DK’s Double Shot of Steelers: AFC North mess

DK’s Double Shot of Steelers: AFC North mess

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey guys, welcome to Double Shot of Steelers presented by FanDuel. I’m Dan Kvachovic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. Excited to not have football this coming weekend because you everybody gets kind of, you know, it it can be overdone. Let’s put it that way. But what we do have this weekend, let’s check the actual schedule. I don’t remember where everybody is, but I do believe we have a full slate otherwise of AFC North. And it’s been fun to watch the rest of the AFC North this season, hasn’t it? The Browns are over in London to play the Vikings. One would think that’ll go poorly for them. Dylan Gabriel’s about to be their starting quarterback. The Vikings aren’t that bad of a team. Let’s see who else we got here. Titans and Cardinals. Now, here Bengals are at home against the Lions. That’s going to go poorly for the Cincinnati. I think we can agree on that, right? And uh where are the where are the Rat Birds? Where are they? That’s what we’re looking for here. Oh, here they are. Oh, they’re at home to a grossly underachieving group of Texans who really need to write themselves. And the Ravens in turn don’t have and won’t have not just Lamar Jackson, but like a ton of guys. Their injury report doesn’t fit on a single graphic like they need to go two pages. They’re in trouble. Now, we can say that about the Ravens around this time every year. They’ve been notoriously slow starters. They’ve also had a lot of injuries. That’s become part of the really the reputation of Jean Harbaugh and the hard practices that he conducts and everything. And you can blame whoever you want or they can do that. That’s their problem. But the point is, when you look at the AFC North right now, in addition to the fact that your team, which was playing pretty close to terrible football until they got to Ireland, is now 3-1. The Steelers are also 2-0 in the conference. These things matter. They’ve yet to play a division game, but those are coming up. Cincinnati is two and two, but no Joe Burrow, no real hope for anything. That season is just shot. The Bengals are are DOA. This isn’t going to be one of those warm and fuzzy revival stories. They have the worst defense, I think, in the National Football League. However, I say that and here come your Ravens at 1 and3 having blown the historic lead in the opener against the Bills. They’ve given up even more points than the Bengals have through the first two games. Bengals have given up 119. The Ravens have given up 133. And then bringing up the rear, as they always do, are the Browns. They’re one and three. They’ve given up 102 points, which isn’t great. They’ve scored only 56, which is pathetic. They are also 0 and2 in the division, 0 and2 in the conference. So, without getting ahead of anything here, because I I genuinely don’t believe that there’s anything to get ahead of given how the Steelers have performed over the bulk of these four games. I am more than happy to look ahead to see the Steelers playing the Browns here next week here and to know that they can and likely will shut down the Cleveland offense. Are they going to get trouble from the Cleveland defense? Yes, there’s no doubt about that. Can you gimmick your way out of that to an extent? Yes. Also true. And we just saw that in Ireland. The week after that, it’s off to Cincinnati. And the Bengals, that’s a Thursday night game. The Bengals, as I’ve mentioned, I I think are are gonna end up being one of the NFL’s worst teams overall. Then from there, it’s couple of, you know, decent teams. Green Bay, Indianapolis, flying out west to face the Chargers. the schedule picks up a little bit of momentum there, but once you’re five and one in the division, if this were to happen, no predictions here, no and none of that fourth grade stuff, you’re in a good spot. You’re in a good spot to win the division. If you win the division, you get all kinds of benefits if you win the division and, you know, make some kind of push. Wow. We’ll get to that when we come back and meet up with Chris Hock. At DK Pittsburgh Sports, we take pride in coverage that connects our city’s fans to their favorite teams. Now that connection’s stronger than ever. Introducing our all-new state-of-the-art app. Find expert inside reporting and original podcasts. Check live box scores. Track the latest stats. chatted up with our community of thousands of fans all in one place. The new app from DK Pittsburgh Sports coverage that connects [Music] and uh we’re going to be joined here by Chris momentarily. There he is. What’s up? Hi Chris. Hey, you’re just you’re glowing over the AFC Northwest, aren’t you? You know, I mean, yes. One of the things over the years is because we spend a lot of time in the AFC North stadiums, unfortunately. So, so what ends up happening is you get more of a feel for how much they hate the Steelers or they hate Pittsburgh. And that resonates. It It’s not ever going to come through on television. It’s not going to come through on, you know, the internet, social media, because trolls are just going to be trolls on social no matter what. When you experience it, it’s a little bit different. And you’re happy when those people are unhappy. I think that’s a healthy reaction, Chris. I really do. I I I think that once once you’ve seen the AFC North standings look something like this, it’s a sign that football season is finally upon us, it’s time to check out the latest odds, futures, and win totals on the FanDuel sports book. If you think the Browns are going to bounce back and make it to the Super Bowl, or if you think the Bengals are going to solve their defense, or if you think that the Ravens are going to survive while missing half of their roster, including the franchise MVP level quarterback, lock in your bits to bets today. Whatever your game, FanDuel Sportsbook delivers the latest lines, futures, and specials so that you can join in on all of the action, including the inane action that would be required for this. I I I don’t see I I mean, Baltimore will always defy something. They’ll always end up being there, but this is a hard one, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, when you have attrition of this level, I mean, especially like like the Texans, yeah, they’re underachieving right now, but they’re going to be playing pretty desperate. I mean, that’s a that’s a I mean, okay, the Colts are playing really well, but that’s still a division that you should be winning. I mean, the Titans, that should be two wins right there. I mean, and you you should be able to win at least a game uh against the Jaguars. I mean, this is still a division that the Texans should be competing for and they they can they can absolutely turn things around and they should be smelling blood in the water here looking at that Ravens injury report and just salivating over being like, “Okay, this is the this is our opportunity to start turning things around. Like, let’s get it going.” And the Ravens just they have to be just as desperate because they don’t have Lamar Jackson. They don’t have a whole bunch of their players and they could, if all things go terribly here, fall to one and four with the Rams coming up the week after that and the Rams in my opinion are probably one of the one of the real Super Bowl contenders in the league this season. So yeah, that’s a big problem for the Ravens to have. Even if they escape Houston with a win, beating the Rams is going to be really difficult. It’s very very possible that this team is two and four by the time that they’re 6 weeks through the season. That that’s that’s rough. That’s rough to come back from. Dale Penny asks, “Who’s the worstrun organization, the Browns or the Pirates?” I got to tell you, Dale, I got to tell you, I I’m just not respectful of slander of that level of the Cleveland Browns. I mean, it’s one thing to have a rivalry, AFC North and all that stuff and hoping that they lose and everything. That’s going too far. That’s going too far. And it won’t be tolerated on this fine program. I mean, they at least try. Yeah, they do. They try. They would just make a lot of bad decisions. They’re just terrible. Yeah. The Pirates are both They’re terrible and they don’t try. Yeah. Yeah. Brad says, “Are the Steelers not contenders if the defense gets better over the next few weeks?” Well, I’m reading that one like three times and I don’t get it. There there’s there’s some there’s some double negatives in there. Yeah. Um, no, I I know what he’s asking. The the the problem is it’s hard to call any team unless you’re going into the season already like established as a contender and you’re and you’ve at least shown that for the first like four week like the Bills are a contender. We knew going into the season they were a contender. The Eagles going into the season we knew they were a contender. The Steelers had some proving to do. They they had a lot of things, a lot of new players, and I I have a hard time calling them a contender in October. Even if they still only have one loss, even if they get all the because they only have three games in October, if they get through October and they’re six and one, I still don’t think I call the Steelers a legitimate contender at that point. I want to see what this team does when they really start getting getting in to the teeth of that schedule. You know, one of the things that I’m sure you guys are hearing from from both of us is that it’s less about the result than it is about the general performance. And I’m going to tell you right now, and you don’t you don’t have to believe me, that speaking only for myself, let’s just say that magically the Vikings had pulled that game out. Yeah. In Dublin. I mean that they and it’s conceivable they would have they could have moved another 10 20 yards. to kick a tying field goal, win the coin flip, stuff happens, right? Mhm. All right. Would everybody be on fire about it? Yes. Would two and two look a lot worse than three and one? Yes. Would there still have been massive progress made on both sides of the ball? Also, yes. Yep. What mattered the most to that team, and I could promise you this to be the case inside that locker room based on the things that we were told uh over there in Dublin, was how they played, was that they started to come closer to what they see as their identity on offense, regardless of how they did it. No one asks how they blocked. They made plays. They had the running game going. They did that against a pretty good defense. On the other side, they got after it for the first time. They ate the edge rushers ate. The interior defensive lineman got back there. The inside linebackers for the first time were a real real real plus. All of them, including Payton Wilson, who’d been a minus before that. At the end of the game, they had to overcome some stuff. They lost not one but two guys out of their secondary. Vikings get their whatever. I told you from over there, don’t worry about that. They need to keep getting better as a football team. So, as David Harrison says, Lions, Bills, Packers will tell if they’re contenders. They might, they might not, but you can show that you’re getting better. You can continue improving. So, if your record is, I don’t know, six and three or something like that, you can live with it. If you’re getting better, if you’re putting yourself into more of a prime position as when you get closer to playing Detroit and Buffalo and Los Angeles and those other teams that are significantly stronger, you’re out there with them. You’re competing. You go into the playoffs ride high. You know, it’s a crap for the most part. Yeah. Because I think the one thing that you that you want to at least look at when it comes to the process of everything is how does this team do when it comes to possessing the ball? How does this team do when it comes to limiting turnovers or or if you’re on the defensive side, taking the ball away? Um things that raise your floor because you don’t necessarily need to be this all or nothing type team, especially on offense. We’ve seen what that looks like. It was the deep balls to George Pickkins last year and nothing else. They had no other way to move the ball efficiently um because the run game wasn’t there. They get the run game going. Even if it takes six offensive linemen most of the time, then so be it. That’s just what you got to do. You got to run the ball. You got to find a way to run the ball. That’ll open up everything else for the offense because when you raise the floor, Aaron Rodgers is good enough to be able to put the cape on for a few plays a game in which he could still make a play. And that’s all you need sometimes when you’re talking about getting up against like like you you know pointed out the really really good teams when you go and play or when you go to Detroit and play the Lions when you when Josh Allen and the Bills come to Acer Stadium to play or if you do happen to make the playoffs or even win your division and you get into the playoffs how you fare against those teams because you have to be able to have high floor with the ability to be able to also be spectacular every now and then too. James Fairfield hits a home run here with this question I think. Could it be that a big splash defense is actually better than one that wins in yardage? Now, there’s an analytics conversation to be had there. Uh, which one is more valuable? Yardage is tough to give up for a bunch of reasons. I understand what Big Splash does. I understand flipping the field. Yardage is tough to give up, not just because of yardage. When you bend but don’t break, you’re out there for a long time. that affects you and it it it ultimately is going to make you pay later in the game. Now, whether that’s what contributed or as Terrell Austin, you know, was was taking full responsibility for the big play to Jordan Addison late in the game that put the Vikings in range to score a touchdown or everybody was just tired from being out there a lot. We can’t know that. What we can know is that it’s actually possible to be both. You don’t you don’t have to pick one. You can be a splash defense. You can make your plays. Think about the the the force fumbles that they’ve had to date. Have they come at the expense of missing tackles downfield? Not really. When they’ve missed, they’ve just missed. It hasn’t been. I haven’t seen too many cases of somebody doing this from behind and you go, “Oh, no. you just needed to bring them down. I haven’t seen that. But if you think of the the Steelers turnovers that they generated in Ireland, you think of what I’m what I’m seeing more than anything else is a twin effect. One is that the defensive line is getting their getting their arms up. Whether that’s Cam Hayward, YA Black, Keano Benton had his arm up. Harman, Derek Harman, Derek Derek Harmon’s been solid at it. Those are that’s pretty much everybody across the front. They do that, something happens good in the background. That’s how Deshawn Elliott uh got his got his interception to an extent. That’s kind of how TJ Watt got his. It got through Cam. It might have hit. Cam told me he had no idea if it even touched him, but it goes through him and it TJ has his arm up, too, which is how it hits off of his arm and he catches it. That’s what I’m seeing more than anything else. I’m not seeing that the there’s a sacrifice of one to the other. So the easy copout answer here, James, is do both, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh but I also understand, we had this conversation yesterday. I also understand the prioritizing splash over like we have to make sure like no matter what that we keep them under 200 yards or 250 yards, whatever it is. Uh, if you can keep the T I I think this if this defense were to finish in the bottom in the bottom third of the league in yards against, but they were to finish top 10 in points against and they were to be number one in takeaways. I think they’re more than happy with that because they they more than anything want to number one keep the other team out of the end zone. That’s the primary goal. You want to stop the other team from scoring points. That’s the whole point of defense in general. Don’t let the other team score. Um, but if you can give your offense a short field, I mean, we we talk about the impact of that TJ Watt interception because it wasn’t just the fact that, hey, it was a splash play, but it was a one-sore game. He picks it off and he gets the offense already in field goal range just with that one play. Then the offense doesn’t have to do that much to get downfield. And what the offense is doing great right now is capitalizing in the red zone. They are converting at a very high rate in the red zone. And if the defense could start giving them short fields because of this stuff, well, while you might give up a couple of long drives that turn into field goals, so be it. Take it. CJ says, “What if Nick Herbig and Alex Heismith are both 100% healthy? Who plays the most?” You know, Highmith gets knocked for not being available, and that’s fair. Highmith gets knocked for not generating the splash that Herbig does. That’s fair. Herbig gets knocked for not necessarily being as steady and reliable when it comes to the boring stuff. Also fair. You got to pick an identity. I think Chris uh are you that team that’s going to get after it? Are you that team that’s going to get after it from both sides? Are you that team that’s going to say, “Listen, one great way to keep the opponent from paying extra attention to TJ Wad or chipping him or doubling him or whatever it is, is to make sure that somebody’s coming from the other side with equal vigor, and I’m going to I’m going to prop up not just one asset, but I’m going to prop up two assets.” There’s a a lot of me that’s leaning to the her big side. I don’t believe that what’s being asked of Herbig in the runstoppping sense is all that much. I think if he could just turn himself into a decent run stopper and you can get the run stopping that you’re supposed to get from your middle guys, I want I want him out there. I want him playing. Well, they they want him out there, too. I mean I mean that that’s the thing is that like Tara Lawson and and Denzel Martin, you know, those guys yesterday where they were they were adamant that even when Heismith comes back, Herbig is gonna Herbig is going to play like that. That’s that now we have yet to see like how that’s going to happen, but Herbig is playing at possibly the highest level he’s ever played at. I mean, because he’s he’s producing. I mean, we we’ve seen him be be really good and he’s come up really big in some key spots like in previous years, but it’s been a little a little bit more sporadic. This has been over at least over the past two games, this has been pretty consistent that he’s been a playmaker. Now, you have to take that into account, but you also have to take into account that you don’t want him out there 100% of the time or even 90% of the time. You don’t want TJ Watt out there 90% of the time. These guys not only need to be fresh for like the crucial downs and possession downs and and and like sec late in the second quarter, fourth quarter, they also need to be fresh and healthy in December and January. So, you want to have a strong rotation of guys, especially when we’re talking about Alex Heismith, who has had as many as 14 and a half sacks in a season, be your number three guy possibly. That’s a great problem to have. It sure is. Jeff Rossy says, “Lots of good questions today. What’s up with you guys? Is there enough room on this team for both Pat Frymouth and John Smith? Both are lacking targets compared to last year.” Yeah, here’s first I’m going to take the last point first. The both are lacking targets versus last year. That was a known thing. Yeah, you just the moment you brought John Smith here, there was no way Pat was going to get his. And for crying out loud, Janu was he was the number one receiver in Miami o overall. No. So, he wasn’t even gonna and and everybody knew this. And this was all sorted out in camp. There are no surprises here. Where this becomes a lot more interesting I I think Jeff is when I look ahead to the next opponent specifically Cleveland and I think of what would worry me in facing the Browns. It’s it’s you know who. So would you take Darnell Washington off the field in that setting? Would you take even Spencer Anderson off the field? Not to overstate Spence’s uh participation. He had 19 snaps. Not much more than Frier Muth and John did, but it was more. Yeah. And they set themselves up so that they knew they could block. In fact, they set up about a million things in hindsight so that they could block. That’s that’s another subject for later in the day. I think these tight ends are they’re going to have to sort this out. And what’s going to sort it out is not going to be catch and throw. What sorts it out is going to be who’s going to block. Who can I, as Arthur Smith, leave on the field and presume that you’re going to block at at least close to the level that I’m going to get out of Darnell or Spence? Who’s going to do that between you two guys? Because I’m not going to make that decision based on who can catch the football. I’m gonna go at this from a different perspective here. Um, yes, there is absolutely room because the Steelers are I think second or third in the league in uh I think they’re third in the league in 12 personnel usage and I think they’re second in the league in 13 personnel usage. So, they are using the crap out of tight ends like possibly more than any other team in the league. And I don’t think that that’s an accident because the league is starting to trend more toward larger larger formations, larger personnel. Uh we’ve seen so much 11 personnel, which is three receivers on the field. We’ve seen so much of that over the past decade, and it’s become so prevalent that now teams are starting to This is why the Ravens have been doing this. This is why other teams like the like this is just why we’ve started to see more and more tight ends, more and more larger formations being used because they want to they want to be able to run the ball. They want to be able to hit these defenses that are now smaller and faster with bigger bodies. And yes, there is absolutely if you take one of those two guys off the field like or I’m sorry, off the roster, your depth at tight end gets a lot more a lot a lot more concerning, especially with how often they want to use tight ends. You want to be able to have all these guys. If it means that Pat Fire doesn’t get as many targets, so be it. If it means Johnny Smith doesn’t get as many targets, so be it. You’ve got a lot of talent at a position that you’re using a lot of use. Like it’s good to have all of that. No, there’s no doghouse. There’s no there nothing to that effect at all. Yeah. I get a little distracted here because I see that Frank says, “Does anyone remember Kevin Green and what a problem he was for other teams?” No, the problem was Greg Lloyd on the other side. Greg Lloyd was was all of the problem. Green would just come in and sweep up the spoils of that. I’m not about to rewrite that because the the guy’s not with us anymore, you know, or because he was, you know, something of a, you know, not great guy to be around because Lloyd wasn’t either. Oh, no. I’ve heard some bad stories about Craig Lloyd. Well, you can hear you can hear some about the other guy, too. Believe me. But when it comes to football, Lloyd made that stuff happen. And that’s part of why the TJ and Bud thing at its peak was just glorious because what Bud was, Bud was the hurricane that would come in and wreck your town and TJ would just do the looting. Okay. TJ would just go from store to store and go, “Whoa, look at this.” Hey, hey, not that TJ wasn’t doing his own wrecking and beating people and getting getting where he needs to go. TJ is TJ, so I’m not knocking him, okay? And TJ’s 10 times the player, 10 times the player that Kevin Green was, but when you’re talking about what the problem is, that’s where I like the Herbig thing better than the Heismith thing. Because Herbig, he’s not he’s not Bud. Okay, Bud was just this human dynamo, this freakish physical demon. Herbig is he’s he’s messing with you in different ways because he’s gonna beat you. He’s gonna get past you and you do have to do something different to make sure that he doesn’t slip by. And to have two of those to worry about, I think that’s I think that’s a challenge. I think that’s a greater challenge for another team’s offense. Oh, no. I I agree 100% because I I’m looking at like I remember seeing the one and I I pointed it out in the in the chalk talk that I did. There was one play where they had a tight end chipping and two offensive linemen dedicated to TJ Watt. They shifted their protection over to TJ. Like it wasn’t like where you see, okay, where’s where’s the pressure coming from and we’re going to shift protection to the right or to the left, whatever. No, they were shifting protection right no matter what because TJ was over there. So that left one-on- ons for everybody else. For Keanu Benton, for Cam Hayward, for uh Nick Herbig, and for Patrick Queen who were all else rushing because it was five men rushing on that one. You leave one-on- ones for that, somebody’s going to eat. Somebody’s going to have to eat. And my god, if that’s what defenses are, if that’s what offenses are going to start doing, if TJ is now going to become that guy that’s doing all the big work that’s going to take all the attention, and Nick Herbig is a guy who can win a lot of one-on- ones, and he can when we talk about the the pass rush win rate and all this kind of stuff. Well, Nick Herbig can do that pretty well. And so, yeah, that’s where he can be a really good compliment to to TJ Watt. So, but also Alex Heismith can, too. So, I don’t want to completely just dismiss Alex Hemith because Nick Herbig is also really good at his job. Peripheral Saint counters. Kevin Green was a Hall of Famer. Lloyd is not who presented Green. Do you remember that? Who was his best guy? Who was the guy that Green said? said many, many times was the one that got him there and that if he had his way, Lloyd would be there, too. Lloyd was never going to get the numbers in that scenario. Lloyd was always the superior player. Always, always, always. And I what I won’t do is entertain this argument with people who didn’t watch them. Now, for I’m going to assume here, Saint, that you did. Okay. I did too. Yeah, I remember these were not comparable players. No, Lloyd had a straight line to the quarterback because of things that were happening elsewhere on that front. The front itself overall was brilliant. Yeah, the front was unbelievable. Things we can’t even fathom today. Yeah, they had 56 sacks in 1994. 1994. Yeah, 56 sacks is a lot now. That’s It’s ridiculous. That’s probably one of the best defenses in franchise history. Oh, I I I in a certain mood I could be coerced into saying that it’s the best. Oh, the 76 76. I’m just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there. I I was, you know, I I was an infant then, but yeah. Uh Daniel Pike brings us back to the modern times and says, “Is Aaron Rogers quick release emblematic of who he is, or is it reflective of the offensive line?” Is the O line improving in your eyes? Rogers release has become quicker as he’s gotten older. There’s data to support that. We don’t have to wonder at that or guess at it. You can just see release time. And once he got to New Jersey and saw that he was going to be under duress, especially after the injury, meaning in the injury was that cost him 2023. He came back in 2024 and got rid of the football a lot faster. This time, this time he’s still getting rid of it crazy fast. Yeah, but I have a feeling, and I referenced this earlier and said we were going to get back to it, that this was part of Arthur and Aaron and everybody leading into Ireland saying, “We’re going to throw everything against the wall to guard against this offensive line not doing its job here. Everything we’ve got, extra lineman, check. Darnell on the field all the time, check. Darnell missed five whole snaps, offensive snaps that game. Uh, shorter, quicker routes. Check, check, check. Uh, throw to DK Medaf on those timing patterns for a first down. Check. Throw deep. Check. All of this happened as a result of And yet it still happened with crazy quick releases in a lot of cases. Chris, I’m sure you saw that. Uh, yeah, I did. I I like that Greg was paying attention here. Uh whenever I was running the show by myself, Arthur Smith explained to Chris that you don’t necessarily have to throw the ball 55 yards downfield to move the ball. So, here’s the thing. Arthur Smith gets a really bad rap for his time in Tennessee because there are there is a narrative out there that he’s only, you know, he only got credit for being a good offensive coordinator because he had Derrick Henry as his running back. It could not be further from the truth. You cannot just have a great offense because you have an elite running back. You have to be able to do things through the air. You can’t just be able to run the ball. The way that the Titans were so good and he explained this to me and once he explained it to me and I started going through the numbers and so through the actual data, he I I saw exactly what he was talking about. They were able to hit so many different hit defenses in so many different ways. Yes, they could hit the deep passes out of play action and they could hit the occasional go balls every now and then, but the thing that they hit so much were those quick hitter catch and run passes. AJ AJ Brown did it against the Steelers while Arthur Smith was I mean he had that one where he did a did a a shallow cross over the middle and Tanah Hill hit him and he just ran right past everybody in black and gold. This is a game in Nashville. I don’t remember what year it was, but I think it was one of the years that Arthur Smith was there, so it was 19 or 20. But this is this is a really really big thing that they did. He’s doing it here now because he’s a quarterback who can do it. You’re not going to do that with Russell Wilson. That was never his game. You’re not going to do that with Justin Fields. That’s never his game. This is Aaron Rogers. He can operate in the quick game. just because Aaron Rogers isn’t throwing the ball all over the place and he has this gigantic average depth of target, which by the way is one of the reasons why he’s graded so low by certain analytic sites, is because he’s not throwing the ball downfield. Who cares? He’s accurate and he’s getting rid of the ball so fast that you’re not even worrying about the protection because they’re trying to hit these catch and run things over the middle. Oh, and by the way, the Steelers lead the league in yak, by the way. I don’t think that’s an accident. Well, no. No, I mean they they acquired the the one of the NFL’s very best at Yak and Jon Smith and have yet to really use him to his fullest, but look, you get a lot of Yak on that one touchdown. So, let’s remember how much, and this is fair because it’s there. It’s an honest play. It counts, but it it makes everybody’s numbers look good. I mean, Rogers gets 80 additional yards on his passing. And again, he has to do his part. We talked about this u I I remember this came up a lot late in 2023 when Mason Rudolph hit Deontay Johnson on that that that seam route and Deontay caught it in perfect stride right between two purple shirts and just took off and like well Mason Mason threw for x number of yards. Oh yeah, but a lot of it came on that Yeah. And yep, he did exactly what he was required to do. He made exactly the pass that was needed and Rogers touch and accuracy on that pass was it was pinpoint. Mhm. And that’s what everything about that play was pinpoint. Everything and that and that’s and that’s honestly what you need. Like you have to have pinpoint accuracy in order to get the maximum amount of yards after the catch because you want that receiver catching the ball in stride, not having to sacrifice any kind of speed or anything because he has to adjust one way or the other. The ball’s too far out in front. It’s too low. puts too high. He It’s a little bit behind him, so he has to slow down. Whatever it is, no. If he can keep running in Strier to get right out of this break and be going full speed and the ball’s just right there, DK Metaf does not get that 80 yard touchdown if that ball is off target in any kind of way at all. Evan asks, “Where is Roman Wilson?” Because somebody has to do that on every show. It seems like he’s on the same level as Mason Rudolph in the eyes of Mike Tomlin. I I’m not sure what that means. U Mason keeps getting paid by the Steelers. Let’s remember that when when we talk about the disrespect for Mason and the I I don’t believe that the Steelers would pour out all of their trust or that Tomlin would in Rudolph as a starter, but they keep paying him to be here. So the idea that Mason’s in some perpetual doghouse doesn’t really align with what’s coming out of the bank where Roman is concerned. I don’t know what’s turned him into this like cult hero of everybody’s. I I don’t know what everybody has seen. Now Chris and I don’t see eye to eye on on Roman and his potential. I I don’t see anything. I’m sorry. I I don’t I don’t see it in practice settings. I don’t see it I didn’t see it in Latroe. I barely saw it in the preeason. And when you have all these people over Roman’s head, including the quarterback, saying, “We need to turn him into something. We’re going to turn him into something. we’re gonna that that to me is like a you know I mean they’re basically saying the bad part out loud that he he’s some kind of project that they have to concoct uh some sort of creation from. I don’t know. Look, I’d love to be wrong. Throw it in my face if and when I am. I just don’t see it. So here’s here’s the thing about like the whole where is Roman Wilson thing regardless of performance or anything like that. I just said that the Steelers are second or third in the league in 12 personnel and that they’re right up there in terms of leading the league in 13 personnel as well. They use a lot of tight ends. They are also second to last in the league in 11 personnel usage, which is when you have three receivers on the field. So that means actually I think it’s 2third of the time they have two or more tight ends on the field, which means they have no more than two receivers on the field. Who are those two receivers going to be when everybody’s healthy? Same two. It’s going to be DK Metaf and Calvin Austin because they’re the two best receivers on the team. For as promising as Roman Wilson possibly can be, he is not a better receiver than Calvin Austin is right now. No. So that’s why because if you have twothirds of the time two receivers on the field, you literally cannot put Roman Wilson on the field. Dina Self-Made says, “What has he done wrong?” That’s not the way I look at this stuff. That’s not the way. But I I do know that that’s the way that that a a lot of fandom does, especially when it’s a rookie. They’re looking for whether or not the rookie stinks or rookie makes mistakes. Then it’s okay to judge them fairly. Caleb Johnson leaves the ball sitting there in the end zone. All of a sudden, he’s subject to criticism from everybody. Why? He did something wrong. It’s not about what you do wrong. It’s about what you do right. It’s about what you’re doing to help the team. win. That begins not on the field in games. That begins in the places that nobody’s seeing. The coaches aren’t burying Roman Wilson to try to, I don’t know, have him emerge from some doghouse or overcome adversity. And they’re not doing it because, you know, he’s a younger guy who missed last season. Look at the opportunity singular here that was handed to Caleb Johnson with the kick returns uh with early early handoffs. He was told, you know, going to be part of the offense and everything. He was the one that squandered that. He’s the one that took himself essentially off special teams. And I believe that the only reason he got out there as a running back in Ireland was that Jaylen wasn’t available and you weren’t gonna just have, you know, Kenny Gainwell touch the ball 50 times. So what Wilson has done wrong isn’t an issue. It’s it’s what’s he going to what’s he going to do to help the Steelers win football games? Well, and this could be the answer with Calvin Austin, you know, possibly missing, you know, games. if he misses the game against the Browns, there’s a probably a pretty good reason or a pretty good chance he misses the game against the Bengals, too, because that’s just four days later. It’s really hard to turn around and and get ready for a game uh when you’re injured on a on a really short week like that. Um what they what the Steelers are going to need in Austinstead is somebody who’s fast. Well, Roman Wilson can do that. He can run fast. He’s got great speed. But Scotty Miller does, too. And Scotty Miller is a more trusted receiver at this point. Um, not only from Aaron Rogers standpoint or just because of the fact that he’s been in the league. I also remember a certain quarterback named Tom Brady who liked Scotty Miller. Um, that’s a pretty good guy to, you know, kind of say, “Hey, he he was a reliable guy.” So there there might be certain concepts that they trust Scotty Miller running a little bit more than than Roman. There also could be certain concepts that they like Roman in. Uh uh so I I think I don’t think it’s anything like Roman Wilson’s done this. No, they just aren’t using more than two receivers right now. And we’re leaving Ben Skiranic out. Rhino doesn’t to his credit. But Skiranic is really really good at blocking a different skill set. He does. They’re not similar. They’re they’re not it’s not like it’s it’s a one for one. But if you put Scoronic out there instead of Cal, if it comes to that, you at least know you’re going to get one thing out of him. And you do know, look, look, one thing about Skiranic, we saw occasions where he didn’t look like the world’s best receiver in Latroe. Okay. But we also have seen when the ball is at him, he he’s going to catch it. Yeah. With very few exceptions. Okay. And if you think about the touchdown in New Jersey, look, this is a guy who was Yes, he was. I understand that. But sometimes, and you’ve seen this Chris, where the play is just so open and such a no-brainer and so easy that it can mess with somebody and he could be looking around a little bit and drop. He didn’t. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did. That’s all I’m saying here. I’m not giving him excess praise. That was not the greatest catch. He’s a pro. He He’s just He’s a pro. Uh but but I think the the one thing that you’re looking for in terms of replacing Austin, and I I will use the the DK Metaf touchdown as an example. One of the things, one of the reasons why uh DK had the room that he did to go 80 yards was because of what Austin did on the back end. And that’s just not me making that up. DK himself said that after the game, he’s like that a really big reason why that play happened because Austin took defenders with him. And he did. He took one zone defender underneath and a safety on the backside with him while he was running this deep skinny post because he’s just that fast and defenses have to honor that. So when you think about potential replacements for what like think about that play if they try to run that play specifically again you want Scotty Miller to be that guy or you want Roman Wilson to be that guy because both of those guys maybe not as fast as Calvin but they’re still really really fast guys and so you want somebody with speed to be able to do that. No, that’s it. Uh two more questions today. This one’s from Robert Whitney over on Facebook who says, “You guys think that Omar Khan is scouring the market as we speak because of the buy.” No, Omar is scouring the market because it’s his job and he has to do it every day and there are no circumstances in which he shouldn’t be scouring the market. There’s part of a process that all general managers go through along with their staff keeping an eye on everybody who comes available, who’s on a practice squad. All these things get discussed every day. It’s what they do. They’re not just sitting around waiting for the next game to happen or reacting to the last game that happened. This is the job, Robert. So, they’re doing this every day. Every day. I know that sounds like a boring answer, but I can promise you if I had Omar sitting here with us right now, it’s the same answer he’d give you. Yeah, that’s exact. I mean, listen, he’s been scouring the market since before before Calvin Austin. Well, before Calvin Austin even got injured, he’s been the trade deadline’s not until what, week nine or week 10, like it got pushed back uh because of something as actually the Steelers were the ones to uh submit that that change uh during the owners meetings. Um they’re going to be looking up until the trade deadline and there will be teams that are going to try to offload and and then end up tanking. And so you bet that Omar is going to be possibly looking to make the wide receiver position a little bit deeper. will will not surprise me if they end up making a move. But it doesn’t also have to be right now either. You don’t want to make a move just for the sake of making a move. Now I think if you look at uh there’s questions here about here from from Lesby asks or Leper asks uh you know should they sign Deonte Johnson? I mean Peak Deontay you take in a second because he’s exactly that kind of receiver. Pete Deonte has passed us and whatever it was that he did to get himself out of Pittsburgh. There have been so many opportunities to bring him back if that was the interest. Okay. But it still happens that every time it seems like there’s a need or a hole or whatever, everybody mentions Deontay as if it’s just going to occur to the Steelers. Oh, Deonte’s still out there. That’s right. He was out there. Yeah. Yeah. the effort. They they made up their minds about him. Yeah, they made up their minds about him. So, I would not be expecting that at all. Greg Allen with a good good positive question here. I like this one. Says, “What’s the most pleasant surprise thus far this season?” Pleasant surprise. Putting us on the spot here. Which of us is going to go first on this? Chris is going. Yeah, Chris is going to be you. It’s gonna be you going first. Oh, it’s gonna be me going first. Thanks. Appreciate that. No, you’re saying that about me. No. Uh, pleasant surp I I don’t know. I think I’ve been I’m gonna I’m actually going to go ahead and say uh the offensive line. I know that’s going to sound really really weird, but they’ve been trending up and up and up every single game. I I know they’ve not been that that’s not a high bar. They they they were bad in the first week and they were bad in week two, but they are still doing this. They are still going in the right direction. They are still trending upward and they’re doing it relatively quickly. Now, just because you needed the six offensive linemen to get the running game going, I don’t care. They created pathways and I think Brick Jones has been get also getting better. So, I’m going to say the offensive line has been the pleasant surprise. I’m not surprised by Aaron Rogers. I’m not surprised by uh a lot of the other players who have been playing well. Uh I’m gonna say the offensive line with the way that they’ve trended and how quickly they’ve kind of turned because the season’s only four weeks. Yeah, that’s that’s the part where I have a tough time with the question because when you say in the season, it it implies to me that you’re only talking about the four regular season games as opposed to over the course of the year. Like I could give you for example, I could drop a Brandon Eckles on you. We didn’t know he was this dynamic. We didn’t know he was going to be this good. Uh I don’t think anybody could have except that he got into Latroe and showed everyone that. So has he been a surprise between Latroe and now? No. Has he been a surprise on the year? Yes. U you know Coley’s bringing up Aaron Rogers who I think has been a surprise, pleasant surprise uh to a lot of us. I don’t think a lot of us had imagined that Corus Weightman was going to beat out uh Cameron Johnston as the punter. That was the surprise of camp in all likelihood. Even though it’s just a punter, uh he’s done really really well. So, I I would say if if I looked at all of these guys and you forced me to to to pick just one, you can tell I’m still buying myself time here, huh? Well, if it’s just one player, does it have to be one player or can it be just one facet about the team? He makes the rules. Al Facet is a cop out to my facet. I mean, well, just because like for me the big the biggest the most pleasant surprise about the team to me has been the red zone efficiency. Like that to me has been because it’s like when they’re getting down there, they’re almost automatic. They’re getting in the end zone. It’s getting there that’s been the problem. I’m going to look up the red zone numbers now. They they are but but we also saw signs of that in the preseason and in training camp too where there’s there was such a heavy emphasis on it and it is still Aaron Rogers. I I I’ll tell you what. You know who my guy’s going to be here? It’s it’s going to be Darnell because there’s nobody who had a higher hill to climb to get the action that he got in Dublin. He had to be better at a lot of people. Better, I’m sorry, better than a lot of people at a lot of things to get all but five snaps in Dublin. He had to be a better tight end than either Pat Frymouth or John Smith toward that purpose and and he’s done that. So whether you want to credit Darnell for that or you want to credit Arthur Smith and Mike Tomlin for being open-minded about his usage and I I I I feel like it’s I feel like it’s Darnell. I really do there. How did I do? That’s a good one. That’s a good one. And I as soon as you said higher higher hill to climb, I immediately thought higher mountain to climb. Everybody thinks in puns. That’s why if we never have to cover a game together at Gillette Stadium again, I think you’ll be happy. No, that’s that’s a that is a razor sharp observation on your part. All right, guys. Don’t get him started on this crap. You’re the one who did it. I didn’t even make the pun. I I see what this is all about. All right, guys. Listen. uh go get our app. We’re we’re through asking. We’re through being nice. We’re doing all our work over there. And and you know, we’re getting some great response here, but we’re greedy. We want even more. Go download the app. I got to tell you right now, probably more than half of the questions that get asked in these live chats are easily answered. Like the people who have the app are going, “Oh man, come on. You didn’t see that on the app?” Really? Do you have any idea how many of the questions that were asked today were literally the same questions that were asked in my live keys yesterday? Well, I don’t just mean the questions. I mean the information in general. No, I No, I know. But I’m saying like I I feel like I think literally every single question or at least maybe all but like two of these questions I answered in live cues yesterday. Well, right, but in general like the the the the knowledge and stuff, this is all stuff that’s that’s that our our subscribers on there are already aware of. Anyway, go download the app. It’s an order. Uh, it’s free. And then what you do, you get there, you’ll open it up, you’ll see ads, you won’t like it. You’ll see that you can’t comment. You won’t like that either. Uh, what’s another thing you won’t like, Chris? Oh, yeah. That you can’t participate in Chris’s live cues that he was just talking about. So, you won’t like any of that. But what you do in turn is you email me dkdpittsports.com. I’ll get you a massive discount on the premium levels so that you have the good ones, you know, so that you stick with us and you support us. Uh dkdpittsburghports.com is the place to reach out. We will be back with another one of these shows tomorrow. [Music] [Applause]

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