DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Kaleb’s ‘best yet to come’

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Kaleb’s ‘best yet to come’

[Music] Look, there was a lot to like about that game I covered in Jacksonville over the weekend. Most of that was what I saw on the field. Some of it was what I heard in the locker room. Good morning to you. Good Monday morning. I’m Dan Kavatovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers. It comes your way right and early every weekday. If you’re into hockey and/or baseball, I also happen to cover the other two teams in town and offer daily shots of Penguins and Pirates that I hope you’ll also check out. Steelers are back at work today out in Lrobe. I’ll be out there as well. this following their 31-25 victory over the Jaguars in which the list of people who performed well was long enough that I’ll have to really stretch to condense it to just a handful. But I’m going to do that inciting Brick Jones and Troy Fanu the two tackles not allowing a single pressure. I’ll mention Mason Rudolph going nine of 10 for 84 yards, including three passes of 15 plus yards in that and a 19yd touchdown to Darnell Washington. That was just a bullet. Only two series for those guys, by the way, that I’ve mentioned so far, the offensive line and Mason. Darnell’s got to get in here, too. Obviously, if only for existing next to that poor corner who was trying to cover him falling into the end zone. All that dude has to do in most scenarios is exist. Defensively, I like Jack Sawyer. I love Payton Wilson’s effort and so did other guys that I talked to in the locker room, by the way, singing out Wilson is really taking charge. Juan Thornhill showed well and not just on that crushing hit that he delivered early. But yeah, we can all go beyond that and get into the the depth guys and understand that this game was played with the Steelers not utilizing 19 of their 22 starters plus other guys. So overall good stuff. Now, I say that and I’m going to remind that one of the points that I made heading into the preseason was that you weren’t going to have an easy time picking out how the first rounder fared. That of course being Dererick Harmon. And sure enough, that was the case. He didn’t show up on the statistics sheet at all. less metrically, he didn’t appear to have his stronger pushes until the second half whenever the Jaguars started bringing in, you know, their third and fourth team guys. So, was Harmon bad? No. Would you have wanted to see something visually since he was out there for pretty much three quarters? Yeah, you would have. And then there’s the next pick, the one who I really hoped because he’s a running back, because there’s a lot of running in preseason games, because he’s young and he was likely to play some significant amount that we would have seen more out of Caleb Johnson than 20 yards on eight carries. He averaged 2.5 per carry. He had a long of seven. That was a a pretty nice little run. He was targeted twice for passes. He dropped one of those, a flagrant drop. Caught the other one for six yards. And he seems to do okay with pass protection. Again, some good, some bad, nothing that makes you want to run out and buy people’s jerseys, you know. But to Johnson specifically here, because I kept more of an eye on him than I did on anything defensively in this game, there are a couple things to point out. One, and I’m repeating this from earlier, but it’s for emphasis. Now, what was going to pass for the first team offense in this game was only out there for the first two series. So, the four offensive linemen who will be starters for the Steelers were only out there for the first two series. In that time, Johnson ran three times for 12 yards, including that sevenyer. Now, Johnson and I talked about that seveny and how he pulled it off. It was an interesting run on his part is he went through Zack Frasier, which is where you’re going to have to see him go through. He is a blow through the middle kind of running back. Not that he can’t do the other stuff, but when I have seen Johnson either in Latroe or on his college film, I’ve liked him the most when he’s hitting those holes and making something happen even after initial contact. Well, he did that here. The contact happened to be with Frasier executing his block, but he rolled off of Frasier, spun, and picked himself up an extra 3 or 4 yards. When I mentioned that to him, he said he was basically just feeling the flow of the block in front of him. He praised Frasier and when I asked how he felt in general that he did, he gave, and this actually isn’t all that common for him, but a big smile and he said, “The best is yet to come.” Right now, at the risk of overanalyzing something that I’ve probably already overanalyzed, this young man is trying to adjust to the massive difference between the minor leagues of football and the major leagues. There is no comparison between college football and the NFL. None. Zero. Anybody who makes one or attempts to make a comparison is out of their flipping minds. And I’m citing specifically a few years ago when people were asking if Alabama could beat the 0 and16 Browns. No, the 0 and16 Browns would have hospitalized half of the Alabama team. So, there’s bound to be a period of that adjustment for Johnson, for Harmon, for the other rookies. But I also hope within all of this that it’s understood why the Steelers have supported the idea of Jaylen Warren being their number one running back entering this season. Johnson’s going to be involved. He’s going to be in the mix. Some point he is going to take that leap. He is going to rise above where he is now. And yeah, he might rise above Warren. It won’t be by the 7th of September in East Rutherford, New Jersey. 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 Garbid 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, Garvet, 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 J1Q comes from Mark Endicott who says DK, everybody keeps telling me Mason Rudolph isn’t an NFL number one, but in this game both he and Skyler Thompson lit up some starters like it was no big deal. Uh preeason or not, those guys got beat. Yeah, you know, respectfully to Thompson who who did have himself a nice performance in his own context. 20 of 28 for 233 yards, three touchdowns, no picks. That’s pretty solid stuff. It wasn’t against Jacksonville’s main guys, and the quality was getting lower and lower as the game got deeper and deeper. So, hats off to Thompson. I’m not about to put them in the same bracket. I know in talking to Mason afterward, his emphasis was to credit Arthur Smith for setting up Attacks Over the Middle, which that’s always been a Mason strength. It certainly was a Mason’s strength in 2023. Since I’ve flown back from Jacksonville and had a chance to review the film further, I’ve saw that Mason was really looking for these guys. Okay. Now, he could probably be a little bit more uh deceptive, shall we say. So, he benefited very much and he was uh pointing this out as well from the protection that he got. The line was really good. Line was really good. If you want to get a glimpse of that yourself, take another look. And if you’ve watched it a million times, watch it a million and one at the Darnell Washington touchdown. There’s a view from behind of this play where you can see that Mason’s just living the life. And Brick Jones is probably the one who’s most imperiled by the way the rush is coming from the Jacksonville side. And Broad picks his guy up and makes sure that Mason still has that extra second. And so to digress here a little bit here, I think it’s worth it. Mason throws the ball. Darnell catches it. Darnell eats that dude alive, falls into the end zone. Mason immediately turns to Broad, puts both of his hands on either sides of Broad’s helmet, and shouts out something. And you can see that Broad shouts something back. That’s good stuff. That’s a lot of that belief and chemistry that I was talking about that would develop between Mason and the offense back in 2023, where he felt like the offense was making him better, but the other guys on the offense felt like Mason was making them better. I liked Mason’s air after the game just like I liked it in Latroe the previous week when we’d spoken. I liked the fact that he felt like in that situation the team was counting on him to deliver like a number one to borrow your term there Mark and that he went out there and did that. Mike Tomlin loves whenever he puts somebody in a situation where he expects them to look like the adult among children and they actually do that. Incidentally, Tomlin did that exactly that with Payton Wilson on the other side of the ball and look how that resulted as well. Good, good stuff. Again, I’ll be out in Latroe again today and then tomorrow. And then the Steelers have a joint practice with the Buccaneers Thursday at Acer Stadium, followed of course by the preseason game against those Buccaneers Saturday night at the same place. Make sure you check out our Doubleshot show late this afternoon from Latrobe and make sure to follow all of our coverage whether it’s audio, video, written, our community, everything to download our app DK Pittsburgh Sports off of the Apple App Store or the Android Google Play. Just do a search and type DK Pittsburgh Sports. You’ll find it right away. It’s free. Hope to see you with us this afternoon. [Music]

Kaleb Johnson’s ‘best is yet to come’.

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