“Justin Herbert is ELITE” – Tim Hasselbeck on Chargers shut down Steelers 25-10 for 3rd straight win

“Justin Herbert is ELITE” – Tim Hasselbeck on Chargers shut down Steelers 25-10 for 3rd straight win

Hi there. Welcome Sports Center from the nation’s capital scapel. Scott Vampelt here. You know what to expect. Everything that we can fit in these what 90 minutes from week 10 in the NFL. One of the stars of the game from Sunday Night Football. Chargers win easily. We begin with the best thing I saw today. And if you watch football Saturday or Sunday in the States, you saw some snow. What? In Wisconsin and then in Chicago. This is a little Canadian soccer. I’m not going to pretend to be intimately familiar with Ottawa and Calgary, but what are we doing? We have a Oh, a lovely bicycle kick, David Rodriguez here, which ties this match at one a piece. And at some point, the group decides, you know, this is probably not a pitch that’s suitable for competition. So, this is before extra time. It’s going to clean stuff off. Now, we’re in extra time. It’s been snowing all day. And Rodriguez, oh, it’s a lovely touch with the left foot in extra time into the snowbank in the goal. One more look. Well timed. And is it would have been great if it just sort of stopped in the snow. Anyway, Ottawa, it’s first uh first time that they’ve won this Canadian Premier League championship. Snow snow snow football of sorts. What’s better than that? Sunday nighter from LA. Go Chargers. Go see the Steelers looking for their first prime time win. Meanwhile, the Chargers have been great under the brightest of lights. It’s a scoreless game. Aaron Rodgers rolling and looking deep. EK Metaf had a little space. Would have had to be perfect. Steelers settle for a long field goal. They lead three nothing. Pittsburgh backed up in the shadow of their own goal line. Rogers trying to make something happened and then it’s Khalil Mack applying pressure and actually Rogers runs him with his own offensive lineman. Joy Fitanu lucky that he pounces on it. It only cost him two. Chargers get a field goal. They lead 5-3. Now Rogers trying to connect with Metcap, but is picked by RJ Mickens. Chargers take over with good field position and a chance to extend the lead. Just 16 seconds left. Chargers have got timeouts. They can probably get three plays if they really need them. They just need that one. Vlad Manunki back into the end zone. And the Chargers after spotting the Steelers, the first three of the game have ripped off a dozen straight. Early fourth, it’s 15-3. Steelers pass on a field goal attempt cuz obviously at this point they need touchdowns. Instead, they turn it over on Dallas looking for Medcaf. Now on third and six, Herbert McCunki and he’s got it. Ramsay is chasing. Manki puts on the brakes, tries to avoid the tackle. can’t. Good hustle from Ramsey to chase him down. But after the 58 yd gain, the Chargers in position to pretty much put this thing to bed with Omar and Hampton still on the shelf for a bit. Extends it. It’s 22-3. Rogers here right off the hands of Calvin Austin. Dante Jackson gets the pick. Steelers this kind of night had some misses, had some drops, and the Chargers capitalized on them throughout. Steelers did get a late touchdown, but this this is significant. It’s just a little pop that counts as a reception and it’s a significant reception for Keenan Allen. 965. He passes Antonio Gates who was there for the most in franchise history and it’s a 10-point win for the Chargers. Tim Hasselbeck with me in studio. You got to touch screen on Rogers and some of the issues the Steelers dealt with. Let’s let’s table that for a moment and talk Chargers. They got the win here and they’re going to struggle with an issue on their O line because it started before the season when they lost Slater and then they lose Alt. What are they doing well to find some offense in the absence of their best offensive lineman? The first thing they’re doing is they’re staying committed to the run game. So, you know, it’s easier for backup offensive linemen to run the football be be run blockers than it is to be pass blockers. The biggest matchup issues you have in in the National Football League are edge rushers on tackles. So, right off the bat, you know, running the football is going to help them. The other thing is they’re creative with some of the things they do on early down play action where you know a lot of people will say well hey don’t block edge rushers with fullbacks and tight ends but if you’re running the football well you can because those guys have to play the run. So by doing that I think it’s helping you know it’s helping listen Herbert’s under siege like and I think ultimately that’s going to be their biggest hurdle you know going into the going into the postseason is that you’re going to face great edge rushers that can close out games and if you can’t hold up on the edge you can only be so creative. Right. So it’s it’s not that it’s smoke and mirrors. It’s just that eventually that’s that’s going to be a hard recipe to find success with as you move deeper against the very best teams. that they say the biggest matchup problems are these freak edge rushers. Think of like the TJ Watt type guys. Okay. And guys quite honestly that you know wore t-shirts to the swimming pool in the summertime. I just the big guys understood. But they’re going to run it because Harbaugh is their coach. All right. I mentioned Rogers. I know you got a touchcreen here that can illustrate some of the issues they had. They they actually missed a kick which never happens. They lose a turnover battle. Our buddy Bill Barnwall said that’s their recipe. If they don’t they they miss a kick and they lose turnover battle. They kind of have a narrow window and they didn’t win tonight because what? Yeah, I think Aaron tried to do too much like you had, you know, in the highlight, you know, the safety he takes. It’s a bad play. I’m gonna take you down into the red zone. They’re down just down 12 points here. Okay, they’re running inside zone. So, basically everybody is just is coming right. We got Warren coming right, but now on the back side of this, he’s got one of these now slants. Well, that’s only going to be open if Bud Dri, this defender here, rushes. Well, Aaron ends up pulling this and you know, Depri ends up being right in his throwing lane. The shame of it is, and you can see it right now, had he handed the football off, things are blocked kind of perfectly for Warren there. So, on second and six, just hand the football off, run the play that’s called. Now, he throws an incomplete pass on third down, a ball he should have hit, and now it’s fourth down. I get it. Everyone wants to get the ball to DK Medaf, film the fade, all that stuff. but versus cloud coverage which you end up getting here. You have a corner and a safety up over the top. That’s your double. That’s the only double that’s happening. So now you can look at this bunch at the bottom of the screen because as you play this forward, you’re going to clearly see the double up top. So the fade should be dead. Your single really ends up being on on Frier Muth right here. Look at him win inside. Like that was your chance for the first down. So, I just think that there are things that Aaron was doing tonight that were really just outside the design of the offense. Maybe once upon a time that was fine. I think in this Steelers offense with the way they want to play defense, the way they want to run the football, they don’t need him to go be the hero down in the red zone, I think they need him kind of do the things that are being called kind of in a in a basic play inside the structure of the offense type of way. And I thought it was interesting Mike Tico and Chris Collinssworth on the NBC broadcast point out they’ve had them twice on Sunday night where they lost in the middle. They’ve got that win against the Colts where they look remarkable, but they suddenly have lost all the wiggle room they had in the North because Baltimore is in the rearview mirror. That’s a team that we will talk about a little bit later in terms of how you view that division. So Pittsburgh in prime time drops another one. You look.

“Justin Herbert is ELITE” – Tim Hasselbeck on Chargers shut down Steelers 25-10 for 3rd straight win