FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright SHOCKS, Pittsburgh Steelers Should MOVE ON From Mike Tomlin | NFL

FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright SHOCKS, Pittsburgh Steelers Should MOVE ON From Mike Tomlin | NFL

1 points to the Bears without Aaron Rogers who doesn’t play defense anyways. Loss drops them to six and five, but a bad six and five, not like a lot of the other teams. The playoffs started today, which would be odd. The Steelers would not be in it. Let’s look at this graphic. Teams that have allowed over 30 points most games this season. The Bengals, who all we ever talk about is their bad defense. then the Steelers and then the Giants who fire their head coach and defensive coordinator. Is anyone ready to write off the Steelers? I’m ready to go a step further and write off close off the franchise. I’d be willing to discuss Mike Tomlin trades this off season. Interesting. Feels feel and the comp I would use I know it wasn’t traded. He was just fired but Andy in Philly. Yeah. like excellent coach, you know what I mean? But maybe is it best for everyone involved? Fresh started. And for Tomlin, they are once again he looks like he’s going to be a victim of his own success in this regard. They’re not going to be at the top of the draft. You know what I mean? You’re still going to be looking for like is Kyler Murray going to be the quarterback there? Are they going to use the 16th pick on a quarterback? Right. And so, um, or Aaron at age 42, like coming back again. So, I I do think they squandered a golden opportunity of the Bengals having, you know, not having Burrow for months and the Ravens starting one and five. And the fact that they the Ravens have caught them before they’ve even played them is crazy. Uh, after the one and five start. And so, coach, like that’s Yeah, I’m ready to write off the Steelers season. And I’d consider like, hey, Giants, you want to trade us the 35th pick of the draft, whatever your second round pick is for Mike Tomlin. Like, that’s something to me. Yeah. I I not really writing them off because I never wrote it. I didn’t I didn’t think they were going to be very good. I I thought they would be similar to what they’ve been and maybe a little bit better than last year because Aaron Rogers performed somewhat better than than Russell and and Justin Field did, but I I I didn’t expect their defense to be as bad as it is. And and to Kevin’s point, the fact that they’re in the category with the Bengals and and what one game less at 30 plus points than the Bengals is is pretty amazing. But I don’t think this is a Mike Tomlin problem. This is a a quarterback problem and it’s been consistent where once Ben Rothosberger left like we see with a lot of organizations when you lose a great quarterback trying to replace that guy is it’s it’s a neverending challenge. So you could you know the quarter the the head coach works but you’ve got to solve that problem and they’ve been trying to bargain basement it for the quite a few seasons now. I guess they did have the one first round draft pick that didn’t work out, but they’ve got to keep working that element of it as opposed to blowing it up and getting rid of Mike Tom. Yeah, but the the defenses the defense hasn’t been good, right? Like that’s that’s been a genuine problem for this Pittsburgh Steelers team. And we can say, hey, you know, the Bears have a good offense and this and that. And it’s just like that’s true, but this is where a great defense is supposed to have some sort of neutralizing factor. We see it with the Cleveland Browns, even um the Minnesota Vikings, the Green Bay Packers. like you you you can look around the league and be like, I feel like that those defenses have answered the call to the challenge in some of these moments. We got a backup quarterback in. We really need a great game. We’re going up against a tough offense. All right, we’re going to we’re going to do it. And a lot of times it’s just like TJ Watt being him. Um and why does every Pittsburgh Steelers game need to have JJ as the commentator? It’s driving me insane. I don’t need to hear JJ every single Pittsburgh Steelers game. It’s driving me It’s driving me insane. It’s driving me insane. It’s driving me insane. Um, but now you have Mason Rudolph. What are you doing in that play to make him throw that ball to get that interception? Listen, it was a great interception by the Bears. Why is that the play call? For the life of me, I have no idea why they’re like, “Hey, let’s start this game off and put the ball in harm’s way. Why? Why?” But your your your quarterback now had two turnovers. And again, a strip sack, like those things can happen. Interceptions can happen, but like, you know, they were they were devastating. They had devastating consequences in this game. At one point you were going to be able to tie the game or even take the lead. Instead, you get the strip sack and then literally the first play for the Bears is like a big 20 30 yard pass to a wideopen wide receiver DJ Moore and they’re immediately inside the 35. That has devastating consequence. That’s when the that’s how that game gets won or lost. And then also now you’re trying to go for it. you do one of the worst hush pushes I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I I still to this day I still don’t understand. Washington is still just kind of like standing there like I just I just don’t know what the heck that was. And it’s like it’s okay to kick field goals. Guess what? If you kicked the field goal, what would have happened? Yeah, you’d be tied. It’s just crazy. It’s okay. You don’t always have to go for it. And then you do the fake touch to push, which turns into a touchdown, which was awesome, honestly. Which was great. And I was like, “Well, now it’s going to undercut what I had to say earlier cuz I, you know, I take my notes.” And so the fir, you know, the the the the failure happened first and I go, “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?” And then, you know, a few moments down I go, “Amazing fake.” And then, you know, touchdown. Amazing. You know, or or was like I think it it ended up being what, just shy of the touchdown with um oh gosh, I can’t think of his name. Uh Gain Will. Uh, and so this was a game that the Steelers could have won even though they had a quarterback. They played with a backup quarterback. They turned the ball over multiple times, had a couple questionable call, questionable calls, and your defense gave up 31 and yet you were still in a position to win this game. That in a lot of ways becomes even a harder pill to swallow. Becomes even more frustrating. You’re kind of like, how do I make sense of this? It would almost be easier if you didn’t have a chance to win. And you’re like, well, we had no chance to win. We were we were just we’re just not good enough. But then you’re just kind of like, man, you made some really questionable decisions and some some questionable execution moments and you were still right you were you were right there. It’s hard, but I mean, you were eight for 14 on third down, one for three on fourth down. I think that that the final one was was that play to end the game. I I think that’s what that was, right? Um and uh the end the the exact end of this game was everything was clustered together because we had so many different games like coming down to the wire and I’m like trying to watch them and make make videos and like watch the rest of it. Things got a little crazy. Um, but you out gained technically the Steelers and the the Steelers over the Bears, which only means so much to me. Um, but you still gained 345 yards on 10 total drives. Bears had 12 drives, 328. So, it’s like you could say it was a quarterback issue and it was like a quarterback moment issue. But again, a big bulk of that uh also came what they have like nearly 200 rushing yards, I think, or something. Yeah, 186 rushing yards, which I love to see. Um, again, a big chunk of that came from the fake 55 yards, but still, uh, a lot of success within the run game. Um, but you had Mason Rudolph as your quarterback. You needed the defense to step up even more. They made a couple nice plays. Absolutely. Obviously, the strip sack. Um, which then led to the, you know, to the touchdown. Um, yeah. I mean, it is interesting to think what would the Pittsburgh Steelers look like if they had a legit young high quality quarterback. And we don’t even have to go far. Well, if you had, you know, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, like you don’t even got to do that. It’s like, what if you had Sam Darnold? What if you had a prime Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott, um an upand cominging quarterback like a Jaden Daniels, um Caleb Williams? It’s like what would you be able to do here? And listen, the whole all the success that George Pickins is having right now, that’s bad. That’s bad. You had him in the building. you had him. He’s been one of the best receivers in the NFL. He just has. He’s open a ton and when he when it’s time for him to to make contested uh catches, he’s making them. I mean, he had four contested targets against the Philadelphia Eagles yesterday alone. He was four for four on contested catches and huge catches. Huge catches. gamechanging catches and it’s like you could have actually had both of them because it’s not like you had to pay him not necessarily. So like you could have had DK and Pickins and now it’s like I don’t know you you could have had them both and again you’d have to figure out how to make the money work but like if you’re winning games you find a way. He seems pretty happy in Dallas because he’s getting targets. He’s getting yards. He’s getting touchdowns. they’re kind of winning and it’s like I you could have built something kind of special offensively. You you could have given Aaron like his picking, you know, his choosing and you could have kind of played hard ball with Aaron and said, “Aaron, take a lot less money. We’re going to have to pay these guys money. Look, look what we’re going to give you. We’re going to give you two great wide receivers, blah blah blah blah blah.” You know, a defense. Like, if you want to play here, let’s do it. like we’re able to give you something that what other team is offering you right now. Like you could have you could have navigated it also a little bit more skillfully potentially. And again, I’m not writing them off. I mean, maybe if Aaron can’t come back. I don’t, you know, I don’t know when he’s officially due back. And now you’re playing the Buffalo Bills. That’s a coin flip. You never know what type of Buffalo Bills you’re getting. I don’t know. Are they going to be great? Is Josh Allen going to ball Josh Allen going to have 12 touchdowns in the game or is he going to be running for his life? It’s going to be brutal. I’m excited for that game, but um I I I have no confidence in in one direction or the other, honestly. Uh which is the way I like it. I like to not have any strong sense, but um you know, you can you can talk about, oh, you know, for years the Steelers, you know, have been struggling since Big Ben, blah blah blah blah blah. And it’s like, but they’re a really high quality franchise, right? And now like the Bears figured it out, the Commanders figured it out, the Bucks figured it out, the Seahawks figured it out, the Colts seemingly figured it out. Like we can go down all the teams that have figured it out. The teams that don’t figure it out are the bad ones, the Cleveland Browns, the Las Vegas Raiders, like where you start naming teams where you’re just like, “Well, that’s not the Pittsburgh Steelers.” Because you could point around and just be like, “Well, it’s hard to do.” You’re right. It is. But you’re a high quality franchise. You’re the Pittsburgh Steelers. You’re not supposed to compare yourself to the Cleveland Browns. Like, that’s that’s not how this works. You’re the Pittsburgh Steelers. You’re football royalty. You’re an elite franchise with an unbelievable history. Now the Patriots figured it out in less time from when they lost Tom Brady. They got new coaches, fired them, had quarterbacks, got rid of them. Now they got the coach, they got the coordinator, they got the quarterback. Boom. Top team in the NFL. And the Steelers are supposed to not only be the great franchise, but then they also already supposed to have the coach at least. So, it’s some of these other franchises, they’re they’re going in circles because it’s like, well, we don’t even have the coach, let alone the quarterback. Maybe we have the quarterback, but we don’t even have the coach. And now we got to get a new coach, but then we realize, ah, the quarterback’s really not that good. Ah, the right and you got to it just becomes really messy. Becomes really messy. You’re kind of like, ah, I don’t know how to make sense of this. But you’re supposed to have a big checkbox checked already. So, that’s a tough one. I’m hopeful and optimistic that the Steelers can be resilient because it seems like everyone’s rooting against them, too. I always I always I always got that soft spot for the teams that people are just actively rooting against and they don’t even hide it. Like people want this to happen. They want the Steelers to lose. They want them to fail. So, we’ll see. We’ll see. But those are just my thoughts. I’d absolutely love to hear yours. What do you guys all think about the Pittsburgh Steelers? Are you ready to write them off? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I read every single comment whether you agree with me or disagree with me. Either way, let’s get into some discussions. Let’s get some fights, but ultimately let’s just have some fun. Please do consider subscribing. We are building an amazing community here and I absolutely love to see you part of it. I want to build something that we all generally feel connected to, something that we’re really excited to be part of. I think we’re well on our way to doing it. 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.

FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright SHOCKS, Pittsburgh Steelers Should MOVE ON From Mike Tomlin | NFL
#firstthingsfirst #nickwright #pittsburghsteelers