DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: The Aaron Rodgers test

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: The Aaron Rodgers test

Anyone [Music] who’s been listening to the program for any length of time really would be a little bit too familiar with how skeptical I was of Aaron Rogers joining this football team at this time. I had reasons for that. There were three that I would bring up consistently. I’m going to bring those all up again today, but with additional context. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kvachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports and 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 in the same place that you found this. I love alliteration. I’ve always loved it as a writer. So, I’m going to give you these three reasons for concern that I had all summer long about Rogers. In the illiterative, that would be priority, personality, and of course, performance. Number one, would or why would the Steelers or yet another season in the NFL be a priority for someone who’s won everything, including a Super Bowl early in his career in Green Bay, including four MVPs in the National Football League, including all else that he’s achieved beyond football. Dude hosted Jeopardy. Why would coming here at the presumed tail end of all of that be important to him? Well, you can’t get into a guy’s head, but what you can do is listen to what he has to say. Try to sense the seriousness of it through the intonation, through the mannerisms. And the more I’ve been around Rogers at this training camp in Latrobe, the more I see in this specific capacity that I really like, I want to see someone who’s invested and not, you know, just in how they do, but in something bigger than that. You know, I’ve said all along and a lot of you came back with similar sentiments on this. What would make him a stealer? What would make you believe that he’s here to be a Steeler? What would have you thinking that he’d want to win a Super Bowl for not just Rogers, but for a Cam Hayward, for a TJ Watt, for the city, and all of that, of course, still seems like a massive stretch. But when I see him execute a simple handoff and for whatever reason, and I never found out what exactly occurred here, it did not go to his satisfaction as the quarterback. And I see him turn around and snap that chin strap off as if to express some disgust with something or somebody, maybe his own role in the play. Who knows? What I got from it was, “Oh, okay. He’s mad.” As I’ve seen him deal with other individuals on the offense, once pretty memorably with Brick Jones, another time with Pat Frymouth. Sometimes it can look like he’s uh offering advice or instruction. Other times it looks like he’s not all that happy with them and he’s letting them know it. That’s good. That’s a good start. Number two in my little illiterative chain, personality. How would all of his Aaron Rogersness fit in in this world? And I certainly don’t mean Pittsburgh versus Green Bay. Pittsburgh’s only about a hundred times bigger than Green Bay. I meant him being who he is. Was he going to come in here and big time people? Was he going to act like he should get special treatment? was he going to kind of keep to himself and not worry about younger players or others who could learn from him? None of that’s been close to the case. He’s got a roommate here and his instant good buddy DK Metaf. The two of them have grown close over the summer, joking with everybody about how they have to share the bathroom and how when Medaf uses the John in the middle of the night to not flush because it’s going to wake him up. But it’s okay to flush if it’s the other thing. And this is this is just this is not somebody who’s got his nose six miles in the air. Ben Scoranic might have put it best the other day when he said, you know, you think of him as this A-list celebrity, but then when he’s around us, he’s just a guy. He’s just a guy. He’s been great. When I’m talking to Mason Rudolph the other day and Mason’s telling me not only about the the stuff that Rogers has been doing with Will Howard, who you know is the new kid in that room, but also stuff that he’s been doing with Mason while at the same time treating Mason with respect and just constantly sharing, just constantly communicating. In fact, the word communicating must have come up in in this little dialogue that we had several times. When he says something to Mason, he doesn’t say it in the same tone that he might to Howard. He’ll say, “Hey, here’s how this can go or that can go.” But he also knows that Mason knows a lot of these players and he knows the head coach and he knows the city and he knows all that other Pittsburgh and Steeler stuff. So, he hasn’t been above asking Mason questions. So again, it’s early but a really good start. And my number three in the illiterative train is performance. And these guys have yet to put pads on. That won’t happen until tomorrow. The team is off today, of course. And when it does, and when they start banging out there and you start hearing the football instead of just watching it, you’ll have a much better idea of how everything’s going and how it’s going to go. But for now, I’ve seen signs of Rogers and the life in the arm that you want to see. Not for someone his age, but for someone of any age. Are his legs there still? No, of course not. Not the way they used to be. But the arm is, and when I say that, I mean the arm talent, the zip is there. The ease with which the zip is delivered is there. the different arm angles that he utilizes to get passes into strange locations, the precision with which he has hit his receivers as they cut at just the right moment. And within that, of course, the built-in expectation that you’d better make that cut correctly because it’s going to be you that looks bad, not the quarterback. that can create a completely different kind of culture among the wide receivers than what we’ve seen over the past two, three years. And you know what I’m talking about. Countless examples of this, including just passes that don’t connect, but you know it’s not on the quarterback. You know it’s because whoever that was on the other end didn’t do something right. All of that’s been in play, too. One week, that’s all it’s been, you know, plus mini camp. But one final time, good start when we come back to 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 Garbet 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 888842-5454. Again, that’s 888842-5454. [Music] Today’s J1 Q comes from Casey Ker who says, DK, is there another way maybe to look at the Steelers tight end room? For example, John Smith on the field might take more coverage and leave other guys more open. Think of the blocking schemes available for the running backs. To me, this is all another reason to be excited for the coming season. I I I agree with this more than I thought I would, Casey. And let me explain what I mean while reiterating it’s early and they’ve yet to put pads on. When I’ve seen the tight end usage so far, and bearing in mind that John Smith’s been limited by injury, I am seeing no separation between how Darnell Washington was used in OTAAS onto mini camp onto this. He’s still being moved to multiple different positions on the line. He’s still being utilized as a target. He’s still being leaned upon goal lines. That to me is the strongest indication of what you’re talking about. Look, we know John Smith’s going to get targeted. We know Pat Fri is going to get targeted. If you’re getting Darnell in on that, too, then you’re using the whole room. By coincidence, Casey, I happened to bring up this very same subject with Darnell the other day in Latroe. When you see a guy come in like John Smith, do you think to yourself, “Oh man, they’re never going to throw to me now, or do you think, I’m just going to keep being myself?” No. Yeah, for sure. just keep being myself, you know, uh, you know, he he he’s a, you know, pro bowler, you know, so he’s good, you know, with catching the ball, the running after. So, you know, just I’m glad you I’m kind of I’m for sure glad that we got him. So he to just, you know, I to just take little nuggets from him, you know, cuz he’s an older guy. And uh I feel like it’s good, you know, cuz he he add experience to our room and he he to give us all, you know, uh nuggets cuz, you know, he also been he for sure been with Art before us. So he just, you know, coaches up on whatever play or the route detail or whatever detail of the play that we need help with. There is only one football. There’s only one quarterback and there is of course only one place that the ball can go on any given sequence. But I almost feel like now with two certain weapons at tight end from a receiving standpoint with one who’s budding and apparently gaining in trust. Ghez, do I really want to say this? Do I really want to put this on the record? Maybe not, huh? Look. Okay, I still want the WR2. All right, I’m not going back on it. I’m not moving the goalpost. But my main reason for that continues to be that you can’t go into NFL games with just one guy running WR1 kinds of routes because as we saw when George Pickkins went down last season, there was nobody to replace him. No, Mark Khan, in a rarity early in his tenure, was caught with his figurative pants down because there was actually nobody who could do this. And I don’t just mean the George Acrobat freaky catches and stuff. I mean to actually play the position and that can’t happen again. So, what could occur, and I’m just saying could, over the course of the remainder of this camp and into preseason, is that you could see all three of these tight ends utilized. You could see more of what we’ve seen in the very early going of Calvin Austin being utilized not just in little short routes and turn around and show the quarterback your numbers, but going downfield, deep downfield, depending on how things go with Roman Wilson, you might see more from him as well. So, what does that do in terms of Omar’s search for a WR2? I mean, you can keep your eyes open for that matter. You can keep your wallet open because you’ve still got money in there. You can go right ahead and add that player believing if you do that you don’t really need players at other positions. Or you could just kind of lower the bar a little bit for what it is that you’re seeking. Just throwing it out there. Don’t bite my head off on this one. Lots and lots of targets here already. And I haven’t even mentioned the running backs. I appreciate the question, Casey. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Steelers. Don’t forget we have a double shot coming up. That’ll be this afternoon at 400 p.m. and it will be live from our downtown studio since the team is off today in Latroe. Hope you can come aboard with us. [Music]

Aaron Rodgers couldn’t be impressing more.

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