll get to
at some point. I'm not going to make the largest

(04:35):
excuse for officiating in this game. That is definitely a factor,
but you can't overcome the penalties that are are not
called when you turn the ball over two times and
you don't stop a certain player from the other side
from catching. Oh, I don't know, sixteen of twenty three targets,
maybe identify the guy on the field that's getting the ball.

(04:56):
I don't know. Did I miss anything in setting the
state for our episode? Right now?

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Let me just say this, and Cabally tweeted this, and
I retweeted it with a ding ding ding ding ding,
because it's accurate. This is the worst defensive effort that
I've seen, and I don't even know how long it's
that bad.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
They sucked.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I mean, that was just a big, piling, steaming shit
show that from a defensive standpoint, it was horrible. They
couldn't stop sand through a sieve. I've just stunned at
how bad it actually was, and considering the amount of money,

(05:43):
considering they built this defense.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
They built this defense.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
They brought in guys like Jalen Ramsey, they brought in
guys like Darius Slay for the very very very simple
reason of playing the Bengals and guess what, they played
them better last year without them it was so.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Awful, just so bad.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
And whether the blame goes on to Tomlin's head, whether
the blame goes onto Austin's head or both of them,
I don't know. But it felt like they didn't have
a plan, and whatever plan they had was literally a
piece of shit. And the things that worked sometimes they
got away from they were trying to figure out there
was their plan was, and defensive struggles we have after

(06:30):
the offensive highlights, let's start with the beginning of the game,
at least before we go all the way downhill. Offense
comes out and they go up ten to nothing. They
actually come out march down the field rather easily, and
the Bengals fans that were around me go, see, look
how easy eight plays sixty nine yards shy of four

(06:51):
minutes of game clock. After starting off with the ball,
Rogers finds John hus Smith, who they missed?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know what I got? I got a let it
all out because I'm feeling it. I'm feeling frisky today.
There was someone in the comments. If you're watching or listening,
thank you for supporting the show. But they were on me.
They were on my ass about saying John why Smith's
name wrong because I said John L. Bengals PA announcer,
and they literally give these folks a flip card with

(07:20):
the pronunciation sheet. Now, this isn't something that I had
three months ago when the trade was made. And I
give a little bit of that Youngstown or Pittsburgh ease
spin to the dude's name. But I gotta say, they
got his name wrong. And the Steelers fan that was
sitting next to me with the ramsey jersey too, he goes,
how do they get this guy's name wrong? But Rogers

(07:43):
is finding receivers, He's finding tight ends. The wide receiver
two statement. I don't think they need a wide receiver
two at this point. I don't know how they would
get the ball. I don't know what production they would have.
I don't know how that would impact the way that
they The Steelers seemingly do decent or well on offense,

(08:04):
which means matchup Nightmares. We're trying to match up with Friarmuth, Washington, Smith, Connor,
Hayward even and then Warren. I leave it that way
because then it also kind of leaves DK metcalf uh
kind of wide open with some of this, but ar
the offense. I'm not blaming the offense necessarily. Aaron Rodgers

(08:25):
throws won a pick that ends up being a punt.
Now it's the defense's job to do something and stop down. Now,
the other one where DK Metcalf somehow doesn't have ball security,
is like a blade of grass from being out of
bounds to where this isn't but it gets stripped of
the ball. Grown ass man, I don't know what the
hell happened. It was just like nothing was running as

(08:47):
well as it could, but yet it did. Aaron Rodgers
looked like vintage Aaron Rodgers twenty three to thirty four
to sixty seven points six completed, two forty nine. He
has four touchdown passes in this game. That should be
good enough to get this done. It gets the Bengals
team with Joe freaking Flaco who came over from Cleveland. Now,
if you want to hear over reactions aside from us,

(09:11):
aside from you know, the Steelers fans that are upset
about losing this game to a Flaco that you know
was benched in Cleveland and traded away. Now, Mike Tomlin
was pissed off about that we made the quotes, and
now everybody this morning he's like, see, that's why he
was pissed off about that, But he lived in his fears.
With this game play on Brian, we're gonna get into
the defensive woes. They allowed Flaco thirty one to forty seven,

(09:33):
three forty two. Joe Flacco looked like Joe Flacco freaking
Montana out there and doesn't even know the playbook. He's
got it all on his wrist. Sixty six percent completed,
all to Jamar Chase sixteen catches, one hundred and sixty
one yards in a touchdown. He also finds t Higgins,
He found whoever the hell he wanted out there. I

(09:54):
feel like it was more defensively was a problem. I
know that the Steeler. This was the first half. The touchdown.
They did have a punt, then went for a push
push Let's come back to that. That ends up in
a field goal instead of a touchdown. Probably seals the
deal in this game altogether. Then you get a little

(10:15):
greedy and all of a sudden, one play just one
play run interception, tried a deep pass, and then seven plays,
twenty six yards interception. That's how the half ends Steelers
when they finally do get the ball in the second
half touchdown, and then we go into the fourth quarter touchdown, punt, touchdown.
Then Rogers somehow throws the ball like sixty nine to

(10:36):
seventy seventy one yards whatever it was, it was the
furthest air yards traveled for a ball since twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen. I saw that stat. It's been a long time,
six or seven years and not not talking like my
daughter here six to seven. But Rogers was not the
problem here. Rogers looked good. Could they have done a

(10:59):
few things different on offense, Yeah, sure could have, would have,
should have. But I don't know that I want to
stick with offense for too much longer. Pat Friremuth at
least showed up in this game. Rogers gave a nod
to him. He said, hey, wait for hanging in way.
To hang in there because the balls haven't been coming
his way. To playing time has been coming his way.
But still a Bengals killer with two touchdowns off five

(11:19):
catches one hundred and eleven yards, Jalen Warren sixteen carries
one hundred and twenty seven yards seven point nine average,
and he was also president in the past Game four
for thirty one. I don't have a lot of complaints
with all of that. They scored thirty one points. It's
the same thing, the same shootout that they had last
year when they went with Russell, Wilson and Burrow in
Cincinnati and went back and forth and came out on top.

(11:41):
We used to say this about the Bengals, They're gonna
score thirty some points, but the other team's gonna score forty.
And now it looks like the Steelers are that team.
As we you know, lick our wounds on a Friday
looking at this defeat. Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
If if I want to try and remove myself from
my anger and my frustration, let's look at this from
a different standpoint. The Bengals offense always was going to
be dangerous provided that there was somebody who could actually
execute the offense. Joe Flacco, regardless of what we may

(12:23):
or may not think of him, has a different level
of skill set, is a borderline Hall of Fame quarterback
than Jake Browning does.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
The Bengals immediately became more.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Dangerous with Joe Flacco than they were going to be
with Jake Browning. All that's true, but you know Joe Flacco, right,
They know Joe Flacco. He lit them up in Indianapolis.
He lit them up when he was with the Ravens.
They know Joe Flacco. Have a damn plan for Joe
freaking Flacco. Okay, you knew who you were going to play.

(12:59):
If you don't know how to stop him, bad on you.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
The plan was they feel Tomlin has mentioned he could
pick apart the blitz. Obviously, Zach Taylor realized that Flacco
could get rid of the ball fast enough to mitigate
whatever woes they have on their offensive line. And then
they ran the freaking football. That's the problem. In a nutshell,
make this team? What did we say? And I, you know,

(13:23):
we had a very abbreviated pregame. Look at this well
he said make them one dimensional. You make them one dimensional,
and they didn't make them any dimensional. It was just
I thought you were going to say the baal he said,
slant slant, slant slant. I was going to add dragon
out route. It was anything that was like a stop
and hitch right in the middle of the field, anywhere

(13:43):
across all the way to the sideline the sideline was successful.
They just did not stop the problem. Here's the problem.
I don't think it mattered whether they could run the ball.
I don't think it made any difference.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Whatsoever because they couldn't stop the quick passing game. They
literally they couldn't get hands on the ball. Chase is
wide open ninety percent of the time. It's ridiculous. T
Higgins wide open. Anytime they went in the zone. They
found out you know that when they were running man demand,

(14:13):
they're still open because they just couldn't stop that quick
passing game. And that's gonna that's gonna be a template
that you're gonna see other teams try and run.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
They already have something that's exactly Smith and Jake but
and Cooper Cup they stop or not.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Do you remember back in the day when the Patriots
used to pull this crap on us all the time, Right,
we couldn't we couldn't stop the quick passing game with
Brady and Edelman and all those guys, and sure enough
it would eat us alive because the ball was out
in two seconds.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Right, You've got to be able to cover better.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
You've got to have a better plan for how you're
going to attack those slants and those those different routes.
That are gonna be quick hitters. You've got to be
at the ball. They're not defending anything. I mean that
there was there were I don't think there was a
contested catch amongst those sixteen catches Chase had.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's just absurd.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
It looked pathetic. They looked old, slow and weak.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I slay at times, but I'm
not going to lay it all on. Okay, let's get
to somewhere else a little bit with this. I don't
want to get into specific calls, but there was something
said by Joey Porter Junior, who did not have a
good game. There was some major communication problems, particularly the
final drive that led to their game winning field goal

(15:38):
field goal by McPherson. Porter had no idea where he
was on that first pass that Jamar Chase took on
the quick out they sent him in. The Flacco sends
him in motion from left to right across their formation
right and as the defenders shift, Porter's doing all this
jazz hand stuff and they snaffed the ball and it's

(16:01):
just like he's He's on the back of his heels.
It's like, dude, what the hell? But I know there's
there's somewhat Ramsey. There's some stuff with Porter and people
are gonna dump on them. During the course of this game,
Chuck Clark plays. I need to see snap counts. He
plays a lot after being inactive. He wasn't even a
participant in the game before. There was a lot of
mis cues, a lot of miscommunication. Peyton Wilson very early

(16:24):
on at least two different third and not so manageables
maybe for the Bengals. The stealers put the Bengals into
a third down situation that should be able to get
off the field, and Peyton Wilson was like he was lost.
Either he's thinking he's passing guys off in the zone
or you know, he should be able to recognize he's
got a corner over his right shoulder, slide over to

(16:46):
the left because this is where Jamar Chase is going.
This is where And we saw Patrick Queen at least
once Patrick Queen, I think on the one TD de
Noah fan that was the same difference. Got lost sitting
there at the zone, didn't realize there's a guy standing
right behind him. And they're definitely communication problems. They definitely

(17:06):
looked tired. I'm like I say, old and slow. Necessarily.
I thought there were some lights out hits early on,
but as the hankies and the laundry started flying on
the field, Brian the less physical the Steelers defense was
playing because they were damn afraid that they were going
to get flagged for everything, and their game plan was

(17:27):
predicated on the secondary being able to be at least
as physical as these Bengals wide receivers. But for this
isn't the only game like this, by the way, this
has been like this for at least a full going
back to the last season, maybe the one before. It feels
like Jamar Chase and t Higgins could do what they
want with hand fighting, with being scrappy. They got flagged

(17:49):
for one in the end zone, and I thought it
was a touchdown. I was. I was heading down the
stairs and go hit the bathroom, and all of a
sudden it was, oh, there's a flag. They're taking it back.
Great Steelers defense holds. What happens on the very next
play Chase holds Porter and throws them off two handed. Nothing,
absolutely nothing. But if Porter gets involved, and the fans there,

(18:11):
trust me, they wanted one late where the Steelers actually
did get off the field and had a chance to
make their comeback after that, and Porter actually goes up
and it's pretty clean. He hits the ball. They wanted
something just because he had his hand kind of he
didn't tug or anything, but he got flaged for that
same thing where he didn't tug earlier in the game
at the very end. T Higgins, you tell me why

(18:32):
jamar By Jalen Ramsey was at this much separation is
because that inside army gave him the little Michael Irvin,
the little iggy on the inside and created that space.
They just let this shit go. And we talk about
the holding calls and the lack of holding calls. Well,
news flash to Tarrell Austin and Mike Tomlin. You're not

(18:55):
bringing pressure because you're afraid that Joe Flacco is going
to bust your blitz every time he's going to find
that open guy. Well, maybe if you send five or
six guys, you see what happens when Patrick Queen comes through.
He's the only guy I think that's had maybe a
legit holding caller an accepted holding penalty this entire season.
He's got two. You send them up through the middle,
somebody grabs him, so they had him in a choke

(19:17):
hold in this game, you're not seeing those calls for
what for herbing? For in herbing, I'd have to look
at the counts. It felt like he wasn't out there
as much as maybe he should have been. And he's
a guy that can make some splash plays. But regardless,
sending just three and four was not getting this job done.
When the ball's coming out so quick and they lived
in their own fears on it, it looked like they

(19:40):
might have wanted to do a zero blitz. They didn't work.
They press up on the line of scrimmage, that didn't work.
They go back five ten yards that nothing was working
with the coverage stuff. Another part that I want to
bring up before I forget this. I should have said
this in these pre games. I should have said this
before the Cleveland game. I don't like playing these teams
that are now in a position where they must win
or there' it's practically over this early in the season

(20:02):
because they will literally do anything. They are desperate teams,
both Cleveland and Cincinnati desperate teams. That makes it hard
to defend as well. But then when they're ahead, now
they're playing from a position to power and I didn't
think that the Steelers. You didn't think the Steelers were
going to overcome this, and somehow they do near the
end of the game. So I don't know if you

(20:25):
have more of the ad on the defense, but they
certainly look tired. They certainly look dinged and banged up.
People are going to say, well, you're making these excuses,
you're being hypocritical on this that No, it's just the
fact that the matter is when you play these Thursday
night games after playing a divisional opponent, like all bets
are freaking off. It is statistically not only just Tomlin

(20:46):
being zero to seven or whatever he is against AFC
North on the road in Thursday night games. Almost every
single team is at a disadvantage when you're traveling on
the road and playing these games, and particularly against division
opponents that already know you really well. You know, there's
a lot at stake here, and I'm just not a fan.
I'm very much getting tired of the Thursday night slate.

(21:07):
We'll put it that way.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well, I don't like Thursday night games because I'm not
going to go to them. I know you went down there,
but I'm not going to Thursday night games. That's a
great point. Let me insert this as well, because I'm
ragging on the Bengals. So they go and they do
all their white Bengal.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Stuff, and go do that on a Sunday at one
o'clock and let the Steelers where they're black home jerseys,
where all of the fans, half of the people in
those stands are going to be Steelers fans, instead of
an expensive ticket on a work night where people aren't
going to make the short, you know, decently short drive.
A lot of people in the area are fans already,

(21:40):
but nowhere near as many that have been there. And
they've been trying to protect the Bengals with this over
the last few years. That's why they've been playing home
openers against the Steelers, because when it's a home opener,
those tickets they're usually more expensive, they're a little harder
to acquire because the team's not in a crap are already.
The same thing with this Thursday night game. They throw
throw it out there, they do their little white Bengal thing.

(22:02):
They bumped the price up and everything else to try
and make sure there were still terrible towels there. But
it's not the kind of impact that you would have
had let's say, three years ago when Burrow was heard
I was there, or even when Trubisky started the game
with the home upener, there was still maybe more Steelers
fans there, but there were definitely more last year when
it was Russell Wilson and the Bengals were already out

(22:22):
of the playoff picture. They those fans were fire selling
their tickets. So there's definitely that aspect is very much
true to it. I'm talking about just trying to recover fatigue, injury,
health and everything else. They let him stay on the
field for so long and get picked apart. It just
really showed by the end of that game, it just

(22:43):
ran out of gas.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, I mean, this is my like, I can't even
make the excuse that the offense didn't give them breathers,
because they did. You know, this is not a game
where the offense was failing and the defense was getting
war and down. This is a game where the defense
purely failed.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Period. They just failed, and they allowed.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Fourteen play drives and all these long drives on themselves,
and then.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
You know, the offense would come in and the.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Defense would get a break, you know, because they're giving
putting a drive together. I mean, you know, yes, they
definitely are going to be impacted when you play a
Sunday game against a divisional opponent and then have to
turn around and play on Thursday.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's I mean, but everybody does. I don't remember who.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
The Bengals played last Sunday, green Bay, but it wasn't Yeah,
green Bay. I mean, it's not any benefit to them.
They had to travel to Green Bay, then they came back.
Green Bay is not an easy, easy benefit.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
But it's not a division It's still a benefit to
be at home. Absolutely, it's a benefit to be Joe
Flacco some crowd noise and see if he gets those
calls in on less than a week of being there.
You know, yeah, I just I am.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
I I don't, I don't I walk away from this game.
Shaken is really what it is. And here's part of
why who else lit us up? The Jets. This is
a team that couldn't get out of their own damn
way half the time, but they let us up for
thirty points. Bengals light us up for thirty points. These

(24:23):
are two of the worst scoring teams right now in
the NFL, and we couldn't stop them.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
How you know, I get it.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
We you know, we haven't played a lot of good
teams yet, but we're about to play three.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Of them in a row, and.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
What are we going to look like? What are we
gonna look like? I'm shaken by how badly they looked.
And you know, you get a team that can legitimately
wind down the defenses is considerably better than what the
Bengals defense is and could put some pressure on Aaron Rodgers,
and the offense maybe isn't going to put up thirty

(24:58):
one points, and you've you kind of approach it right
now and you feel like we're just gonna get smoked.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
I look at it just a little differently, had the
game in it a different way. I'm with you. I
do look at it as Flack owned Fields intimately, especially
Fields intimately knows what the Steelers' defense is doing. They're
they're familiar with it. There's nothing new or any surprises

(25:25):
to them. I don't know that Jordan Love will have
that same We talked about this. The Packers might not
look as scary, but maybe that second half of that
game with Flacco that scared because I was just like,
he's got They weren't completely inept. They were able to
generate some offense and score, and then I said, oh man,

(25:45):
that's not good. A little bit of they had something
positive to take away from there. The Steelers offense, though,
I think it is capable of doing some things. I
know the Bengals defense isn't all that great. Seven to
ten on third down, three hundred and ninety six yards
the time of pos though they almost it was like
nine minutes difference here. That was all on the defense.

(26:06):
The Steelers ran fifty four offensive plays to the Bengals
running seventy two. If you flip that number of Steelers
easily win this game if you don't have dk with
that weird interception thing. I know you're saying easily, but
the Bengals don't have the ball like an extra possession.
They don't score even if they're just unstoppable and just
going through this defense like Swiss cheese. That's what I'm

(26:29):
trying to say. One less possession and the Steelers probably
walk away with this victory. If the Steelers could take
another possession away, if they could even get a stop
on third down, I don't know how they fix it
on defense. I don't care. I at this point, we'll
be talking about that again a little bit later. This
all goes downhill. I think from the tush push. Mike

(26:50):
Pursuda said this on the post game. I think he's
absolutely right. You've got eyeballs on certain things in the league,
certain perceptions with the officials when they go into these
games games they're told, now, keep an eye on this.
This is a bad perception with the NFL, like this
happened in maybe in Detroit Kansas City game, or this
happened in the Eagles game where they're offside twice on

(27:10):
a Now all of a sudden, you're getting flags on
this and it bites the Steelers and instead of having
a touchdown, they settle for a field goal, and I
think that's what started to send this down hill. I
also am not a big fan of the inconsistency with
the pass interference calls, the amount of the physicality that's
allowed one way and not the other. And you could

(27:34):
have very easily had a few that should have probably
been thrown on some Bengals players. You can't tell me
there was one. I think later with Friarmuth it felt
like DJ Turner or somebody was there earlier. It meant
DJ Turner look like, you know, it was like Drel
Reeves or something at certain points and then at other
points he's getting burned. The holding call on Broderick Jones

(27:59):
was wheat very much so weak when you had a
guy that was slipped, falling, trying to spin around and
goes to the ground. I see that play happen multiple
times in multiple games every weekend with absolutely zero calls.
You see tj or Cam tackled to the ground in
similar fashion with no calls, and I just it. It

(28:23):
disgusts me. I'm not gonna say it's the primary reason
you have to be able to play within the confines
to that. He saw Torbert and with the Browns game
and they were aware of it, and they didn't make
other mistakes or other self defeating penalties that shot themselves
in the foot ones that were merited. Zach Fraser got
called for one where he had the guy on the

(28:44):
inside of the pads, like, you know, trying to cover
for it and didn't and it was a nice run
that was taken away. There's valid ones that are out there,
there's some that weren't. It felt a little unbalanced. The
Bengals had three first downs by penalty overall penalty yards
to Steelers seven for fifty nine Bengals four for thirty five. Ultimately,

(29:08):
still the turnovers. Like I said, the deep long pass
with the punt thing, like I felt like it was
a punt strowing. There's two receivers there. I don't know
that was DK, wasn't it And he had no idea
where that ball was being delivered to. It was over
his head. I didn't even think this team was going
to get back into this game, but that fired me
with play and Rogers extending some of these plays and

(29:29):
even getting in a position for the hell Mary we
had to say. Overall, the offensive line I thought did
their job. There was enough that was positive on the
offensive side of the ball where I'm not completely dumping
on this team because it wasn't a complete flat out failure.
Special teams even Boswell fantastic. Keishawn Williams is showing to
be a very competent retire the best returner that I've

(29:53):
seen in a few years so far, kicks in punts,
he has some vision. I'm happy with that. I'm not
gonna panic too much, Brian, because I think when we
initially looked at this we thought that Burrow was going
to be there, we thought they were on the road,
and we chucked it up as a lot. Absolutely. So
the fact that it just just settles it's unsettling for us,

(30:13):
is that they could have had a very commanding lead
on the AFC North that I don't think any of
these other three teams would have climbed out of at
this point. Instead, you drop what could be a tie
breaking loss to a division opponent. Now that let's maybe
Baltimore creep back in it if you were to have
similar records at this point.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Look, I mean, let's be honest, at this point, you're
more worried about the Bengals than you are about the Ravens.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
I'm not gonna go that far.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
I'm sorry, you know, that's just look, their defense played poorly,
no question about it. Our defense played worse, and that's
that's just the visual look of it. You know, we
don't have jamar Cha and t Higgins, right, We got

(31:03):
DK and other people, right, but we don't have two
DKs the way they have two receivers. So yeah, you know,
I don't know. I'm not one hundred percent down, don't
get me wrong. I'm just disgusted because what was displayed
was so bad. They looked inept and and for a

(31:26):
team that pays the amount of money they pay for
their defense and specifically built it to defeat the team,
they just got their butts kicked by. That's that's a
problem for me, and it's going to remain a problem.
And I what I am suspect of is this defense.
And you know, I started off the season going what

(31:49):
the hell's going on with this defense? And you know,
we got a little better and it felt like, Okay,
it's a little better. Maybe it's making some progress, and
we won a couple games and it started to look
like and then this debacle. I just I'm very concerned
about this defense and whether or not it's the coaching

(32:11):
of the defense, or whether it's the players just are
not up to snuff anymore, or people have figured out
how to work with them.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
I don't know it is. It's so weird just because
we're just praising how they just went in and shut
down the Browns and I know it's the Browns, and
I know it's Dylan Gabriel. Now, Oh that's what I
was going to say. You want to hear some squawking.
You think Steelers Nation's bad today, go find some Cleveland
Browns chatter about. Wait a minute, we traded this guy away,

(32:42):
and now it makes like Tomlin's point valid. Now the
Bengals are going to be better than the Browns in theory,
and this quarterback wasn't washed. What the hell are we
doing here in Cleveland that we got rid of a
guy that was able to throw for three point fifty
and presumably on a good Steelers defense. Now, hot take,
they're gonna come back around after this many by the

(33:03):
Bengals host the New York Jets. If Justin Fields does
not play a full half or only a half as
the quarterback of the Jets, and let's say Aaron Glenn
az the Colonies to put Torod Taylor in or something,
I think the Jets could beat the Bengals. And now
we're gonna all look pretty stupid. But I say this
because the Jets have a really good defense, and I

(33:26):
think they can make Flacco look silly if they apply
the pressure. They've got some hosses on that defensive line.
Steelers should too, right I'm looking at the Bengals schedule.
They then play the Bears also at home. What in
the hell is it with three straight home games in
a bye for the principal teams in the AFC North.

(33:48):
In the preseason, you thought the favorites were the Ravens,
thought the favorites were a Joe Burrow led Cincinnati Bengals.
And it gets They get the Steelers, follow on a
short week, they get now a mini and get to
play the Jets at home, get to play the Bears
at home, both of them are Sunday one o'clocks. Then
they go on a bye week before they travel to

(34:08):
du return match with the Pittsburgh Steelers at Akroshuer Stadium.
That's a blowney man. I mean, I want to swear
some more. I'm trying to use my non swear words here.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
I'm not well, let me just put this way. The
words I'm dropping in this show are not what are
hanging over the top.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Of my house, and they're not what was in the
text thread with me and you and oh man, just
utter ridiculousness. They've got a little bit of time to
figure this out. Now. I know that the Steelers got
a buy and then got to play a division game
against the Browns. That was beneficial and play that at home.

(34:50):
But their other home game was in Dublin. Before that,
it was in Ireland. That is a road trip and
a half. So we're gonna find out, excuse me, just
what kind of Steelers team that there is. I know
some of the optimism may have waned with green Bay
now going to be coming in. I think green Bay.

(35:12):
Green Bay has Arizona at four twenty five. They're on
the road. They go to you know, wherever they're wherever
that is Glendale outside of Phoenix to play that game, green.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Bay, Indianapolis and the the Chargers, right, Yeah, Chargers on
the road.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
I don't know. I don't feel I feel like the
Chargers are some posers with that record. Especially well that's
because they've also been hurt. They'll get Khalil Mack back
by the time we play them, they'll get other people
back by the time. I don't know if they'll get
hamped in back by then. I'm not even sure he'll
be in the window to return. I got to look
at that, but they you know, I don't know. What

(35:50):
I read yesterday was that he'd be back. Yeah, we'll see,
we'll see how that. We'll see how that plans. But
you know the fan bait Steelers are gonna show up
in LA like the fans be there. I always doubt
about that. There's a lot of So Cal Steelers fans,
so we were counting our chickens before they hatch. I
think they could take care of business. There's another great
point he brought up the Colts, and I want to

(36:11):
mention this real quick. Flacco was there and the Steelers
struggled with them. They didn't have the game plan for
him ahead of time. They thought it was gonna be
Anthony Richardson. I actually talked to a Bengals fan who
was at that game with because Indianapolis is like maybe
an hour and a half two hour drive from there,
so very common. There's not as many Colts fans because
the Indy came over from Baltimore and then Cincinnati existed before,

(36:33):
but just geographically speaking, they were just like, oh, yeah,
you know, like it seems like the Steelers struggled with
Flacco and I was like yeah, and they were like, oh,
they were at that game, and I'm like, well, that
game was a very case in point as to why
Justin Field didn't continue being the quarterback for the Steelers.
But it was the same kind of ebb and flow
as last year, where you know, Fields tried to get

(36:54):
them back in the game, Rogers tries to get them
back in this game. But the defense was just like
they looked down like twenty one nothing. This was a
little more back and forth. I'm just try and chalk
it up, like you were saying, they got these guys
to be able to defend against these receivers. Specifically, they
need to go back and look at the film and say, Okay,
we've got these guys, but we're not using them properly.

(37:16):
Maybe we get a little more pressure on the quarterback.
I thought that they did really good pressuring, Like at
Dylan Gabriel. They weren't afraid of Dylan Gabriel the same
way they were afraid of they lived in their fears
with Joe Flaccough. And I'm just gonna say that for
the final time and let it be okay. I know,
it's just that's what they did. They were only send
in three and four. Can you count how many blitzeres?
Did they have any dB blitzes? They might have sent

(37:37):
Elliott once, They sent Elliott once. I think they sent
Queen a couple times.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
No, that wasn't a dB though a couple of times
I know we had Ramsey get two sacks against Cleveland.
That's just what I'm saying. They were more exotic with
what they were doing. There was no creative problem. The
problem is that Chase is open from second one. Higgins
is open from second one. So it really doesn't matter
if you're sending a blitz. If the ball's out in

(38:03):
two seconds and those guys are wide open, they just.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
They the plan.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Whatever their plan was, it was a bad plan and
it worked badly and it was very obviously flawed.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
So they have to figure it out. Yeah, and I
said keep feeding more, and you saw what happened. I
was like, they punched right back. Another team gets on
top like that in the same way, I'm gonna say,
like the Lions, and I don't know that they'll be
able to climb back in that kind of game. And
that team is going to run the football. They're gonna
pound it down their throat and you're gonna be in Detroit.
Some's Green Bay. Green Bay's gonna run the ball. Yeah.

(38:37):
Jacobs is a big part of what they do because
if they become one dimensional. Jordan Love he turns into
a pumpkin at midnight, So the Cinderella things kind of
done with him there. But that'll do it for us,
I think, Brian, there's only so many and probably the
most negative we've been in a little while. But again,
it's just a game. It's one game. Even within the game,

(39:00):
I was like, well, there's plenty of time left. There's
plenty of time left. You made the comment Steelers scored
too quick with that big Pat friar Muth play. Absolutely,
but you can't count on scoring. You know, you can't.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
You take them when you get him, and legitimately you
should be able to to try and count on that
defense to you.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Stought there'd be some magtor at some point, and I
thought they were doing. The only adjustment I saw was
Eckles coming in for Slay. I don't know if that
was due to injury or performance, and I thought Eccles
was doing a little better, uh with his assignments there.
But they couldn't just put Ramsey. Ramsey was trailing a
little bit, then he wasn't he would switch off because

(39:43):
that final play was the Higgins where I probably pushed
off and then Higgins slides instead of scoring it's almost
like drag him into the end zone so Steelers get
the ball last, you know what I mean? And uh,
you know again, like he was still in it to
the end with Rogers that I cannot that hell, Mary
was something and there were people criticizing that this morning too,

(40:03):
and it's like it is a last ditch desperation effort.
I'm not going to criticize it didn't time to jump
or something like, I don't get out of here with that.
That's desperation. At the end. They should have stopped one
of these other scoring drives that happened. They made it
look a little too easy at certain times. But and

(40:23):
to be honest, these touchdown drives, you had one that
was ten plays, one that was three plays. They'd throw
a bomb the josavash who there was actual I don't
know if this came up, if you could hear it
on TV or not. There was applause after he finally
caught a pass because the guy had been dropping balls
worse than Jerry Judy in Cleveland. A fourteen play drive

(40:44):
that was stopped for a field goal. That was their
longest drive, and that was half of the third quarter.
And it was like that was desperation, because if they
don't hold them to a field goal, then that's game
over probably right there. Eight play sixty seven yards touchdown,
nine play sixty three field goal. I had joked that
I didn't know who or the name of the Cincinnati punter,

(41:06):
because they punted twice to start the game. They didn't
punt again until very late in the fourth quarter when
the Steelers did get that big play from Friarmuth on
the ensuing possession, and you were just you were just
hoping maybe they could run and eat a little bit
of clock. But it was north of the north of
the two minute warning. Bengals still had two timeouts. They
lost one of the challenge and that's all she wrote.

(41:28):
Got to be able to do something there. I don't know.
Is it Tomlin, is it Austin? I don't know who
the culprit is. A lot of people are going to
point to Tomlin. He's the one in charge. I can't
disagree with that.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
So yeah, I'm I'm gonna go on the attack here
very soon and say that at the end of the
season they need.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
To hire Matt Patricia from the Ohio State. Matt Patricia
has not had a good very good track record as
an NFL defensive cooridator necessary either as a defensive coordinator,
he's not been bad. As our head coach, not so good.
Yeah yeah, but we shall see, my friend. We have

(42:10):
a mini buy here, which means we probably won't be
back until round this time next week with the pregame
for the Green Bay Packers Pittsburgh Steelers, a Sunday night affair.
But Terry Fletcher will be back earlier in the week
filling in the gap there with their WTF show, so
tune into that to be filled up by that Thursday

(42:30):
night game. I'm tired of all of the you know
I've been. I like to get back to a little
bit of normalcy with the schedule myself, because it's rocking
us all over the place. So we'll get back there
at some point. Until then, folks, don't forget the like,
comment and subscribe. Thank you for watching us on YouTube
or Spotify or listening on any of the other various

(42:53):
podcasting platforms that are out there. My name is Joe,
his name's Brian. Got anything else for us? Brian? Uh No,
I was wondering you were looking there. I was like,
I don't want to cut you off, buddy, if you
had something else in sentence. He doesn't, so next time,
as we always do, we encourage everyone out there to
be safe, be good, and we'll catch you later.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
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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