DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: A whole new No. 1 priority

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: A whole new No. 1 priority

[Music] I say this a lot, but as situations change, stances should change. Circumstances that applied then don’t necessarily apply now. And within this specific framework, meaning your favorite football team, what was the number one priority might no longer be a priority at all. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kovachovich 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 cover two other teams in town, Penguins and the Pirates, and I offer daily shots of those as well. The Steelers are off today. They’ll resume 3 days of additional training camp work out at St. Vincent College Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I’ll be out there covering those. Off Friday, flying down to Jacksonville for the pre-season opener Saturday evening. I’ll of course be there for that as well. And the closer all of this gets to being real, the clearer a lot of the internal picture becomes. So where several months ago the number one priority by only about a billion miles was quarterback, that would appear to have been resolved, particularly since Aaron Rogers has been encouraging in his presence both on and off the field to date. And of course, you know, Mason Rudolph and Will Howard were added as well. Then as the summer moved along, once all of those quarterbacks and of course DK Metaf were already in the fold, the number one priority became some kind of combination of wide receiver two and slot corner one, which as we all know is when Minka Fitzpatrick was traded back to Miami for John Smith to bring his 88 catches from last season here and Jaylen Ramsay to not just play slot corner, but to play all kinds of corner and turn their entire secondary into something that nobody could have expected, including schematically. So, different circumstances, different stances. What are the concerns about this defense? Uh, right now it’s kind of tough to find one to be honest with you. They are really performing and they did so again at Friday night lights and at both practices at St. Vincent over the weekend. And on offense, is it really still WR2? Now, take this from somebody who’s pounded the table pretty firmly over these past few months in favor of adding a WR2 from the outside. I don’t know that I’m there anymore. And way more important than anything, I think, I don’t know that the Steelers are there anymore. Chris Hick, our beat writer covering the Steelers for DK Pittsburgh Sports, reported exclusively over the weekend that although the Steelers did inquire with the commanders about Terry McLaren, that won’t be happening in part because McLaren insists wherever it is that he goes that he’d be the number one wide receiver. Well, you’re not going to be that in Pittsburgh with Metaf here. Sorry. So, the Steelers, as our site reported, are out. They’re also out, according to another Hock report, this one just yesterday, on Gabe Davis, a wonderfully talented receiver who’s been hit hard by a knee injury. And that knee, as we all correctly presumed when he visited the Steelers a few weeks ago, is not healthy enough that they’d consider signing him. So, you can take this information from both of Hock’s reports and deduce, okay, A, Omar Khan clearly is still sniffing around. He still wants to add a WR2. B, and just for fun, if you’re talking about McLaren, you’re talking about at least the capability to create a lot of cap space. Don’t underestimate that part of the report. But, you know, see, it didn’t get done. So now allow me to take all of these circumstances and adjust some of my stances and really sum them up with just one statement. Go get a tackle. I know, I know it’s hard. It’s expensive. No one wants to give up the tackles that they’ve got. They don’t just grow on trees. I’m not being an idiot here, but I also know that Brick Jones has not shown well early in camp. He hasn’t looked really any different than he did previously. Take that for what it’s worth, and not more, but also not less. Calvin Anderson, the veteran presumed backup at not one but both tackle positions, was hurt this weekend. And according to Mike Tomlin, he and Cory Trace are the only two Steelers who are currently hurt who are not considered to be dayto-day. That is not good because that makes you, you know, week to week or worse, monthto month. So where do the Steelers turn? Even if Anderson just happens to pop back onto the field in the coming week, he’s not a kid. He’s 29. He’s been through it. And he hasn’t been counted on for a full season by anybody since 2020. He’s never started more than seven games in any season. He’s only had 14 starts in his five plus NFL years. He is along with Dylan Cook and a couple other guys that you wouldn’t know all that well, your depth at tackle. He is your answer. if Brick were to get hurt or just continue to perform badly or if the same were to occur with Troy Fano at the other side. Once more, I empathize with Omar on this cuz it’s not like he isn’t aware of it and it’s not like he wouldn’t take another tackle if they were to come along. So, I’m going to do the easiest thing possible here, and that’s just to wag the figurative finger in Omar’s direction and tell him to get it done without having any actual concept as to what would go into that. My guess is that it’ll be a much much bigger challenge for him than any WR2 would be, but he’s got the cap space and he’s got a few extra draft picks. And if the whole process is about the here and now as it seemed to be, why enter the 2025 NFL season with a known and glaring shortcoming? 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[Music] Today’s J1 Q comes from Jedadia who says, “DK, do you think they can make up for a lack of WR2 by running bunch formations with receivers more often?” There’s a lot of different things they can do. There’s already been a lot of attention paid to the 04 formation that Arthur Smith ran out there at the end of last week. We talked about it here on the show that had zero running backs and four, count them, four tight ends. One of them being John Smith in the backfield, John takes the handoff and the rest became, I don’t know, training camp history or something. There’s a lot that can be done. And in fact, one of the fun exercises that I’ve engaged in in some of the slower moments along the sidelines at St. Vincent is trying to count up all the potential targets that a quarterback can have in this offense. How many different names are plausible to be targeted in a game? Call it the uh the Michael Puit factor. You know, when when he’s one of those guys who would catch the ball in a game last season and you’d go, “Whoa, who’s this dude?” Even if you actually knew who he was. Well, my list of those guys this season is as follows. Jaylen Warren, Caleb Johnson, Kenny Gainwell out of the back field. That’s starting right there. There’s three legit, no surprise targets there at tight end. For anybody who’s new, there’s John Smith again. There’s Pat Frymouth. There’s Darnell Washington. And I’m going to stop right there on purpose to separate them from Connor Hayward, who will still officially be listed as a tight end because these three guys, I’m expecting all three to varying degrees to be regular targets. I don’t think based on what I’m seeing, based on what I’m hearing, that Darnell is going to be out there to be some occasional oddball distraction. That is not how he’s being utilized. That’s not how he’s being lined up. So, what are we up to now? Six. Want to throw Hayward in there, too? I mean, I would never be surprised when a ball comes his way. That was, you’ll recall, his strongest suit coming out of college. So, let’s make it seven. DK Metaf is going to lead this team in targets. So, it’s almost like he should have his own category here. This is not going to be a situation like what happened near the end of Seattle’s season in 2024 where he was reduced to like three or four targets per game. It’s going to be a lot closer to the rest of his career with the Seahawks where he was around 7 8 nine targets. The next most targets on this team aimed at wide receivers will go to Calvin Austin. And yet he will still be WR3 in the Arthur Smith scheme. Take what you want from that. WR3 can either be a designation on a depth chart or it can be a designation on the football field. On the field, Cal is going to get the football. And just like that, before even mentioning Roman Wilson, Robert Woods, Scotty Miller, Ben Scoranic, leaving all of them out, you’re talking about eight guys from which the quarterback can choose over the course of a single Sunday to target with passes. Which begs the question, a new if you’re talking about WR2, you have to talk to a certain extent about fit. It needs to be somebody who blocks. It needs to be somebody who can make a difference in the running game. That’s not the top priority, but it is a priority. Second, at least as I see it, it needs to be somebody who’s more of a a possession guy, more of a get open guy. And by the way, it has to be a get open quick guy to get this offensive line an opportunity to become acclimated and confident and everything else that needs to happen, I believe, over the first month of the season, including Ireland. But I’m going to go right ahead and connect this thought with the subject of the first segment today, and that’s this. After laying all these targets out for you, all these options, would you still rather have a WR2 over an LT2 or an RT2? See what I mean? Circumstances and stances. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Steelers. Don’t forget, we have a double shot of Steelers coming up today at 400 p.m. Eastern. That’ll be live on our YouTube channel. as well as of course on our own app and website DK Pittsburgh Sports. I’ll be going this one alone and I could use some company. So feel free to come board. [Music]

A whole new No. 1 priority (and it’s not wide receiver).

#Pittsburgh #Steelers #HereWeGo #NFL #DKPS

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