THE HERD | Colin Cowherd BLOWN AWAY, “Pittsburgh Steelers Have Been IMPRESSIVE With Aaron Rodgers”

THE HERD | Colin Cowherd BLOWN AWAY, “Pittsburgh Steelers Have Been IMPRESSIVE With Aaron Rodgers”

So, I I am going to shock you that for the second straight time I’m talking about the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers. I’ve got positive vibes. They beat Cleveland. They were going to beat Cleveland 23-9. Um, I mean, listen, they Dylan Gabriel had no shot. Totally engulfed. But here’s the thing. Aaron Rodgers has done two things really well. Number one, he has fit into the Steelers culture. He’s not taking anything away. And secondly, he’s made the Pittsburgh offense smarter. Pittsburgh’s offense is unique. It’s got huge targets. You know, the Hayward and Washington and DK Metaf and Frier Mouth, it’s got gigantic men. This is not like gadget receivers. Like Kansas City’s doing it with some smaller body types. Pittsburgh’s got massive size and Aaron realizes that. There’s no reason to take big risks down the field. For the last seven, eight years, I had said on this show, Pittsburgh had playmakers defensively, but they just weren’t they were like tonedeaf offensively. They just weren’t very smart situationally. So Aaron has fit in. It’s not about Aaron. He’s fit in with the culture and he just made the offense much smarter. Now, now places like PFF are like, he doesn’t throw the ball down the field on this team. There’s no reason to. This offense is big, strong, and physical. And I I’m watching this team. He’s not doing a lot of wow stuff. He’s doing a lot of wee stuff. That’s what this is for Pittsburgh. So now they couldn’t beat Sam Darnold because I don’t think I don’t think this team is going to beat the best quarterbacks. But in the AFC North right now, it’s backups. So I think Aaron has downshifted. He understands his he’s a smart guy. He understands what the team needs from me. And in these games when you’re facing Dylan Gabriel and backups, what the team needs is the system, first downs, not a lot of wow plays, I got big targets, and I mean, it’s like you’re throwing a defensive ends. This whole team feels like a tight end, but effective, productive enough. I like what I see. You’re getting his touch, his accuracy, and his IQ. And I I think he’s done a great job. The numbers will tell you, well, he’s not throwing the ball down the field. You know what? Maybe a younger Aaron Rogers when he was in his athletic prime would have been running around and running out of completions. This Aaron for this team, which has M trucks as targets and Washington and DK Metaf, this is exactly the offense you should run. Get some physical matchup advantages. You can throw stuff underneath. your big guys can break tackles. I I’m really impressed by it. I I don’t I they’re they may run away with this division by Thanksgiving. Yeah, I don’t think it’s Maybe. It seems like they will. This Pittsburgh Steelers fans was actually one of my favorite games of the weekend. And I’m usually Mr. Oh, you know, you’re playing against a bad team, blah blah blah blah blah. Not a lot of takeaways here. Um because I do believe that. I I only believe there’s only so many takeaways you can have when you’re playing a team that’s clearly inferior. But the way how this game unfolded, uh especially when we know the Cleveland Browns do have a a really really great defense and it’s obviously a divisional game and you know, especially the AFC North always has the ability to get weird and wonky in those divisional games, no matter who’s playing, no matter who’s the quarterback. Um, and so I I do think a game like this there’s there’s stronger um there there there’s stronger ways to get like actual takeaways. So, you know, what could we learn from a game like this? How do how do we feel about this team right now? And it for me it just can’t be any higher. I’m I’m just so impressed by the quality of play that we’re getting out of the Pittsburgh Steelers right now. Um, and the defense is rising to the occasion. Again, there’s like like my point is about the takeaways. Like there’s only so many takeaways from from beating Dylan Gabriel defensively, but when you could see how hard they were hitting, how physical they were, how aggressive they were, they weren’t just relying on a on a on a quarterback playing his second game of his career just like missing throws and having incompletions and holding on to the ball too long and not knowing what to do. Like, they weren’t just relying on that. If that’s the way how they swallowed everyone up, then I would say okay. But they were getting after him. They were making his life miserable. Absolutely miserable. And they were hitting the receivers so hard. The receivers were like, I don’t want to catch the ball, man. It’s not worth it. We’re not going to win this game. We’re not going to win any games this season. I don’t want to deal with it. Get me out of here. And like that was the Pittsburgh Steelers defense just shutting everything down. I expected Dylan Gabriel to struggle and he didn’t have any chance. I think he actually played pretty well considering the circumstances. Um, but Aaron Rodgers uh is obviously what really impressed me and and I just think how well connected this team is from a roster standpoint, from uh from a coaching standpoint, from you know any of the various relationships that you can kind of look at it whe whether it’s be with um Arthur Smith, Aaron, DK, um you know uh uh Warren, I mean like it just all all of the various relationships that you can that you can you know connect the dots, too. This is a team that’s legitimately connected. This is a team that’s legitimately connected, all on the same page in between plays. You see them talking to each other. You see them interacting with each other like and it’s like real conversations. Um, and yeah, it’s it’s impressive. Um, Pittsburgh Steelers fans, you know, I got to keep asking you though real fast before we get any further into it. Please do not forget to subscribe. We are building a Pittsburgh Steeler army right now. Every video that I keep making, you guys keep showing up by the thousands and thousands and thousands. We’ve already added thousands and thousands of Pittsburgh Steelers fans, subscribers, and I want to keep adding more. I want to keep adding more. I want to keep building it. Um, as I told you before, I I I used to live in in Pittsburgh. Uh, so it’s it’s it’s been incredibly satisfying to to sit back and and watch everyone have to eat a bit of crow about the Steelers and Mike Tomlin and and Aaron Rodgers. So, uh, please do not forget to subscribe. When you guys do, everything just goes through the roof. Uh, views go through the roof, subscriptions go through the roof, and I’m just truly trying to build something that firmly is rooted in the sports talk world so I can keep making the best possible Pittsburgh Steelers content that I can. But if they’re playing great, talk about them playing great. If they’re playing bad, I’m going to talk about them playing bad. It’s real honest conversations, not bias, not extreme, not pandering, not hate, not trolling, just what you see in real time. Um, but I just think my my favorite sequence of events was when Aaron Rogers missed the throw to DK Metave. And in those moments when you miss a throw like that, you know, it’s things things can always take a turn. Not not not too strong because you are going up against the Cleveland Browns, right? But it was just though then the next play call and going back to DK Mechaf, scheming him wide open, having Aaron roll out and scramble. I think it was I think it was to his right. Uh and and make that throw. It just immediately erases any sense of man, we just left a touchdown on the board. And Aaron knows it. DK knows it. Like everyone knows it. Every everyone on the team, the defense knows it from both sides for the, you know, the Cleveland Browns, everyone knows it. And when you are in the more earlier stages and you’re dealing with an older quarterback and it’s not like the Steelers offense is like the most highpowered offense where they’re just hanging 30 points all day every day. It’s like any of those little moments always have a have a have a opportunity to make things a little more fragile. Take the Eagles as a perfect example. Jaylen Herz has been hitting those deep ball throws like all season long really well. Um, he misses that one throw on AJ Brown. And this is during a time when everyone’s like, “This offense is bad. This offense is bad. This offense is bad.” He misses that throw and everything starts to crumble. Everything just completely starts to crumble. And yet, I watch the games all weekend and I see literally just this weekend alone, I see Aaron miss a throw. I see Matthew Stafford miss a throw. I see Justin Herbert miss a throw. I see Mahomes miss I see them all missing throws but they don’t have the same sense of like this fragility. And so when you start to build this up where it’s like yeah we can miss throws all day every day. It doesn’t matter. We we we still find ways to get everyone involved. We still find ways to get our offense involved to put up points. So when we miss a throw like that, when we miss an opportunity like that, it doesn’t have to feel like, oh gosh, we missed that. That was our one of our only couple opportunities we’re going to have throughout this game. It wasn’t like that. And that matters. That matters no matter who you’re playing, no matter who the other quarterback is, no matter what team you’re playing, no matter how great their team is. Um, and so this is a team that just believes. This is a team that just believes this is a team. I’m just going to keep saying it. They’re connected. When you see how hard they were playing physically, both offensively and defensively. The run game was physical and Aaron’s out there scrambling, wheeling, and dealing. And I think he scrambled in such a smart way cuz he was moving a lot with his legs, but he was still doing it in a more safe, contained way and not trying to do too much. I told you guys this before, he is still in the process of figuring out what he can and can’t do at this point in his career. And he definitely has a much deeper foundation of that knowledge after playing for a whole year with the New York Jets. And and now he’s using that information uh to build off of this season, right? Uh, and I think he’s just doing a great job at it. I think I I I think he’s doing a good job. He’s still going to get burned sometimes, right? He’s going to try to scramble, throw across his body, and, you know, put the ball in harm’s way like every quarterback at this point does. Um, but he’s he he’s evolving. He’s getting better. Um, I still think it’s crazy that the Steelers beat the Pittsburgh uh beat the Pittsburgh Browns, beat the Cleveland Browns uh 22 straight times at home. I still don’t even understand how that’s actually legitimately possible. That is such an embarrassment. Yes, that is partly because the Steelers have been great, but that is also just such an absolute imper I mean I think every day you’re a Steelers fan, you should just thank you. You just be like, “Thank God we’re not a bank. We’re not the Bengals or the Browns, you know? I mean, just just just thank God we’re not them.” Even the Ravens and you’re just like, but really you just need to be like, “Thank you, Lord, for me growing up in Pittsburgh or around Pittsburgh and my father, mother, whatever raising me to be a Steelers fan.” Uh, you know, because if I had to be a Cleveland Browns fan or a Cincinnati Bengals fan, wh what’s the point? What’s what’s the point? Why? There’s just there’s legitimately zero point in it. Zero zero zero point. Um, so I ju I just think the Steelers continue to remind everyone that this is what happens when you have so much stability in a franchise, in an organization. that you can have consistent levels of success. Have they come up short and have they been able to really achieve the high high levels of success that we know the Steelers have done in years past? And could you say that some of their decision-m has hampered them? Sure, absolutely, undeniably, from my viewpoint. But at the same time, when you see so many other franchises struggling to just even have a semblance of competency, that’s where the Steelers really shine. And you’re just like, look what we can do in any given year. Look at the levels of consistency. And I do think they’re going to win the division. I mean, the Ravens are a mess. The Bengals are a mess. The Browns are obviously a mess. Um, and the reality is right now, this is just my current October 13th uh conclusion. I’m looking around the league right now and it was just like, you know, I I had a take where I’m like, oh, you know, we haven’t seen the Detroit Lions go up against a great defense and the Kansas City Chiefs offense has been playing pretty well, but they also have been going up against, you know, messy, injured defenses, etc., etc. And like right now, it just feels like every team is a little bit messy. Every team’s a little bit either banged up or their defense isn’t elite. Like last year it felt like we had a whole handful of teams where we’re like, “Dude, Casey’s defense elite, Chargers defense elite, Broncos defense elite, Eagles defense elite.” Right? And it was just like so many different boxes that we could check that we could be like, “Well, this off, you know, Detroit Lions offense unstoppable.” Right? Philadelphia Eagles run game unstoppable. Baltimore Ravens offense just unstoppable. And you could just really check a lot of these boxes. I don’t feel that way this year. I don’t feel that way this year. This feels like an incredibly messy year. And that’s exactly the type of year that allows a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers with a quarterback who’s like 74 years old to be able to to take advantage of that to really take advantage of that. If they can continue to be one of the more physical teams, if they can continue to set Aaron Rodgers up for success, if the players around them can continue to step up, and if the defense can continue to get better and better and better, and then when you do play the better quarterbacks, if you are playing the Mahomes, if you are playing the, you know, who use whatever you want, whatever quarterback you want, and you can get to them, you can make their lives miserable, then there’s a real chance, there’s a real chance to be a legitimate top team in the and not just beat the Dylan Gabriels of the NFL. So, I I I I I disagree with what Colin saying. He’s like, “Oh, they can’t beat the Seattle Seahawks. They can’t beat better quarterbacks or better teams.” It’s like, “No, they just they didn’t beat uh the Seattle Seahawks and and Sam Donovan.” But it doesn’t mean they can’t beat them. So, um they just got to continue to keep getting better. They got to keep continue to keep getting better. And I think the more and more they believe and the more and more they stay connected, um they’re they’re going to feel that. And I think just even the the motivation of knowing we are in the legitimate driver’s seat of winning this division is going to go an incredibly long way. An incredibly long way. That locker room is absolutely undeniably going to feed off it. They understand that the Ravens are injured and and Bengals are injured. Like they’re not dumb. You can’t you can’t lie to the coaches. You can’t lie to the players. They understand that. I promise you they’re still going to feed off it. They’re still absolutely positively going to feed off it. It’s going to fire them up and they’re going to want that too. So, you’re going to get a lot of highlevel connected play as the season unfolds. Um, and I’m looking forward to it. But those are just my thoughts. I’d absolutely love to hear yours. What do you guys all think about the Pittsburgh Steelers? Um, how do you feel about this 4 in one start? Top team in the NFL. Again, I know it’s inconvenient for some people to to acknowledge that, but top team in the NFL. Uh, let me know in the comments below. I read every single comment. Whether you agree with me or disagree with me, either way, let’s get in some discussions. Let’s get in some fights. But ultimately, let’s just have some fun. And please do consider subscribing. As I said, we are building an amazing community here, and I’d absolutely love to see you part of it. Uh, and please don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up, as it really does help with the visibility and the algorithm. Thank you so much. See you next time.

THE HERD | Colin Cowherd BLOWN AWAY, “Pittsburgh Steelers Have Been IMPRESSIVE With Aaron Rodgers” NFL
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