The Steelers Just Got A DOUBLE DOSE Of Big News Hours Before Their Week 3 Matchup vs. The Patriots

The Steelers Just Got A DOUBLE DOSE Of Big News Hours Before Their Week 3 Matchup vs. The Patriots

Welcome in to Steelers Talk. I’m your host, Jax Sperry. Thank you guys for joining me here on a beautiful Saturday evening. Hope you guys have enjoying watching some college football, getting ready for tomorrow’s uh Steelers game versus the New England Patriots. We got a couple of pretty big updates for tomorrow’s game. So, I wanted to get in front of a camera today, guys, and kind of go over my thoughts on these on really this double dose of pretty big news for the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans heading into uh week three tomorrow. So, make sure you guys click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Tomorrow, Ponzi and I will be going live starting at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. We’ll be uh going live for an hour of pregame coverage followed by live playbyplay and of course extensive postgame coverage as well. We have the largest Steelers watch parties anywhere here on YouTube. Uh so, if you guys want to join us for free tomorrow, make sure you click that subscribe button and join us at 12:00 p.m. Eastern tomorrow afternoon. All right, so now let’s get into the news of the day. biggest story uh is actually uh with the injury status of star quarterback for the Patriots, Christian Gonzalez, who is a big part of their defense. Um he really uh is a big part of their plan defensively because if you can have both him and Carlton Davis on either side uh on the outside there, they can really play a lot of man coverage and they can uh really do and that really opens things up for their secondary and for their defensive game plan. But for the third straight week here to start the season, Gonzalez will now be out. Uh he was downgraded from questionable to out today by the Patriots. So he will not be playing in this football game versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, I know what you guys are saying, but Jack Devin Witherspoon, uh the best corner for Seattle last week, didn’t play. Um and that obviously didn’t make a an impact on the final outcome. So why is this a big deal? Well, it’s a big deal because I think that the Patriots are going to have to are going to be able to or going to have to play more zone coverage than maybe what they want to do. Uh the reason why you go out and get guy like Carlton Davis in free agency this year to pair with Gonzalez is to play a lot of man coverage on the outside. And Alex Austin has been the guy that’s been filling in for Gonzalez as he’s been dealing with this hamstring injury and he has not looked good. So, um I think across the board the matchups look better for the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers. Um, instead of Gonzalez, who I consider, you know, at bare minimum a top five corner in football, uh, going up against DK Metaf, your number one receiver, you have Carlton Davis on him. And, you know, Davis is a good player, good cover player, but he’s not in the same realm as a guy like Gonzalez. So, it’s going to open up more opportunities for DK tomorrow. It’s also going to open up opportunities for some of the secondary receiving options because, um, you know, Marcus Jones is their slot corner. um he’s okay, but he’s certainly not like a high-end type of starter type of guy. And then Alex Austin is a replacement level, backup level guy. So, there’s going to be some opportunities here for some uh of the secondary weapons for the Pittsburgh Steelers uh to to have good football games. So, keep your eye out for Calvin Austin, keep your eye out for Janu Smith, keep your eye out for some of these other guys that are going to be getting opportunities tomorrow afternoon with Christian Gonzalez uh being out of this lineup here. And um with Alex Austin out there and Gonzalez off the field in the first two weeks versus the Raiders and uh the Dolphins respectively, honestly, two offenses that have kind of struggled through the first uh for Miami three weeks for the Raiders case, two weeks. Uh they didn’t play particularly well against either one of those football teams. So, I think that this week is a great opportunity for Aaron Rogers, Jaylen Warren, DK Metaf, this entire offense to really get going, get a bit of confidence um after last week, you know, things were were shaky at best, let’s call it on offense. They had a really good week one where they were able to get that play action game going, get into the end zone. They’ve been really good in the red zone to this point. There’s just been one real crucial mistake there. That being Calvin Austin’s kind of weird scramble drill play where he tipped the ball up in the air to the Seahawks player. Otherwise, it would have been an awesome touchdown from Aaron Rogers to Pat Fmouth. So, I really like what I’ve seen from the Steelers offense so far in the red zone. I’ve liked what I’ve seen out of Aaron Rogers. The arm talent is certainly still there. Just got to keep them upright. Looking at you, offensive line. Hopefully, we can get that done this week and hopefully the run game can look better as well. This is a Patriots defense where their two starting offball linebackers, Robert Splain and Christian Harris, lead the NFL in missed tackles. They’re number one and number two respectively out of any player in the NFL. All right, so like this is a defense that certainly misses a lot of tackles, or at least it has through the first two weeks. Uh so the Steelers offense certainly needs to capitalize. The other bit of pretty big news here for the Pittsburgh Steelers heading into this game is that Caleb Johnson, the third round rookie, lots of expectations heading into this year. It’s looking likely that he’s going to be inactive for this football game as a healthy scratch. And I’m already seeing a lot of people kind of panic about this on Steelers Twitter like, “Oh my gosh, I think Andrew Filipony tweeted, “We’re flushing another third round pick down the toilet or something like that.” And Caleb has only had what, three or four carries in his rookie season, two games into his rookie campaign, and people are already uh, you know, pressing the abort button on this kid. I think people need to take a big deep breath, take a step back here and realize that, you know, I I understand that this is a that this is a very this is a business where it’s like you expect results pretty quickly, but like sometimes I think we go a little bit too far with that where we don’t give people time to develop and we hype up these rookies so much that we expect them to be superstar level players right away. And you know, sometimes that’s the case, especially, you know, with the running back position, there’s not a very big shelf life. A lot of times running backs can come into the league and be very productive players right away. But we have to remember, man, this is a kid coming out of Iowa um that was really asked to do only like early down kind of stuff. He wasn’t really asked to pass protect all that much. He wasn’t asked to catch passes out of the backfield really. It was just a runheavy offense. And you know, he has a lot of that kind of stuff to learn and develop in his rookie season. And you know, if you and in terms of the early down stuff, Steelers aren’t going to give him that work right now because Jaylen Warren looks awesome and he is pretty clearly their best running back on the roster right now. And then when you take into account the fact that he’s just not going to be able uh to give you uh any special teams value either because he’s being demoted off of kickoff return. It’s like do you really want to keep a guy on the active roster if he’s only going to get like two or three carries a game? Um I just don’t think that that is smart roster management there from the Pittsburgh Steelers. I think it’s actually pretty smart to to if you’re going to take Caleb off of kick off of kick return to uh you know take him off the field entirely uh make him a healthy scratch for now. It’s not for forever, right? It’s not like you’re releasing him or anything at this point. You’re just not having you’re just not giving him a helmet for this particular game until he proves uh that he should be getting that helmet back. And for the people saying that this is going to like ruin his confidence and um you know he’s never going to bounce back. I think that there’s multiple ways that you can kind of spin this and you can kind of view this you can view it that way where you say this is going to ruin his confidence yada yada yada. Um you know why would you do this? And then there’s the other uh perspective there where it’s like all right this is a little bit of a of a wakeup call for Caleb Johnson where he’s got to kind of wake up. he’s got to, you know, do the right things in order to earn his spot uh moving forward, not only uh in in special teams, but also just in the general grand scheme of the offense. So, Trey Surman is the guy that’s being elevated off of practice squad. I would expect him to be the number three running back. He provides more value in special teams overall than Caleb Johnson does now because Caleb has been benched from his role as the kickoff return man. So, um, you know, really that’s where most of his value to the team in terms of the game day value was. Uh, and if you’re going to be taking him off of kickoff, it just doesn’t make sense to have Caleb on the game day roster. So, um, I I I fully support that decision from the Pittsburgh Steelers, which seems likely at this point. We’ll see what the official designation is, but with them bringing up Trey Surman, um, that certainly indicates to me that Caleb Johnson will not be getting a helmet tomorrow. Um, but you know, injuries happen. You know, opportunities will arise. I’m sure that Caleb will have an opportunity to potentially get his uh kick return duties back at some point this year. This is not going to be a forever thing, guys, where Caleb Johnson is being a healthy scratch for long portions of the season. Um, you know, there there are exceptions, but we still have to remember that Mike Tomlin is very much still a coach where he doesn’t really play rookies early on very often unless they’re really showing out in camp. All right? like guys like Derek Harmon who’s going to have an immediate role uh when he when he gets on the field. It looks like he’s going to be giving it a go tomorrow afternoon or a guy like Joey Porter Jr. who sat for a little bit but then uh it became apparent that he needed to go in pretty early on in his rookie season, right? So, um if that opportunity presents itself, you know, I still believe in Caleb Johnson, man. I still believe in the talent there. I believe in the vision. I believe uh in his fit inside this offense and when he gets an opportunity to really show what he can do and he gets a little bit of time to actually develop and I think that’s the important piece that’s kind of missing here is that this is a young man that really did need to develop out of Iowa. Um and with Jaylen Warren playing as well as he is you know you can give Jaylen 17 20 maybe even more than that touches a game. Um and I think that he can handle that workload. So, um, you know, I I think that that allows this team to be patient with Caleb Johnson, not try and throw him out there too early, which is another thing that can ruin his confidence confidence is if you put him out there too early and he doesn’t play well. Just look at, uh, how playing early can really devastate the confidence of an NFL quarterback, right? So, uh, you know, it’s not just quarterbacks that lose confidence with poor play if they’re not ready, right, guys? So, um, you know, I think a lot of people are are upset about Caleb Johnson and, you know, already calling him a bust and all these things. And I just think that it’s a little bit premature to be saying those things just two games into his NFL career. Um, and with him being taken off of kickoff return, I actually think it’s a good move by the Pittsburgh Steelers because you can use Trey Surman in more ways on special teams than you can with Caleb Johnson. So, um, that’s that’s my thoughts on that. To finish up today’s show, guys, before I leave you guys before uh tomorrow, I do want to give a couple thoughts on the Steelers defense because obviously we’ve discussed a lot about the Steelers defense, how they’ve struggled these first two weeks. Um and you know what’s kind of interesting about specifically this run defense is that we have seen flashes of good play from this unit. In fact, they’re leading the NFL right now. Okay, they’re leading the NFL first place in runs given up of zero or negative yardage. All right. So, they are, you know, doing a good job disrupting um but they’re not consistently uh, you know, stopping the explosive runs because they’re also number one in the league in the most explosive runs given up. Uh, they’re also first in the league in missed tackles. So, they just need to play more discipline. They need to tighten up the hatches here a little bit. Um, I think pretty clearly they have the talent to get the job done and be a good defense. It’s just a matter of whether or not Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin, the people responsible for the game planning, the alignment, the execution uh of it all here, uh gets these guys to play well and actually execute on the field. So, u still see the potential with this group. It’s been a it’s been a kind of a rough first two weeks. I think we all agree on that. Um but I think we also have to remember guys that a lot of teams are still trying to figure out who they are as a football team at this point uh in the season. Not every team has it all figured out heading into the year, especially teams with so much new players like the Pittsburgh Steelers have. So, you have to remember that it’s a process. Remember that, you know, remember last year. All right, this team started off great on defense. I mean, what the first 10 weeks of the season, this was the best defense in football and then they completely fall off a cliff uh come December and January. I would rather have it be the other way around where you’re dealing with some issues on early on in the season and then you’re playing your best football at the end uh and when you get into the playoffs. Um now obviously you know the Steelers need to take advantage of this next four game stretch. You’re going up against a young quarterback tomorrow and Drake May. Then you’re going up against Carson Wentz the next week. Then you’re going up against Joe Flacco the next week. And then you’re going up against Jake Browning. That’s a four game stretch where you should have the quarterback advant advantage at the very least. Um and you should be able to go three and one if not 4 and 0. Um so hopefully during this stretch you can collect some W’s while you know this defense really finds its identity, finds its uh finds its chemistry. These guys build a lot of confidence. Um that’s really my biggest hope and my expectation for this defense here heading into this next four game stretch. Now, obviously, if they lose tomorrow against the Patriots, there’s going to be a lot of once again panicking one and two start, you know, two, you know, two games that, you know, arguably you should be winning that you don’t um in a row here to start the season. And, you know, it’s it’s going to be it’s going to be tough if this team can’t win and kind of calm the waters and calm the storm a little bit uh tomorrow afternoon. But with Gonzalez out um with this team really seeming like they are focused in this week and hopefully that is the case and they come ready to play tomorrow afternoon. The fact that Mike Tomlin is has an exceptional record against young quarterbacks like Drake May. Um there’s a lot of things pointing in the direction of a Steelers victory tomorrow afternoon. It’s just a matter of these guys going out and executing. Um so I’m looking forward to to to reacting to the game with you guys tomorrow. Um, you know, hopefully the Steelers can pull out a victory. If you guys want to join us for our live coverage of Steelers versus Patriots tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be going live at 12 PM Eastern. Again, an hour of pregame coverage followed by live playbyplay of the actual game itself. And then we’ll be uh still live after the game for our postgame coverage as well. So, if you guys want to join, most extensive game day fan experience for Steelers fans anywhere here on YouTube. It’s all 100% free to join, guys. Click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Um, and I I’ll see you guys tomorrow at noon. So, that’ll be it for me today, guys. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.

The Pittsburgh Steelers got a double-dose of big news on Saturday, September 20th, the day before the Black & Gold is set to take on the New England Patriots on the road tomorrow afternoon. On today’s show, host Jack Sperry reacts to star Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez officially being designated as out for this week’s matchup and how that will affect this football game tomorrow afternoon, as well as Trey Sermon being elevated to the active roster, indicating that rookie running back Kaleb Johnson will be a healthy scratch inactive tomorrow after having a crucial special teams mistake last week vs. the Seahawks.

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