DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: All about the ones

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: All about the ones

[Music] So yeah, how about those cuts and how about those moves and how about everybody going right back on the practice squad. It’s almost as if the fringe stuff doesn’t matter. Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I’m Dan Kvachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into hockey andor baseball. I also offer daily shots of Penguins and Pirates that I hope you’ll also check out. The team is in day two of a mandated 4-day break. The team will reunite Monday for the formal beginning of week one of the National Football League’s regular season. And when it does, it’ll go back to the rightful focus on what’s known in this business as the ones. In football, you’ve got the ones, you’ve got the twos, you even got the threes. And what we end up doing, those of us on the outside, we sure do invest a lot of time and energy into those fringey moves. And in the process, we can kind of forget that by the time the football flies at 10:02 p.m. a couple of Sundays from now, the players who take the field will be Aaron Rogers and DK Metaf and John Smith and Cam Hayward and TJ Watt and Alex Highmith, Jaylen Ramsay. You get the idea. These are the players you’re actually going to be laying eyes on. These are the players who are actually going to matter. They’re the ones who are actually going to determine whether or not the Steelers do in fact make the playoffs and make something maybe even more significant out of the coming season. Now, all of that’s kind of obvious and not at all worth your generous pressing of the play button on this particular program today. So, I’m going to try to take it a little bit further. And I’m going to begin by sharing with you that there was nothing, no single facet of this football operation that was more scintillating than watching the connection between Rogers and Metaf in Latroe. I have thousands of people who made that journey to St. Vincent College who will back me up on this. There’s something special there between the two of them. Just because neither of them got into a preseason game doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. And it doesn’t mean that we should judge the preseason or really this offense as a whole based on what you saw among the twos and the threes in the fold. I have a lot more that I can say here, but I’m going to stop out of respect to certain individuals. There is a difference between the ones and the twos. And from there, there’s a chasm between the twos and the threes. There’s nothing comparable on this team’s offense, not in any capacity toward the dynamic that was being seen between Rogers and Metaf. It wasn’t just deep balls. It wasn’t just combat catches. It wasn’t just Well, it wasn’t just anything. They did a little bit of everything. But the part that for me was the most enticing was the timing that they’d been developing. When Metaf turned around, wherever he happened to be on the field, ball was already there. It already had his name on it. And my friends, that’s the kind of thing that only happens, well, normally with a whole bunch of repetitions, a whole bunch of experience together. These guys have been working at it. Just because it’s not happening in front of cameras doesn’t mean it’s not happening. It’s very, very much happening. I can’t wait to see it happen for real. Here’s another one. Smith, 88 catches, 883 yards, leading receiver on the Dolphins last season as a tight end. Scarcely saw a single snap in anger over the course of training camp in the preseason. He’s still the same player, 29 years old, ready to go, fully healthy by all accounts. big big yards after the catch guy. When was the last time the Steelers had one of those? Answer that honestly. When was the last time the Steelers had a Yak guy? All this guy is for all the agonizing about wide receiver is a wide receiver in a tight end’s frame. Oh, and additionally, one who’s capable of lining up in multiple positions and doing multiple things as was shown in Latroe at times. Depending on how Arthur Smith uses John Smith and the remainder of the tight ends, the Steelers could be less predictable offensively. Certainly from their route patterns, their tells at the line, their blocking schemes. There could be something here that we haven’t seen, not just in a long time, but ever. Unless, of course, you can think of a three tight end set in franchise history of any note. Defensively, the easy thing for me to say is, “Well, listen, you put TJ out there, you put Alex out there, and you’ve got all of your your fangs back. Everything’s going to look a whole lot better just by virtue of them participating.” But that’s not it either. What was seen in the opening two or three days of a training camp and not afterward, and I don’t think this was a coincidence, was a relentless, merciless scheme to attack the opponent’s backfield from every conceivable direction. And it was a joy to watch, except, of course, if you were the opposing quarterback. They came from all over. You had no idea who was coming and who wasn’t. And just to throw out some examples, I can recall Joey Porter rushing and TJ dropping into coverage. And you’d look at that and you’d go, “Yuck. What is that?” And then you’d see that Joey made a tackle for a loss and he was jumping up and down and celebrating it. We saw it with Jaylen Ramsay. We saw it with Brandon Eckles. We saw it with Darius Slay. We saw it with Deshawn Elliott. These are all secondary. These are all defensive backs and they were all getting involved. Now, what’s that going to mean when they go up against Justin Fields in the first game? In all likelihood, and we’re going to get into this next week, they’re going to want Justin to pick one side or the other. They don’t want to have to worry about him doing some sort of dramatic cutback, but they’re going to do it with numbers. That’s me saying that, not them. That’s based on what I’ve seen of what these guys hope to look like at their best. These are the ones and these are the ones schemes and these have not been seen by probably 99.999% of the people who follow this football team. If you happened to be among the fortunate few who were out there in Latroe in the opening week, you got the preview. You won’t be surprised by a whole heck of a lot. That matters when we come back. J1Q [Music] Luxembourg Garbet Kelly and George is a personal injury law firm in Western Pennsylvania that represents injured people in automobile accidents, workers compensation cases, and medical malpractice claims. The attorneys at Luxembourg Garbage Kelly and George pride themselves in doing what they say they’re going to do. It’s important to them that when they make you a promise, they keep that promise. And this law firm has been keeping promises for over 80 years. Luxembourg Garbid Kelly and George has been AV rated. That’s the highest rating a law firm can receive for legal ability and ethics. And the lawyers at the firm have been designated super lawyers. That’s a real thing. For over 15 years, rare combination there. Luxembourg, Garbet, Kelly, and George has offices in Cranberry, Newcastle, Beaver Falls, Butler, and Elwood City. Learn more about them at lgk.com or by calling 8888425454. Again, that’s 8888425454. [Music] Today’s J1 Q comes from Bruce Hamilton. It’s in reference to yesterday’s show opening about Will Howard and how much his early career trajectory has been hurt by not being able to participate in these three preseason games. Bruce says, “Morning DK. So, depending on what Aaron Rodgers does as far as retiring or surviving this season, I do see a way for Howard to remain. They draft a quarterback in round one. Then you decide between Mason Rudolph and Skyler Thompson. So, the quarterback room could be the draft pick, Howard and Thompson. Is that possible? Okay. Easy, lazy, reflexive response. We don’t know a thing right now up to and including the first thing that you mentioned there which is going to be the most important thing that of course being what Rogers decides to do and within that how Rogers fares and everything else from there you ended up discarding Rudolph and keeping to repeat your line here the draft pick Howard and Thompson that would make either Howard or Thompson your backup because if You’re presuming that the Steelers are going to go quarterback in round one. You’re probably also presuming that they’re going to be aggressive in doing so. And from there, you’re probably presuming they’re going to bring in somebody who would play, you know, right away. Even if they don’t, what you’ve scratched off your list here is a real live, capable, experienced NFL backup. That would be Rudolph, who by the way is signed for a second year. My feeling on that is that was by design. Again, a lot of the response that I got seemed to take it as if I was just saying, “That’s it. Howard’s got no chance. He’s toast.” What I was saying, and I’m sure I could have done a better job of ensuring this was clear, is exactly what I’ve been advocating for months up to and including Rogers signing. and that is that the Steelers are probably not going to hit on their next great franchise, whatever you want to call it, quarterback on the first stab. Very few teams do. You need to look at a lot of guys. You need to go through it with a lot of guys. I would point as probably one of the more compelling examples of this and not necessarily in a good way to what New England’s gone through in the Tom Brady aftermath. They haven’t had just one guy. They’ve had a bunch of them. And even on those occasions when they thought they’ve had their guy, they just kept getting more guys. And no one wants to hear that because it makes it difficult to latch on to an individual, you know, emotionally and invest in them. It’s so much more convenient to just look at Will Howard, see that big smile of his, and look at him celebrating that college football championship and say, “Will Howard’s our guy?” Well, he is until he isn’t. And the same would apply to whoever Mr. Budding superstar is that they get in next year’s first round. The point all along from me has been that you have to have more than one of these options. You probably have to have more than two of these options. And from there, you have to offer them as many opportunities as possible to show you what they can do, to show you what they’re made of. That’s where Howard was hurt. He had three or parts of three NFL games in NFL stadiums with NFL uniforms being worn to go out there and show something. and that was taken from him. That’s what’s unfortunate. So to me, it’s not about how do you stack them in 2026? Who’s a one, who’s a two, and who’s a three, except that, you know, you need a two who’s reliable, but the rest of it, play it out. Just play it out. I appreciate the question. I appreciate all the feedback that came on that subject yesterday, and I appreciate everyone who listens to Daily Shot of Steelers. We’ll have a double shot coming your way today at 400 p.m. Eastern on the DK Pittsburgh Sports app. [Music]

After a week of fringe debate, it’s all about the ones now

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