DK’s Live Shot: Postgame Steelers vs. Panthers

DK’s Live Shot: Postgame Steelers vs. Panthers

[Applause] Hello everyone. Welcome to Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m Dan Katri. He’s Chris Hick. We’re from DK Pittsburgh Sports. Final score, Steelers 19, Panthers 10. Final preseason game. Final assessments. Um, and thanks for watching everybody. Yeah, it was a bit of a dud. Uh, yeah, they won. That’s great and all, but man, that that that start was really really rough. Um, a lot of missed tackles, a lot of penalties. Zack Zack Frasier holding call on the very first play from scrimmage. Uh, I mean, even before then on the kickoff return to start the game, the Steelers had a had a penalty. Um, 13 penalties for 104 yards. That’s just I mean when you talk about like what they were talking about going into that first preseason game in Jacksonville, the cleanliness of play and they looked really clean and it was not tonight. It was bad all around penalties, missed tackles, everything. It was just bad. It it wasn’t pretty and and the players spoke about this openly just now downstairs. Um it wasn’t they didn’t talk really as much, at least not to me, about penalties. It was it was more there was mention of the missed tackles. They didn’t like some of the stuff that happened at the line of scrimmage. They couldn’t have been crazy about the way the offense went early on. And that’s where I want to start today, Chris, because when I I see things in both the Jacksonville and the Tampa Bay games where I say, “All right, that looks like something. You can work with that.” This felt like from the first team perspective a bit of a backward step. Now, I tried to bring this up with the head coach. That didn’t go well at all. Mike, what’s uh I know there’s a lot of different variables when it comes to the run game, but what’s missing right now? Is the holes not there? Are they not being hit? Slipping? I mean, we what 18 for 99? Sure. So, what do you want? Well, I I I’m sorry. I meant earlier in the game when you have more of your first teamers out there. The game is 60 minutes. Yeah. And he would end up saying additional things after the press conference was over. Look, he’s the head coach. He can say what he wants. I’m the reporter. I can ask what I want. It’s I if he wants to pretend that everything went fine with the running game or just to stick it to the reporter or whatever, go nuts. One way or another, the issue has to get fixed. The holes weren’t there. The runs weren’t there. The traction wasn’t there. I asked a couple of guys, Chris, uh, who run for a living, if if there was some kind of problem, and they said that they had heard that there were guys who had a certain kind of spikes, okay, on both teams that where it just didn’t really work out very well for them. Jaylen Horn, unfortunately, was one of those. Uh, but the running game’s just not there. It wasn’t there. No, it’s not where you want it to be. Uh, for sure. Especially with this being the the the last game before I mean the last like warm-up before the season because the next time these guys take a football field 17 days it it it matters. You know that result does matter. That’s week one. Uh you got to be able to run the football and you got to be able to run. And listen with with the Steeler schedule it’s g it’s I understand like you don’t feel like you have to hit the ground running where where you’re in week one you have to feel like you’re in week nine form. Like I get that. I understand that. At the same time, you still have to go into the season with enough momentum to be able to take advantage of a bit of a weaker schedule. Not saying, I’m not taking anything away from the Seahawks. I think they’re a good team. Not taking anything uh anything away from the Patriots. I think they’re a team that’s on the rise. Take everything away from the other Jets. But then, you know, obviously they play the Vikings over in Ireland and that’s three of the first four games. But then it doesn’t get any easier later on down the stretch and so you need to get off to a good start. So, it helps to have as much of your offense and defense as well, but to have everything clicking and humming. Now, they got, like you said, they got 17 days and they will do a lot of work on the Southside, but that’s only work against each other. I mean, and doing anything against somebody else, that’s that’s not enough. Yeah. And I don’t mean to let Mason Rudolph or the passing game off the hook, but that obviously didn’t go well either. That was bad. Now, on one hand, you heard me saying when I was sitting next to you in the press box, when it comes to Mason, at some point or other, you have to let him try to stretch the field. It’s who he is. It’s who he’s always been. And when you don’t do that, he ends up sticking in a short game that’s not really his thing. So short game happens for a bit and he puts the ball up in the air and I say to Chris, while the ball is in the air, I say, “There it is.” And guess what? There it went to the other team. There it went. It was It was not a great throw. Didn’t have enough zip on it. Uh Mason said after the game he just needed to check it down. Um, you know, I mean, I mean, you you can always go back and that’s what you do in football is you you review the tape, you review the play, and you learn from it, and you try to make sure you don’t make the same mistake again. Um, the the bit of optimism here is that Skyler Thompson’s played really well in three preseason games. I mean, he has been confident in the pocket. He’s navigated the pocket well. He’s making his reads. He’s making his throws. He’s been accurate. And so for the Steelers situation with Mason Rudolph, obviously he’s still going to be QB2, but with Will Howard still coming back from this hand thing, if they do want to put him on IR designated to return, they have themselves a legitimate QB3. Some guys played who hadn’t played previously. Pat Fri was one of them. I spoke with him after the game. Pat Forth getting into some preseason action here at the end here. Feel good? It felt great. Uh just getting out there. Um you know, getting back into game speed. uh getting hit a couple times. I could tell your body language. You were into it. Yeah, I I loved it. That’s why I’m asking. Yeah, it was it was great to get back out there and um you know, get back into game speed and it was good. What do you have to say about the offense right now? Yeah, I think we’re in a good good spot right now. Um you know, I think we have some stuff to improve on, but that’s what training camp’s for and you know, looking forward to week one and and getting in the next couple days and and figure out what, you know, what we’re going to do and we should be good. What about the running game in particular? Yeah. Um, you know, I think, you know, obviously every aspect of the offense is there’s room for improvement. I think uh the running game is uh it’s going to go as as we go on offense and the more we can run the ball, the more we can open field uh open things up downfield and um it’s going to be a point of emphasis for sure. Turning our attention now to the other side of the ball, Derek Harmon looked like he might have had a significant injury. It turns out that he apparently did not. He was diagnosed with having a knee sprain. And when Tomlin, who you can tell was in a mood, was asked afterward uh whether or not, you know, this could be serious or something, he said, like I said, it’s a knee sprain. So, that was his way of saying whatever. Harmon gave me a thumbs up on the way out of the locker room. I thought that was encouraging to see. He was walking with a slight limp, but just he was really careful. I don’t even know if it was a limp. It was more like a ginger stepping. Yeah. Yeah. So, but but but still, either way, he was walking under his own power. No brace, no crutches. Uh so for for those came back out for the Yeah. came back out was was on the sideline uh no sitting but on the sideline chatting it up with TJ Watt and some of the other defensive guys who weren’t playing in the game either. Um I mean the way it looked early with him leaving on the cart he was so sad with a towel over his head looking like Yeah. Um you’re you’re just hoping that like man okay this might be bad and fortunately for the Steelers it does seem like it’s going to be I don’t know a knee spring could be could be a several it could be several weeks he may not be playing weekly we have no idea and we don’t we’re not pretending that he’s going to be okay you know for East Rutherford at the same time I I don’t want to ever say that there’s such a thing as a good injury but if you’re going to get hurt at certain places you know get hurt somewhere where you have some depth you have something from the football team’s perspective. And I couldn’t help but feel that there was a rhythm in place with Harmon going down and then YA Black coming up with not one but two splash plays and those were splash backtoback plays too backto back like that out of him. Uh what’s your impression of black not just here but just in general what you’ve seen? I mean, listen, when you talk about this defensive line position, the defensive tackle position, interior defenders, however you want to define it, it starts with Derek Harmon in terms of being the first reinforcements because this is what the Steelers were were doing. But then they take YA Black in the fifth round and you’re kind of like, okay, there’s another kind of depth guy. He’s going to fight for a roster spot. He’s a lock at this point. I mean, the way he’s the way he is played, it’s like this is cuz not every it’s not all the time that every single player from a draft class ends up making the roster. And I I would be surprised if all the uh picks from this class end up making the 53. But why Black has played almost at sometimes out of his mind. Yeah. Way better than a fifth round pick. And he wasn’t high on a lot of boards when the Steelers took him in the fifth round. There were some like uh I don’t know, they might be reaching here a little bit. While the Steelers the Steelers liked a lot of what what he brings to the table, the long 35-in arms batting down passes. and had a chance to catch up with him after the game asking him about like this entire process, what training camp’s been like this this preseason game. And man, he’s a fun personality, too. Just check it out. Um, you’ve had a heck of a camp in preeason, batting down passes in practice, and then tonight you go out there, have a couple of backto-back plays, you get a sack, maybe should have gotten credit for another sack, too. But like, how do you feel like capping off the preseason that you’ve had with a performance like tonight? Uh just growing and getting better. I mean you come in every day and just try to work on your skill set and work around with the people people around you. How confident are you in I mean obviously Dererick has the injury tonight. What you guys guys have in front? I mean Cam hasn’t hasn’t even played yet but then you look at everybody else that you got and you being a part of that. How do you feel like you guys are growing and developing together up front both individually and collectively? Oh really like day in day out. really like learning learning each other’s play styles and really getting a getting a feel for what this 2025 defense. Yeah, 2025 defense is feeling like, you know, uh, Black wasn’t the only one who looked good. We’re going to call out some preseason names here, guys who feel really have earned it. Uh, I’m going to go with a guy that I thought might have been in jeopardy of getting cut at some point. That’s Demarvin Leal. Uh, all 98 did in this game was to be everywhere, make every play, and then get up and make sure you all knew it was 98 who made that play. Uh, I’m all right with that. This is a third round pick that a lot of people, myself included, have just kind of discarded. Well, there’s a reason why. Because, you know, when he’s listed as an edge rusher on the depth chart and you have TJ Watt, Alex Heismith, Nick Herbig, and Jack Sawyer in front of him. Oh, no. No. I mean, there’s legitimate concern. Now, granted, they could still keep him and then not keep as many def defensive tackles because he can bounce to the inside if he needs to and play more of the the typical three four defensive end. Uh, and that that’s kind of more what he’s used to anyway. You don’t really want him playing any any closer to the interior. That’s not really his game. Never really been his game. Um, for me, I’m going to continue to go with Caleb Johnson. I actually thought now minus the two times that he got absolutely obliterated on kickoff returns. Oh, dude. It’s like he’s learning from from Cal from Calvin Austin. You don’t have to take it, man. You know, I saw another guy who like just like last week who knew exactly where he was going to be going with a run and cut that way and made that run and and there were a couple of them that were really good, really crisp. He looked outside of maybe Lou Nichols who’s playing against a lot of guys who aren’t going to be playing in the NFL this year. He still looks good in that setting. He does. Okay, let’s be nice. He looks really good in that setting in third and fourth quarter of preseason games. I would say outside of that, he looks like probably the most impressive running back of the three. Now granted, Jaylen Warren barely played. Jaylen even told me Jaylen was like I I he was just getting his feet wet out there. He hadn’t even touched the ball in anger since last season and everything. I I’ I’d definitely give him the benefit of the doubt the way his night went. I’m with you on Caleb. Caleb told me uh that he was happiest about the cutback run, which I’m sure you could have foreseen. Uh Caleb really liked the way that went. He liked the way the hole opened up. He liked the way he was able to take advantage of it. Yes, that is the design. If it looked like it wasn’t, he is supposed to make that cut. from watching from the press box, as Chris can attest, I thought he missed his hole. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, because there the hole was facing us in the press box and then the next thing you know is he makes a left and you’re like, whoa, what’s that? It’s where he’s supposed to go. Yeah, absolutely. The primary attack point on any kind of wide zone, outside zone play is there on the outside, usually on the outside hip of a of a tight end or a ghost tight end if there’s not a tight end there. Uh but if by the time you get to your third step, you don’t think you read the leverage, you don’t think you’re getting to the outside, you have to decide to cut back and then read from from defender to defender. And then that’s whenever instincts and vision and all that stuff has to kick in. He was so happy about this run. I’m just kind of smiling right now cuz I’m remembering how he lit up. But that’s also the kind of guy that’s the the running back that the Steelers saw at Iowa. This is the kind of stuff that he did at Iowa both with wide zone, mid zone, this kind of stuff. He’s used to doing this kind of stuff. It’s good. It’s a good fit for the Arthur Smith offense. And if he’s going to be able to do that kind of stuff along with Jaylen Warren, who we know can do it with Kenneth Gainwell, who can do it, this is going to be this is why there’s some optimism. Yes, there’s still some a lot of kinks to work out, but there that’s why there’s optimism that this run can be a little bit more efficient or should be more efficient than it was the season ago. Our third and final uh tip of the cap here from a preseason standpoint. Uh we’re going to give this one uh the selection anyway to coach Charisma himself. He had a a nod that he gave without anybody asking about him to Ben Sals uh who made a couple of kicks today, a 50 and a 49 if memory serves. 50 and a 48 and then later the 26. Uh he missed one back in Pittsburgh. Yeah. on his home field, which is funny to have the kid from Pit who was a star a star for the for that program, for Pat Narduzi’s program, come into the NFL, his first experience, to go out there and to to hit the ball the way that he did after Chris Boswell was called on early. Bos is going to be just fine. Uh and to impress maybe other teams. Yeah. Uh I I thought that was a nice thing to see. And by the way, on that 50 yarder, that would have been good from 65 easily. I I can’t be I don’t know how if this translated on television or not, that ball might still be sailing into downtown Charlotte, which is in that direction, by the way. Yeah. No, seriously, I I that might have been at the height of the goalposts whenever it actually crossed the crossbar. I mean, the top of the goal post, right? Yeah. The top of the goal post. I like No, he hit it. He really really just obliterated that football and and yeah, he he he should be when you look at even teams like Carolina who have multiple kickers are kind of trying out and Matthew right I mean he’s kicked for the Steelers before he’s a nice kicker but he’s not this he’s not no he does not have this mean he’s not Ben Sals no he does not have this leg and Carolina again cut down day is next Tuesday there might be they might remember him just the way the Steelers remembered Kenny Gainwell running all over them in Philadelphia. Guys, we appreciate you being with us all throughout the preseason. I’d love to say that it’s been a blast, but preseason football generally sucks and we’re ready for the real thing. Not to speak for Chris here, but yeah. Oh, I’m ready for football. I’m ready for something. We’re I want to watch all four quarters. I want to have all four quarters matter and I I’m I’m excited about that. I wish it wasn’t 17 days away. What a strange gap this is. It really is. And that’s that’s kind of the interesting thing of that when the when the NFL transitioned from 16 games to 17 games and they adjusted the preseason schedule, there’s still kind of this weird twoe gap. I understand you got cut down day and you want to give players plenty of time to to get acclimated and things like that, but I don’t know, man. It it does seem like it’s a really long gap, but you know, here we are and two weeks, two and a half weeks away. Now, this beat writer and I are heading back to our respective laptops over here in the press box to finish pounding out a bunch of additional bits of information, including stuff we haven’t shared here that’ll be on our app. Your job is to go get the app. Go download it. It’s free to download it. You can test it. You’re probably not going to be crazy about all the ads and the other stuff. And they’re fine, too. Email me dkdpittsberports.com. Spell all that out, too. Don’t be abbreviating Pittsburgh. dkdpittsports.com and I will hook you up with a massive I think we can agree that it’s a massive discount. Twothirds off. Yeah, that’s that’s pretty significant. Uh I will hook you up personally with a a massive discount on the premium level of that app that’ll get it to hum the way you want. And then you can read all of Chris’s stuff. Yeah. All of my wonderful reporting, his columns. And then by the way, we also cover some other teams uh in Pittsburgh. We’re all over the penguins and the pirates, too. But it’s it’s different. It’s different. All right, guys. Talk to you later. [Applause]

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