Steelers can’t afford another collapse with the Colts coming to town

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 hoes.
Joe Kuzma and Brian E. Rose.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the steels
City Underground podcast. My name is Joe Kuzma and joining
me once again on this beautiful Halloween A one mister,
Brian e Roach Brian trick or treat my friend.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Uh, it's probably gonna be a trick, because maybe Tomorrow
will be a treat, but I'm not.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
I don't think Sunday is going to be a trick.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh man, I mean, uh, stranger things have happened. Pittsburgh
Steelers get for the first time this year, back to
back home games. They host the four and three Pittsburgh
Steelers hosting the seven to one Indianapolis Colts. Best team
and football right now? And who would ever funk it
with Daniel Jones. I don't know, though, I actually thought

(01:07):
that the Colts would. I didn't think the Colts would
be this good, but I thought they would actually be
improved because Anthony Richardson, which if you hadn't seen this,
he may end up if he doesn't play another down,
or throw another pass, or complete another pass. He will
end up being the only player in NFL history that's
completed one pass the entire season, and that was to himself.

(01:29):
It was something along those lines. I'm just like, that's
absolutely wild. But yes, that's very strange. That is very well,
it's not unheard of. And you saw what the Colts
were like last year when Flacco got in there, right,
So they're a pretty complete football team. They're young football
team across the board. They unlike what we were saying
with you know, you're not scared about some of the

(01:51):
Green Bay Packers necessarily receivers. Well, you didn't have to
worry about the receivers. You just had to worry about
to worry about the tight end. Worry about the tight end.
And then they've got a rookie tight end here and
Tyler Warren that's a fantastic one so far and he completes.
You know, you've got Jonathan Taylor running back, You've got

(02:13):
a decent offensive line, You've got a slew of a
plethora whatever you want to call him. Of wide receivers,
Michael Pittman Junior, Alec Pearce, Josh Downs, Donnie Mitchell. They're
all over the place into certain aspects, different types of
different consistency among this offense. Where we're talking a lot

(02:34):
about Colts offense, we're talking a lot about how that's
going to affect Steelers defense, which there's been a ginormous
lack of everything. The Steelers are dead last and giving
up passing yards on defense. Colts are actually pretty bad too.
They're twenty ninth. A little better against the run, but
a lot of teams are playing catch up against an

(02:55):
offense that's first in the National Football League. The Colts
averaging third, almost thirty four points per game. They're takeaways,
they're a plus eight, where the Steelers are a plus four. Defensively,
they're giving up a little over nineteen points per game.
That's sixth best in the NFL. You've got the Steelers

(03:16):
who right now are eleventh in points scored with twenty five.
That's also what they're giving up on defense on average,
is twenty five points per game. Not at all looking
very evenly matched, Brian, but the over under for this
game fifty and a half points. They're expecting the ball
to get thrown everywhere. Colts are favored by three. That's

(03:39):
about where I would I would expect all of it
this time, this time of the year, and on paper,
and we'll discuss some things maybe where the Steelers can
what they can do, and we'll look at this laundry
list of an injury report here in a second as well.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Colts by three, I'm I'm I'm taking I'd take that action.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
I don't think it'll be Cults by three. I think
it'll be Cults by a lot more than three.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I mean, I'm telling you, I've seen we saw a
big and I know it's Ben Roethlisberger, and it's a
different era, and it's everything else. I remember some of
these high powered Colts teams coming into Pittsburgh and just
getting the doors blown off of them.

Speaker 5 (04:17):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I don't have those type of expectations. I'm really trying
to be I'm trying to lean toward bias. I think
the only thing we could really do for any of
that is maybe give just a little bit of the
factoids of the game before we dig into it.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Maps, your maps, the maps the maps are back. So
what color are we red? You should have realized that
with Pittsburgh there so that's a good point. You know
what I'm gonna throw. I'm gonna throw this the little
uh overlay off there so you could see even down
in the Florida areas, a lot of people are getting

(04:52):
this game. And I can tell you the other games.
You've got blue for the forty nine Ers and Giants,
you've got green for the Fucons of Patriots, you got
for the Bears and Bengals at the same time, and
then the Chargers and the Titans are orange and you
could barely find that on the map if you look
hard enough. It's just in LA and basically the great
State of Tennessee. If it's great, I don't know if Tennessee's.

(05:15):
This is the first time this map has actually made sense,
I know, except for the Denver market maybe like the
whole you know, you go right through down to Texas
and then as the game that they're getting is.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
But I mean, the.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Colts are a better team and with football, and the
Steelers have a large fan base, so it does make
a lot of sense to me. So this one's CBS
if you're in Pittsburgh, Katie K Channel two. Sorry, I'm
saying a lot of o's and m's and everything like that.
I'm really trying to collect myself out of a brain
fog and really not say some things I'm going to
regret about the Steelers. You know, I'm more excited about

(05:49):
a Halloween. I think we're both. I got the Reaper
might be coming for the Steelers. I don't think he's
coming for Mike Tomlin just yet. But Terrell Austin, you know,
there's conflicting things. You've got some guys like Chris Carter.
Is Chris Carter with the DK still I think so?
Or maybe he's over with one of the local papers.
But he says, you know what, Mike Tomalin doesn't call
the plays. That's a common misconception any of Jerry Dulac

(06:11):
causing a lot of trouble. And he goes, well, Tomlin
installs all of this. So if he doesn't call the plays,
that's just one little minor thing. And I'm like, Tomin
doesn't walk around with the waffle house menu like any
coaches that you've seen, head coaches that are involved in
the play calling. Maybe he needs to be more involved,
whatever it may take. So we'll talk about some of
these adjustments in a second. Mike Tomlin's eight and three

(06:32):
against the Colts lifetime in his career nineteen seasons. Is
the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Shane strait Steichen
can't say his name, Colt's head coach. Third season. He's
twenty four and eighteen. He's two and zero against Steelers
so far. They've been playing the Colts a lot. Almost
every year. They've had a very similar finish. Yeah, that's

(06:54):
similar finish that gets you playing the same AFC opponents
at home. The Steelers lead series twenty to three. They
won the last one twenty eight to twenty four, back
in late December of twenty twenty. And this will be
the forty fifth overall and fortieth regular season meeting between
these two teams. One o'clock kickoff, Natural Grass, Yeah, I

(07:18):
and Eagle, JJ Watt, Evan Washburn. We're used to hearing
those guys on the CBS call Rob King, Max Starksmiththy Matthews,
Steelers Audio Network nationwide on Compass Media with Chris Carino
and Brian Baldinger. Brian Baldinger always has great takes, so
he's going to see this stuff in person and has
some awesome tweets coming Monday or Tuesday, so look for
those on satellite radio series one sixty XM two thirty one,

(07:41):
Internet eight twenty six. Craig Rollstad is your referee, and
let's get down to the injury report. Brian nitty gritty,
I'm gonna shut the let's see. I don't know what
I want to leave on and off the screen. Here
we have a DMP two days in a row for
Scottie Miller, not looking good with the figure. I thought
he surgery on it. He did, but he didn't go

(08:01):
to IR or something like that. Ben' scronick back to
full practice. Will Howard, who's working within the twenty one
day window. We'll see that again down further with Malik
Harrison and then Corey Trace. They're all in the twenty
one day windows. Deshaun Elliott going to IR. We'll talk
about that move here in a moment. He's also DMP.

(08:23):
He was a DMP on here. You're probably wondering, well,
a guy that goes to R. Well, the transaction was
like officially final as a four o'clock yesterday with the
trade for Kyle Duggar. So we'll talk about that in
a second. I'm actually excited about that, but when talking
about some of the things that they could change, you
never know. Trice or Harrison could be a part of
that equation, probably more so with special teams. Zach Fraser

(08:44):
still being babied along from the injury midweek. Last week,
Isaac sayamalo, don't know, doesn't look good. Doubt he's going
to be playing in this game as a DMP for
two days. We'll see what is Friday prognosis is John
new Smith resting veteran Pat Fryarmuth popped up with a quad,
but he was a full participant Thursday. Daniel Qualay also

(09:06):
going to IR and out for the season. Literally played
one snap in the last game. Dk metcalf arresting veteran,
newly acquired Kyle Duggar and his former running mates in
New England as well Jes Burrell Peppers are on here
nia QUADRICEP full participant limited on Thursday, they had no
designation Wednesday. Cole Holcombe illness did not practice and in

(09:28):
resting veterans for Cam Hayward and Darius Slay both on Thursday.
The Colts have a bunch two. Nick Cross safety returned,
Josh Downs returned, Samson Abu Coom as a d MP.
There's a guy that was you know, we had him
on the show a long time ago.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
We had him on the show back in the day.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Back in the day. Man, he carved out a pretty
nice career for himself in the NFL. I gotta say
Matt Gonclaves formerly at Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh tackle here
back to practice, Anthony Golden reserve wide receiver DNP. Then
you've got Jalen Jones, Taekwon Lewis, Kenny Moore, Braydon Smith

(10:09):
all return to practice full participant. All of them had
some form of designation knee, hamstring, groin, achilles. Grover Stewart
defensive tackle also DMP last two days. So the injuries
are piling up for everyone and not unheard of this

(10:31):
time of the season, where you know you've got to
fight through what we call like the different adversity and whatnot.
So the cults themselves, I'd say a fairly healthy team
for the most part. Though, even considering all of the
names that we listed on there, it doesn't seem like
they've got any any major major players that are missing,

(10:55):
and that's one of the reasons that they've had a
lot of success thus far. So getting through all of that,
let's talk about the big move right now and how
this might factor into what the Steelers are going to do.
Kyle Dugger, I don't know how you felt about it.
I told you how I felt about it, and I
told you what I would do. I haven't been a
fan of Chuck Clark, haven't been a fan of one Thornhill.
You want to slow down these receivers tight ends, and

(11:16):
also have to stop the run. Jabrell Peppers is a
guy that could stop the run. I think you had
mentioned something you didn't feel as confident, maybe in his
coverage skills, and I said, well, it can be much
worse than anybody else at this point. Communications wise, I
don't know that a lot translates over from New England.
Obviously New England has changed their systems a few times,

(11:37):
and Mike Drabel being in charge now is one of
the reasons why Duggar I feel, who just signed a
large contract, by the way of which New England's still
eating quite a bit of it in the final two
years that are a little bit bigger money have been
wiped out as part of this trade. But the Steelers
swap a sixth and seventh round, pick their sixth for
New England seventh and get a quality starting safety that's

(11:57):
going to probably play in place of just On Elliott
now for communication purposes and some of the lack of
communication that we've been talking about. That's why I don't
put him out there with Chuck Clark. That's why I
don't put him out there with one thornhill. I put
him out there with Peppers. I've seen Peppers moving people around.
He seems to already have a grasp on He's telling
people where to go. He seems like he's somewhat of

(12:18):
a leader. I give him a shot and see what
goes with these two. At least they at least they
might have a feel for one another on the field.
At the same time, Sure, what can it hurt at
this point right thirty second's that's the bottom line.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
What they've been doing ain't working.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
You know, they they are atrocious, So sure, try something new.
I mean, you don't have any choice because Deshaun Elliott
is going is on ir so you know they made
the move to get a starting, quality starting safety. Dugger's
going to come in. I'm sure he's going to be
a starter we just have to wait and see. You know,

(12:59):
there's there is no point in trying to do the
same things over and over again that aren't working, So yeah,
mix it up.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
I have no problem with putting Peppers out and Dugger
out there.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Maybe they do have some synchronicity from having played together
in New England.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
We'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
My confidence level is so low for this game, I
can't even tell.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
You I understand it.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
I'm trying to get geeked up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I don't think they'll be the same six enthusiastic sixty
seven thousand fans. Of course, Colts fans I don't know
are going to be coming in mass like the Green
Bay Packers fans were either. Dugger is a versatile chess
piece is played all over the secondary as well. But
what this affords you besides the person calling you for
your car insurance or your car warranty, Brian, Now that

(13:50):
deep doop deep deep DOOPU the uh Dougger Dugger allows
you not having to weaken yours. I don't know if
you can weaken the scheme. You can't get worse than
thirty two, right, but or thirty second or last in
the league. But you don't have to move Ramsey around. Now,
have Ramsey play safety. You were questioning, you know, Ramsey

(14:13):
playing on you know, the outside. I think you're just
asking too much of him and then moving him around.
Maybe he does a little bit of that, Maybe he
flirts with it while they get Dugger. I don't know
that Dougger just jumps right in. Does he play a
full game, I mean he's been he's been playing. He
has several starts for the Patriots this season alone, and

(14:33):
they just wanted to do something different. I still think
that he's a very quality player. I feel like he
could be a tackling machine. Excuse me, I mean he played.
He fully played each of their last two games against
the Saints and the Titans as well. So I feel
I feel better about putting Dugger out there, even even

(14:55):
if he gets lost a little bit then I do.
I don't know. I just feel like some of the
other guys have lost I've lost a little bit of
a step. You got to get the secondary to lock down.
We talked about this a little bit in the last show.
I feel like Joey Porter only gets really targeted. Uh,
Joey Porter's only noticed when he's flagged. There's a few
times where I think, yeah, Joey has not made he's

(15:15):
not been physical, he's not been making tackles that he
needs to make. But in coverage, I thought he's been
fairly solid. I think that Darius Slay. Maybe maybe Father
Times caught up Darius Slay. Maybe you know, you've got.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Just sorry about that.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
And then I go and double down and hit the
microphone again, of course, but just showing off the raper here.
Maybe Father Times caught up to Darius Slay. Maybe you
got to use him in a different aspect. That's not
somebody else talking about all these brain kind of moves
and trades that you can make there.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
I didn't think safety would be available, but safety is
probably more available than a starting corner at this point.
Premium corners like somebody's like, well they could go Maybe
Jets aren't go anywhere, Go get sauce gardener. If the
Jets ever want to go anywhere, you don't get rid
of the nation. And trust me, defense isn't the reason
why that.

Speaker 5 (16:05):
Team's usually losing either.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
They they don't move the ball on offense, and then
poor defense play you know, is playing forty minutes a
game out in New York. So it's kind of where
the Steelers need some complimentary football, but just sticking with
what can you do a little differently.

Speaker 5 (16:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I don't know if it's scheme. I don't know if
it's schematic. Somebody was talking about this and I don't
know who to attribute it to, but they were like,
what else did you say? They don't make adjustments? But
we saw them move Ramsey over to you know, move
Ramsey around on the field to cover different people. Even
against the Bengals, you saw them try to attempt to

(16:42):
play zone instead of man and not just nothing is
working no matter what they do here. I think this
the big chess piece here is you know, alex Heismit's
been on and off the field going back to training camp,
and then you've got all of these things coming out
with the metrics now, the kind of back up the
things we've been talking about with Nick Krbik being a dude,

(17:04):
and we also talked about Nick Herbick maybe being a
guy that gets an extension next year. That's the one
you want to keep, especially as TJ maybe you know,
starts he's starting to get into his thirties, and it
might be prime prime time a little different than what
we're talking about with Darius Slave right, because speed matters
more at those you know, wide receiver and corner and

(17:27):
positions like that. And then of course your durability is
a running back, you can play until forty ish, as
Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady's of the world show you
as a quarterback, the less speed you need. The same
with offensive linemen. Meg's look at some of the guys
playing with the Eagles, Brandon Graham coming out of retirement,
you know what I mean. Cam Hayward's still playing with
the Steelers. I think you got to get Derek Carmon
and why Black on the field. I think these are

(17:49):
guys that were brought in to plug up holes, to
eat up it, take on more than one, take on
double teams from the opposing offensive lineman, and maybe that's
how you get guys like what high Smith herbig free
and maybe you send the occasional blitzer. Patrick Queen has
had some success doing that from time to time. But

(18:11):
what you can't do is is just stand there like
a sitting duck and let these out routes and slants
kill you again and again and again. It has to
be cohesive. The secondary has to do some of their
job in order to give the pass rush enough time
to get there. Because, trust me, well, Daniel Jones has
been playing some good ball. He's still Daniel Jones when
you get down to it, and we know what Daniel Jones.

(18:36):
You know what he'll do when he gets pressured. I
guess is what I should say if they could get
the pressure to him.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Here's the thing the Steelers have over the last I
don't know couple games.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
They're the fifth highest blitzing team. They blitz at the.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Fifth highest rate of any team in football, and they've
given up let me look, three hundred and twelve passing
yards on blitzes. They're getting killed. There's an article on
The Athletic that's a very good article and it points
out a lot of very good points related to why
the Steelers defense is struggling, and one of the primary

(19:11):
reasons is it's not a creative defense anymore. No everybody
knows what they're doing and they can scheme around it.
Jamar Chase said it after the Bengals game. They did
exactly what we expected them to do, and we're hoping
they would do. Of course, if they know what's coming,
you know, if they know what your scheme is going
to be, all they have to do is plan how

(19:33):
to beat it. And you don't have the creativity in
adjusting to it. I mean, I don't want to say
they don't make adjustments, but they don't make good adjustments
right now. And there's just a lack of creativity in
using the pieces they have to the point where opposing

(19:54):
offenses are not afraid of this defense.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, and you could, and you know they don't ignore TJ.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
Watt. I think TJ.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Watt is still a game wrecker, but no one else
is stepping up in that spot. And I think that's
where her big needs to be, if you get somebody
else that can step up. And of course, like you
were saying, they do send the blitz, but it's still
not getting anywhere. Sometimes right we've seen doesn't get home
rams he breakthrough or something like that, But for the
most part, it's still a hat on a hat. You

(20:23):
would think when you're sending you know, five or six,
somebody's got to break free, and nobody's breaking free, and
that is problematic against I mean Shane Steichen I still
can't say that name together. It's like three times fast.
Shane Steichen. He's offensive minded head coach, so he's a
guy that's calling he's calling some plays, he's you know,

(20:46):
he's got them running like a well oiled unit. As
far as that's concerned. What you need, Brian is I
think complimentary football, and we've seen it in flashes from
the Steelers. It's been better with Aaron Rodgers, who already
has sixteen touchdown passes this season. We saw Roman Wilson
finally kind of emerge a little bit in the last

(21:08):
game and be somebody that Rogers can rely on in
the past game, and that's going to help maybe take
some heat off of DK Metcalf, who you know, drips
and drabs. DK still has five touchdowns, which is you know,
that's a full season. When George Pickens was here, four
or five was the total that George was getting period.
I think maybe if they could run the football a

(21:29):
little bit. The complementary part of this is you can't
go out there and throw three in complete passes and
up take twenty seconds off the play clock. You know
what I mean, They've got to in two minutes of
real time where you've got some guys sucking wind and
now the defense is back on the field after just
having seven scored on them, and you get no chunks

(21:52):
in the field position battle. That's what they've got to do.
They got to get back to controlling the time of possession.
They've also been on the wrong side of the turnover
battle over the last few games as well. They have
not created any splash plays whatsoever on the defensive side
of the ball, and they've had some unlucky turnovers on offense.

(22:14):
You know, there's ones that are always going to happen,
and then there's like the real crazy flute thing where
you know, there's the interception with dk Metcalf in the
middle of catching the ball gets ripped from him and
technically doesn't hit the ground, and then it's an interception
on Roger statline. So it's going to be interesting to
see what happens if Sam Malo doesn't play, because a

(22:35):
lot of the success has been predicated on playing Spencer
Anderson is that extra offensive lineman that's not going to
be available because he is now going to fill in
for Sam Malo, and you get to see the future
of this young offensive line now sans.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
You know, their.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Most veterans, seasoned veteran. He is definitely see a seasoned
veteran and get to see too like, okay, they picked
up like a Jack Driscoll on the practice squad. You've
seen him, uh, you know, bounce around here or there
is this somebody? Did they coach him or Calvin Anderson
or who did they coach up to? Do they have

(23:10):
another guy that's going to be that tackle eligible? Are
they just going to have to change everything? Are they
gonna start playing three wides? Or are they gonna trust the
five as you know, the five offensive linemen out there,
you know, Rogerick Jones by himself, Troy Fautanu by himself.
Maybe maybe you don't have to assist as much anymore.
You're now in week nine, so maybe that's it. But

(23:31):
don't forget they got, you know, Grover Stewart, DeForest Buckner
and Laya to Law too, and they got some guys
that could come and bring the noise that the whole
Front's quitty pay. The whole Front seven is great. Jermaine
Pratt may remember him in the AFC nord Zi you're
Franklin Makai black Blackman really it's there back in with

(23:55):
camp buying them. Jonathan Edwards and then Kenny. You got
Kenny Moore, Nick Cross. I'm sorry, not black men, but
I hear Franklin Jermaine Pratt primarily their middle linebackers. And
they saw Buddy Johnson kicking around too, which is kind
of funny. He's deep on this roster after being drafted
by the Steelers. Remember that name. So yeah, so that's

(24:17):
kind of interesting. But the guys on the back end
there with black men cross by them, Edwards and more
is where I'm looking at. As much as I say
that I would like them to run the football. It'd
be nice if they could against this front seven. But
as we've seen, the Colts have given up maybe more
passing yards. Maybe it's because teams get behind that eight
ball and have to play more catch up throwing the ball.

(24:39):
Maybe the Steelers can expose something. I will say I've
watched very little of some of the Colts games this
season because they're not the best games to watch their
opponents and you can only play who they you know
who you play. But they have victories over the Dolphins, Broncos,
and Titans. They lost a close game with the Rams,
and then they've beaten the Raiders, Cardinals, Chargers, and then

(25:00):
the second game with the Titans as well. There's a
lot of you know, mediocre teams, but they've also put
up twenty nine or more on all but one of
those games, and that was sending the loss against the Rams. Yeah,
I look, You're Steelers have been giving up thirty plus,

(25:21):
is what you're thinking.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
What I'm thinking is, yeah, this is I'm trying very
hard to find a ray of hope, but I just
think this is going to be a disaster. I think
that this is going to be a game after which
there could be fallout.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
That's how bad I think this game could be.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I know, man, you can't sit here and confidently say anything.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
You know, I'm trying to saying that, saying that they
will probably shut the Colts out and win the game
handily because there's.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
No good reason for them to do so.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
That's because that's because Ponies already said whatever he said,
and you know he's written it into law. But you
got the Colts, and then they're at the Chargers, and
then they bring the Bengals back before going to the Bears,
and you get Bills Ravens Dolphins, Lions, Browns, and then
Ravens again. There's a lot of difficult games along the horizon.

(26:19):
I told you, I told you, well, we knew that,
we knew that, and we also knew we also knew.
This is what sticks in mind to me, A hot mess.
Well here's the hot mess that I don't like, and
some people will disagree or whatever.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Baltimore had some tough games to start their schedule, but
they also got to play three in a row with
the Biden in the middle, all at home, even though
they had been injured. And then they get to play
after a bye week. They play at home host the Bears,
and then they go down to Miami in no weather
or anything's going to bother you. But Miami and the
Bears were already known to be mediocre teams heading into this, right,

(26:53):
everybody still thought the Browns might be competitive and the
Bengals our favorite to maybe even compete for a Super Bowl.
And that's the way you stack the Steelers schedule, you
know what I mean? It just it doesn't sit well
with man. I think after this mini by, I'm trying
to think who the Ravens, who they got next?

Speaker 5 (27:08):
After this?

Speaker 2 (27:09):
So they get a lot of rest to it at
the right time to ail some of their wounds. So
then they go on the road again and they have
the Vikings and then the Browns, but give them like
the Cleveland Browns, for example, even though the Browns have
been bad, the Browns will batter them on defense and
then let them go to Mina. I mean, Miami really
shot themselves in the foot more yesterday, and I don't
know if that's some of the rust being worked out

(27:29):
not having Lamar there for a while. But this is now,
This is wide open for the other teams to surpass
or take the Steelers lead. The Steelers had a chance
to close the door the Bengals game, in particular the Packers.
You know, I'll give them their flowers, we're due, But
if the Steelers could have won that Bengals game, they
create a little bit of more distance. Steelers just didn't

(27:51):
look competitive the entire second half against the Packers, and
they were only settling for field goals.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
You can't do this same thing against the Colts.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
I don't think it's going to work, and I think
the Colts probably have I'm not even going to say
probably they do, even though it's Josh Jacobs with the
Packers and the Packers Jordan Love. That's that that run
game with the Colts. He'll run all Taylor will run
all over you, and all you'll see is the back
of his license plate. You'll see his jersey number as
he's off in the distance. So I don't know how

(28:20):
or what they do the continus because normally would say, hey,
do this, do that any of the things that we've
been talking about, they have not been able to demonstrate.
They have not been able to demonstrate stopping to run
with several of these teams. They haven't been able to
stop the pass with several of these teams. Short passes
have been killing them. Middle of the field's been killing them. Penalties,
self defeating penalties. They've got a lot of things to

(28:43):
clean up. They haven't had a lot of time to
try and figure it out. And as you start to
play the rougher portion of your schedule, you just had
Green Bay come into town. Now you've got to play
this seven and one Colts team, and you're looking off
in the distance at you know a lot of other
there's there's no like real get right games that are

(29:03):
here that are left I mean, by the time you
met in Chicago, that might not be get right.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
You can't wait till that that's week fifteen. I know
that's the problem. That's the problem. This is I've said this.
I may have said this on the last show, but
I definitely have said this to some other Steelers fans.
I know this is looking like a six and eleven team.
I see two wins left on the schedule, maybe the
Browns and maybe the Dolphins.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, my dude, I'm with you one hundred percent of
the way. I'm gonna be blue in the face unless
they figure it out the problem. Maybe they can't because
I mean, they've just been playing. You know, I'm gonna
be quite a blunt about this. I've been playing like
such shit. It's kind of hard to be any worse
than they already have been. It is, and that's absolutely difficult. Yeah,

(29:49):
that floor, that floor is rock bottom. They've hit rock bottom.
So you know, any kind of proofal they've hit rock bottom? Yeah,
I don't know how you can How can you hit
any more rock bottom? And giving up thirty some points
in four or five games, and you know where they've
been with this and the way I don't know I
felt like they had the competitive juices flowing and they
found some ways to slow Green Bay and I know

(30:12):
some of it drop passes. It's also some of those
drop passes are still you get a hand and you
get in the face of the quarterback. You're breathing down
the receiver's neck, and you force that. You forced that
by virtue of at least being in position. The second
half of the Packers game, I don't think anybody was
in any position. People were just running free. Jamar Chase

(30:34):
just before that, just running free. You've got a load
of veterans, professionals, highly paid defensive players that should be
able to sit in a room and they bring experiences
from all different places that should be able to figure
this out. Whether they can or not is yours or
my guess. So, well, what's the bobblehead got to say?

(31:00):
Let's see again, this.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Has been picked by a randomizer, and I'm going to
tell you the bobblehead says they're going to win the game.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
But he's absolutely insane.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
He doesn't have a brain at he's a bobble header.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
So you know, you know, when you use a randomizer,
there's fifty to fifty chance that it goes either way.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
So the bobblehead thinks they're going to win. I don't
think they got a shot in hell.

Speaker 5 (31:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well I'm going to say this much too. It's an
AFC game, it's a home game. It's cult show me something,
even if it's not a victory. If they keep it
close to the vest and they don't give Let's say
they only give up like eighteen points to the Colts
and they lose like eighteen fourteen or something like that,
that might show me something at least as long as

(31:43):
it's not because the offense I turned to Paul over
four times or something like that close to the vest.
If it look like I look like a competent football team,
and then maybe we'll have a little more hope.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
If the defense can play at the level they should
be able to play, if they can execute correct instead
of making all of the mistakes that they continue to make,
not playing like a group of seasoned veterans, not playing
at the skill level that they.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
Actually have on the team.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
If they can do that right, if they can figure
it out and play at a at a reasonable level,
I'd be happy to see what happens that at the
end of the game with that, I just don't have
any confidence that they're going.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
To Yeah, unfortunately, I hear you the same way. I
was just looking to see if we got any further updates,
and just a lot of stuff about a lot of
other players and the official the official transactions are now

(32:44):
happening for the roster spots for Deshaun Elliott, Daniel Qualley
going on IR courtesy Brian Backo as we're here recording live.
As we're recording, so he thinks presumably those spots are
going to Will Howard and Malik Harris, and I think
Harrison has to be activated. I don't really know what
they do with Harrison because I don't think he moves

(33:05):
the needle anywhere. I'd rather play a hole. But yeah,
you and you're not gonna put him as an edge rusher.
I think Jack Sawyer's been just fine again. Play herbic
a little bit more. Steelers got the official transactions here,
you got Kyle Dugart. Let's see how much he plays,
Let's see how he's integrated. Let's bring see if he
brings a spark. I'm kind of excited about that versus

(33:26):
the alternative. I thought they had more depth here. In
the secondary and with the safeties than what I actually
thought I was. I was terrified of just the thought
of going with what they already had and it didn't
look good. And we also got to know that that's
a component of some of what was going on on
Sunday night too, against the Packers losing Samalo and losing Elliott,

(33:47):
having to make those adjustments in game. I think that
is something you could at least plan or just for
in the three days or so of practice that they were.

Speaker 5 (33:56):
Having ahead of the Colts matchup.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
So I have no predictions for this, Brian, as the
as the woman would say, I just hope both teams
have fun. So I think one of the teams is
gonna have a lot of fun. We shall see, my friend,
we shall see. So, folks, thank you for tuning in, listening,

(34:21):
or watching wherever you may be. Don't forget to like,
comment and subscribe. My name is Joe and his name
is Brian. Here we go, Steelers. It's like one of
those like here we go like or like.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
It sort of feels like I just don't want it
to be. Here we go again. That's what I want.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Only if it's white, my friend, Only if it's white
going now on the only road I've ever known, and
that seems to be the case here for us at
Steelers Station. So that'll do it for us. Folks, close
out the show as we always do. My name's Joe,
his name's Brian. We have nothing else for the two percenters.

(35:03):
I mean, we're just many of Oh, I should say,
at least the two percenters that dropped into comments. I
didn't get a chance to respond to everyone, but I
told you I would probably agree with all beans in
I do. There was a whole bunch of it except
for one guy that was like, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
The except the guy who thought we were making Tomlin excuses,
And I'm like, I don't think we're.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Making necessarily Tomlin excuses. The thing is, if Mike Tomlin's
not your head coach, you probably lose more games, because
I think at least Mike Tomlin's got the got some
experience and knows how to you know, how to manage
some of this stuff, you know what I mean. He
gets a lot out of nothing sometimes, but he's getting
a lot of nothing out of a lot right now.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's the exact time I just want to say, I'm
not going to I'm not going to worry about Mike
Tomlin because I know how the Rooneyes operate, right, So
I'm not going to waste a lot of breath saying
tom Lins you go, or Tomlin's going to stay, or
Tomlin's great or Tomlins not great. I think Mike Tomlin
has been a consistently very good coach, but the defensive,
the defense has continually slid, and if his fingerprints are

(36:03):
all over it, then that's a that's a problem with
Mike Tomlin.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
But I don't know that.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
I only know you know, you know, I don't know
who's actually putting this scheme together. And as more head
coaches will tell you than not, the head coach position
is so reliant on their coordinators because you're really a
manager more than you are a coach. You're managing a
whole slew of things within your team, and you're not

(36:28):
really diving into the day to day intricacies of the
defense or the offense unless you know that, unless that
happens to be your Bally Wick.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
So I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
I calculate, well, what about this? But they talk about
there's two narratives that are out there that are the
ruinies are cheap and Tom I won't hire anyone that
will overshadow or show him up. And I was in
reference to Brian Flores in particular and going to the Vikings,

(37:00):
and I'm like, if you paid attention to what the
Vikings or the Vikings don't look very sharp.

Speaker 5 (37:05):
On defense right now.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
And they're doing the same kind of things the things
that were working for them because the offense was clicking
a little more when they had Sam Darnold last year.
And they're putting up some points, the zero blitzes and
things like that. Those things are all being exposed right
now and there's film on it now. But but there's
somebody that went as far as to not even say
Flores is DC, but they were talking about him as

(37:26):
a head coach and he was not the best when
it comes to being a head coach. Of course, that's
with a very you should say. There's controversy with his
tenure in Miami for me to fully say that, But
you see it all the time with coordinators that get
called up. Arthur Smith, who's the current offensive coordinator, hot higher,
hot hand, and you even see this with Shane Steichen.

(37:48):
You know, look how long it's taken him just to
get the Colts to where it's at right now. A
lot of people thought that maybe he's on the hot seat.
There's been some more stability, particularly in the AFC North.
But when you look around the league and you look
at the different coaches and you look at the ones
that even Mike McCarthy, who's jobless right now, they were
pointing out on serious XM NFL radio even just yesterday

(38:10):
they were talking about Tom and they were talking about
John Harbaugh ahead of the Thursday night game. Of course
they're talking about McCarthy. They're talking about why can't I
think it was named Sean Payton. I might be missing
one coach in here. There's like four or five guys
that all have, you know, like about a sixty five
percent regular season win percentage. They all have about within

(38:32):
one win or one last playoff the same record. They
all have exactly one super Bowl victory, and they all
have to contend with playing against guys like Bill Belichick
and Andy Reid over the course of all of this,
who have had a tremendous amount of success. And I said,
you know what, they definitely hit the nail on the
head and you've got some fans are impatient because there's

(38:52):
fans that were, you know, calling for John Harbaugh's head.

Speaker 5 (38:55):
Is where this came up.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
And you know, they brought Tomlin into conversation about being
longer tenured, having that kind of span of consistency, and
it's like, that's the reason why these guys stay where
they are. They have just had somebody comment and said
trade Tom and it's like, for what, there's somebody out
there talking about John Gruten and if you want to
playoff that, that's not the guys, that's not the guy
that you want. Because John Gruten had gone like ten

(39:19):
seasons since he's had like a post season victory. So
I'll leave that. I'll leave that the simmer in everyone's
brains that you know, the grass isn't always greener on
the other side. Once again, folks, don't forget to like,
comment and subscribe. Thank you for supporting Still City Underground
wherever you're watching or listening. My name is Joe, his
name's Brian. Until next time, we encourage everyone out there,

(39:43):
please be safe, Please be good out there, trick or treating,
don't light anything on fire on Sunday and we'll catch you.

Speaker 5 (39:49):
Later we would like it.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Thank you for listening, and remind our listeners to follow
us on social.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Media and our website www. Dot steel City Underground dot
com

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Ruthie's Table 4

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Steelers can’t afford another collapse with the Colts coming to town

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Ruthie's Table 4

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Steelers can’t afford another collapse with the Colts coming to town

On Purpose with Jay Shetty