October 21, 2024 • 44 mins
The trio of Rob King, Craig Wolfley, and Matt Williamson are back with another celebratory addition of the Point After following the Steelers satisfying victory against the Jets Sunday night.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Steelers Point After Show on wdb E Pittsburgh,
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(00:22):
now here are your hosts, Rob King, Craig Wolfley, and
Matt Williamson.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And we welcome you to the Point After on the
Steelers Audio Network. And what a fine day this is.
Following this to this thirty seven to fifteen victory a
route as it turned out over the New York Jetsy.
Victory improves the Steelers to five and two on the season.
It was good, it looked good. There are a lot
of things to like about last night's performance on Sunday
(00:48):
Night Football. Our first reaction is brought to you by
First National Bank. Let's get started, member FDIC wolf Let's
get started with you. Your first reaction to last night's win, Well.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I think it was tremendous and sense of you know,
there was this unknown anticipation, knowing but not knowing that
Russ was going to be the starter. You know what
I mean? That was probably the worst kept secret in
Pittsburgh last week, is whether or not they were going
to go with him and roll them out there, and
certainly they did, and you know, it was it was
interesting because you look at the start of this game
(01:20):
and it was not exactly I'm sure how Russ would
have liked to have started off this game, but you know,
seeing a veteran who I think it was this one
hundred and eighty eighth game or something like that for Russ,
and how he pulled himself together, got the job done
and finished with a flourish and a bang man. It
was just wonderful to watch. The defense was just overall
(01:42):
so very impressive. And they went over and they knocked
the living Ayahuska out of you know, hyah Watska. I
guess it's called out out of Aaron Rodgers, you know.
So I loved it. It was tremendous, a great team
effort Matt.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Without question, and the offense looked a lot sharper, a
lot of things that you can't you know, put numbers
on you know, just veteran running the run the show there,
getting everybody involved. I love what you're seeing, like from
Darnell Washington and you know, little things like that. The
offensive line I thought had some struggles early but got
better as the game went on. That was impressive. The
second half really wasn't all that competitive. A lot of
(02:21):
splash on both sides of the ball, but especially the offense,
and really good stuff. And oh, by the way, they
block another kick. I mean, I saw Dale and I
saw Danny Smith in the cafeteria on Thursday and we
kind of joked, We're like, Coach T's gonna make you
give you a hard time if you don't block a
kick a game. He's like he already is, you know,
like that's just an expection expectations. Now it's good stuff.
(02:44):
They really had two?
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, they should have had two. That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Nine kicks blocks since the beginning of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
That's the most in the NFL. And you know, I'm
I'm glad you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Mentioned that, Matt, because I want to start there only
because I don't want to forget about it as his
program rolls on, because there's.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
So many big things that happened.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But there were a couple things that happened on special
teams that I thought were really nice. You know, Corless
Weightman had three of his punts go inside the twenty
and the one that pinned the Jets deep back inside
their own ten yard line. It was down at the
seven yard line, and that was the sequence that led
(03:23):
to the interception by Beanie Bishop. You know, there's a penalty.
The Jets found themselves in some trouble. They found themselves
trying to press the ball down the field. They decided
they wanted to press the ball. It gave him bad
field position, it gave him a long field. Of course,
the block kick, there was a nine yard return by
Calvin Austin when they had a punt safe unit out.
There just little things that I felt like. And Chris Boswell, again,
(03:47):
you cannot gloss over the fact that this guy is
just an incredible kicker. And you know, I look back
at his statistics and of course you can't cherry pick
out and take out the two bad years he had.
Two bad years were worse than most other great kickers
bad years. He's six all time in field goal percentage.
If you took out those two years, he would be
(04:08):
far and away number one. His career field goal percentage
would be over ninety two percent. He has just been
such a weapon for this Yeers. And so I just
thought a lot of things that the special teams unit did,
and including the block and what should have been another block.
I think we all thought, and I believe somebody told
me that, you know, we were obviously calling the game
of the radio that one of the their you know,
(04:30):
their their gene sterotor of of Sunday Night Football said yeah,
bad call. So I just thought, again, I don't want
to gloss that over because I think the special teams
has been a significant factor in this Yeelers winning games.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I couldn't agree more. And you know, to take it
even a step further, like they're getting a lot of
first downs via penalty and not giving them up. I mean,
I'm just talking about hidden yardage type things, you know.
I mean, people don't listen to me regularly. I look
at a blocked or a missed field goal alone, a
blocked one the same as a turnover. I look at
a missed fourth down exactly the same as a turnover.
(05:06):
They had several of those to add to your turnover
differential and Rob, I remember in camp when you would
join us on the drive and we would talk about Johnston,
And I know you did the math of Harvin to Johnston,
how many yards over the course of the year the
Steelers would gain if he had an exact same year
as he had in Houston the year before versus what
(05:29):
Harvin did. And there was so much hidden yardage there,
and I think we're going down that same path again.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, I think that, and again to recap for people,
and I can't remember that. It was like twenty five
yards a lot, yeah, which was enough. You know, if
you just again, you could use that yardage anyway you want.
It's still it's real yardage. But let's say you added
it to your offense. The Steelers offense would have improved
to top twenty in the league from mid twenties. Wherever
they were, they would moved up like six spots just
(05:56):
in those twenty five yards. So you know, when you
look at it an offense, yeah, you know, it's a
twenty fifth ranked offense or twenty fourth ranked office.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Any think, well, it's the eighteenth ranked offense.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That's not far away from being average, just by the
hidden yardage in special teams and then Wolf once again.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Rob real quick. Yeah, I was digging into stats, believe
it or not this morning.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, No, can't be.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I mean, just from interceptions this year, the Steelers have
gained one hundred and thirty seven yards more than they've
given up.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know like that, that's a lot, it is, And
I think that that's I was gonna make. I'm glad
you said that, because I was going to make the
transition Wolf to turnovers, and going into last night's game,
the Steelers had Bob Labriole. I believe Doug, this stat
up the best, uh the best turnover ratio since the
beginning of last season belonging to the Pittsburgh Steelers, And
once again last night it was a factor, a huge,
(06:48):
factory factor in their victory.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
There's no question about it. And then what Beanie Bishop did. Look,
you had to know going into the game, and I
think we talked about it off the air pregame and
during the week and stuff like that. You knew Aaron
Rodgers was gonna put his finger on Beanie. You take
a look at the secondary, you know right away that
at some point in time he's going to try to
exploit and abuse that young man, and it was the
other way around. It was the rookie putting it on
(07:13):
the veteran. And what a great job he did that
on one handed catch over the middle was just outstanding.
And then then he has he goes in, he weaves
and zigs and zags his way across the field only
to wind up six inches short of the goal line.
And that just had to be a crusher. What a
great game this young man played, and under a lot
(07:33):
of pressure because you knew he was going to be
under a giant microscope.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know, Matt, when you talk about veteran quarterbacks and
their ability to probe and find what they think is
either a weak area on a team, maybe a weak
player on a team. When I say area, I mean
area of the field could be a weak position. There's
a lot of different ways veteran quarterbacks can do that.
And Wolf makes a great point. I think Aaron Rodgers
(07:58):
thought maybe that guy might be Beanie Bishop, especially before
Dante Jackson went out of the game, but on the
same side, on the same side of the coin of
a different side of the field. Russell Wilson did that.
You know, Sauce Gardner goes out of the game on
the pass interference call, and two plays later, who does
Russ go to but Pickens in the end zone. And
(08:20):
Eccles is a nice player, but he's not Sauce Gardner.
And so he found that, you know, he said, look,
we've got it. We have an advantage here. And that's
the kind of thing a veteran quarterback can bring to
a team.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Oh, without question. I think it's one of the most
important things they bring to a team. I mean, like
a great example was Flaco coming off the bench a
couple of weeks ago, such a different player, such a
different diagnoser than Anthony Richardson, who has all the talent
in the world. Joe runs like you and I nowadays,
you know, I mean, but he is very sharp above
the neck. And that's not to imply that Fields isn't.
(08:53):
But you would have been shocked if he didn't see
that boost from Wilson with all the football he's played,
Rogers had forever.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Well, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It's something my father used to say about something that
looked easier than it was. He would say, a child
of three could do that with thirty years of practice.
So you know, there is that notion that you know
the veterans can make it look easy, and they make
the game easier because of what they do. It's certainly
(09:24):
not easy, but making it look easy is something a
veteran quarterback can do. And you know, Russell Wilson wolf
was the big big topic going into this game.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Had to knock some rust off early. And then when he.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Did, he he showed the Steelers faithful why the Steelers
had faith in him and him being the guy as
soon as he was healthy enough to play unquestionably.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So look, this was the plan from the beginning when
the designation of pole position came about. This is why
they hired him. They hired him to lead. They hired
him to be the guy that you know, maybe you
have a rough stock, but you know you can pull
yourself together. One of the things that is always indicative
of greatness is that quarterback in the huddle that can
is able to manifest himself in front of the guys
(10:11):
and pull everybody together even when things aren't going good.
One thing about the blonde bomber Terry Bradshaw, you always
felt like, no matter how bad the game was or
what's going on, that this guy can pull your fanny
out of the fire. And that's one of the things
that they're looking for. And it takes an experienced guy.
It takes some time. It takes over one hundred games.
It takes a while for a guy to be able
(10:33):
to come in and do those things on a regular basis.
That builds that sort of Some people call it an aura,
some people call it, you know, that personal magnetism, what
have you. It's a guy that's able to get it done,
and the ten other guys in the huddle are looking
at him and believing in him. And when you do that,
you get all the oars rowing in the same direction.
And he certainly, Hey, let's face it, it was not a
(10:55):
pretty thing. In the very beginning. They came out and
they had a couple three and outs and things weren't
looking good. And after that RPO, when rushed through the
ball into the ground, you know, he's starting to go hmm.
But at the same time, he also kept thinking, this
is a guy that's won a Super Bowl. There's a
guy that has been through some ups and downs and
so forth. He can still pull it together, and pull
it together. He did, and he did it in a
(11:15):
big way.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, when you're saying hmm, some fans are saying boo.
We definitely heard that at Akerscher Stadium. I think by
the end of the night, you know, sixty six thousand
Russell Wilson fans were parading out of Akerscher Stadium. But Matt,
you know this is again and I think we're all
feeling the same way. This is absolutely no knock on
(11:38):
Justin Field. So I still believe can be a really
good NFL quarterback. But you look at Russell Wilson's resume,
you look at why he came here, you look at
what happened to him the last couple of years. So
this is a nine time pro bowler who was kind
of embarrassed really at the end of last year by
his coach bench the last couple of games, with good
(12:00):
numbers eighth in the league and quarterback rating, the usual
touchdown interception ratio where he's third best of all time
in NFL history, And you add all that up, and
the expectation is that you're going to be seeing a sharp,
focused Russell Wilson ready to lead the team to higher
heights than we've seen them be lifted to in the
(12:22):
last several years.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah, unquestionably. And I remember the day he got traded
to Denver. I was asked, if he never plays again,
is Russell Wilson a Hall of Famer? And I said, yeah,
I think so. I think he's got enough. And then
I was asked the same question the day he signed
with the Steelers, and I said, I'm not sure these
last two years didn't do him any favors at all.
(12:44):
And he's aware of that. He's a very proud athlete.
He's a very proud man that's accomplished unbelievable things at
this level if you have and I think he is
aware of his legacy. I mean the pride factor, hanging
with Cam Hayward and TJ. Watt and just watching him
at camp, even when he wasn't on the field, he
looked like QB one. And I know that that's not
something you can put like stats too or anything like that,
(13:06):
but just walking them, watching him on the in the cafeteria,
walking around campus, that type of thing, he was QB one.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, we are just scratching the surface. This is a
game that needs to be scratched, uh, because there's a
lot of great stuff that happened in this game for
the Steelers. We are going to get into a lot
more of that when we continue in the point after
on the Steelers Audio network.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Back to the point after on DVD.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's a snap Steelers rushing four Rogers throws over the
middle of the field, and there's your interception.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
It is picked off, Craik Willfleet, you called it, and
it is picked off by Beatie Bishop, who is having a.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Terrific game for the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The play of the game is brought to you by
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member fdi C thanks for being with us on the
point after on this to this audio network. And so
what I was referring to there on that call was
as the Steelers got the ball, I'm looking at the clock, Matt,
and I'm thinking, okay, let's get the ball back. Maybe
(14:09):
you can put three up on the board. Maybe you
can make this a one score game going into the half.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
In fact, that's almost exactly what I said. And Wolf said,
how about a turnover. Let's get a turnover instead, and
the students got a turnover.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
I like the way Wolf thinks, you know, don't just
settle for let's get through it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yeah, all right, full confession. I was thinking of cherry
turnovers at that point. But you know that's not that's
not mixed this up.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Well, yeah, go ahead, Matt.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Said, we kind of mentioned it earlier. I'm sure the
game plan was to attack Bishop. You know, you got
three big, three good receivers now with Adams in town,
Lizard is your number three. And they did, and I'm
sure he's used to that to some degree. From what
I saw, the Steelers didn't travel porter all that much.
They kind of left it and left and righted it
for a while there. And Rob we were kind of
(14:57):
talking right before we hit record for the show that
there were a couple of times, and the Steelers had
this game in hand for a lot of the second half,
but there were a few times throughout the course of
the game where they just got that play, that turnover,
that cherry turnover that you know, just kind of made
life so much harder on the Jets.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Well, you think about, let's say that turnover doesn't happen.
Let's say Rogers marches the team down the field and
then kick a field goal. Right, We're not gon, We're
gonna think small again. We're not gonna think he scores
a team.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Now it's eighteen to six, right, that's a different feeling
going into the half fan fifteen to thirteen, completely different feeling.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
When you're up about thirteen to thirteen.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Right, we're talking about it terrible.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Okay, So as long as we're on turnovers and the
edible turnover type, so I have to say this, Matt
and Wolf, you can follow this up.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
But so last night, Wolf was so distraught about that call.
You know, we're both.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Talking about I only got to lay off the carbs,
and it was a lot easier for me to tell
that to Wolf after I two pieces of banana cake
before the game.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
But okay, no more carbs.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That's it, you know, no more sugar, no more cookies,
and most like, oh, these calls are driving me to
eat a cookie. And by the end of the game
he was like, I think I'm about six cookies in
because there were so.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Many calls and not.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I mean there was I thought Friarmouth coming out of
the break, you know, the play he made the great
one handed catch.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I don't have to go back and look at it.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It looked to me like he got tugged, you know,
on the Jersey coming out of that break. Otherwise it's
Rudd in the money and he just runs into the
end zone. There was a play that they threw the
sauce guard or sauce gardener was covering pickings in the
corner of the end zone and Sauce had his right
hand kind of inside holding onto pickings Jersey and his
left hand was on pickens forearm with the one arm
(16:45):
he was trying to corral the ball in with. I
mean just a lot of there were a lot of
different instances where, you know, and again it doesn't matter anymore,
but it got my partner thinking cookie last night.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
I also think if there was a lot of allowance
of offensive linemen to be liberal in this game and
say the least I mean from a Steeler perspective, High
Smith first, Tyron Smith. They were alone a lot and
there could have been many flags, you know, but that
kind of went both ways.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You know, it did do a degree. But I was
very egregious when Larry Jogan Joby slammed Breese Hall as
you should. You got to put them in the dirt,
crying out loud. What is football if you tackle a
guy and you don't put him down? In the dirt. Now,
I know that there's something with a whistle. I thought
I heard a whistle. That was an appropriate response from
Larry in due time. But I don't know. Some people say,
(17:40):
you know, they say no, it was a little bit
earlier or whatever. I don't know. But to me, that
just seemed egregious. And I got to tell you that
call on Minka Fitzpatrick was ridiculous. Exactly, when you hurdle something,
your arms don't just you don't put your arms up
and then just hold your arms up. You jump. You're
an athlete. Your body moved is one. You draw all
(18:01):
your knees up, you tuck, and your hands come down
as a matter of recourse. That's how the human body,
how God made human physiology to move, okay, And I
simply just slapping the backside of an offensive lineman with
your fingertips is all about just judging the distance basically
and in a movement again of physiology. So I just
(18:23):
I thought that was just an egregious error by the officials.
And that's the second time the officials have taken away
a make a block, if you remember. The other one
was that not only did he block it, but he
took it back. I think it was against San Francisco. No,
I can't remember, a couple of years ago. Regardless, it
was a big block and it was a six pointer
at the end of it. And it's just a shame
(18:43):
because those are things that make it does and I
don't know, it drove me nuts.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I think Danny Smith agrees with you.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I don't know whether they showed it on TV, but
we can see printing out, yeah, about a quarter the
way out onto the field. And I mean, I suppose
to play Devil's Advocate a little bit. You can understand
where the official you know, I don't know exactly what
they're looking at. You know, there's not one official for
every player out in the field. And I just wonder
if they saw the hurtling action, saw the arms going backward,
(19:15):
and assumed that that was what happened, because I do
think that happens. There are you know, calls get bought,
calls get sold. You know, a guy throws his arms
up in the air and you know they teach him
to do that. Now, oh he must have been held.
And then you look at the replay and say, well,
I don't know was he really held there or not.
So I just, you know, I wonder if that I
(19:38):
almost think that that had to be what was behind it? Hey,
a little bit out of the corner of the eye,
you see the guy coming. I don't know, but but
it was a bad call.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The second half made it all obsolete.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
So it did, it did, and we were pleased with that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So let's go back to talking about the offense and
the Russ Wilson factor. And again, Wolf, if I'm going
to take a you know, tell us copic view, I'm
way up and I'm looking down at this. What this
makes me think of is what this offense can be
with a quarterback.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Who's been to nine Pro Bowls at the Helm.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
We haven't seen this kind of quarterback since we saw
Ben Roethlisberger, you know, before the end of his career.
Better personnel around him, you know, more mobile, a little
bit younger Ben. But when Ben walked out of the tunnel,
and not just in his prime, but later in his career,
you know, you felt like.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Hey, this you others can score.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
They can score with teams, and I feel like that
that is a necessary component to you know, reaching the
stated goal, which is getting into the playoffs, winning some games,
making some noise, and being a real contender. There comes
a time in a game in which Buffalo or Kansas
City or you know last year's Philadelphia team or Washington
(20:56):
this year the Lions, where you better the red the vikings,
you better be able to score some points. You're not
gonna be able to win every game sixteen to ten.
This is no revelation to this Steelers.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
They know that.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It's amazing that Mike Tomlin to me, has been able
to guide this team to the record. He's been able
to guide them to when they haven't had that component.
But it feels like, I know it's just one game,
but it feels like they have that component now.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It really feels to me like what you're doing is
giving You've got a bigger playbook going on right now. Look.
One of the things the difference between two quarterbacks to
me is like I think that Russ is a playmaker
and I think that Justin is a game changer because
with Russ, you've got everything going on, plus the back
end of the defense which you needed to attack. You've
got to be able to and who throws a better
(21:45):
long ball to a guy like George Pickens then you
know Russ. I mean, that's to me, that's just tremendous.
The way he arcs it and gives George Pickens an
opportunity to use all that magic and coming down with
the ball. It's great stuff. And I think this is
a great opportunity for Justin to do what basically we're
going to do from the very get go, and that
(22:06):
was to give him an opportunity to learn. And here
he goes out and stakes the Steelers to a four
and two record early on. That was tremendous. That's just tremendous.
And there's a lot of potential there to be manifested
by Justin Fields, and I'm sure we're going to see
some great things from him in the future. Right now,
this is where it is because Russ is able to
marshal all the resources of the offense. I love that
(22:28):
reversal into Mount Washington. Are you kidding me? Did you
see those defensive backs trying to curl up? I mean
when he's rumbling at him, and I'm thinking to myself,
here's six seven, nearly three hundred pounds of meat on
the hoof coming at you with the ball, and this
guy can hurtle you and YO you want to do
is go low so you don't get killed, you know,
(22:50):
And I don't know. It was just great to see.
I love the running game that came out of this.
I think again, the screen game is something that they
got to work on and get me because that is
such a big part of the offense. But Russell Wilson
did a nice job of throwing down the you know
that those long balls and giving George Picktt's a nice
opportunity to go after it. And I got to tell
(23:11):
you, you know, Sauce Gardner. I think they call him sauce
because he puts more sauce on a receiver than he
does on a play to spaghetti. I mean, you know,
sauce on spaghetti. It's ridiculous some of the things that
he gets away with. I know he's a good cover corner,
but by golly, some of the things you already talked
about he got away with a lot back there.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So Matt, your overall view, and again let's overreact one
game in to Russell Wilson being the quarterback and thirty
seven points being put on the board. Your view on
what Russell Wilson can mean to this Doer's offense.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
I think it just expands everything for Arthur Smith. You
know that the teams were crashing or loading the boxes.
It's such a ridiculous level coming into this game. And
now you know the fact that he can attack all
over the field. He's really really good off play action.
The deep passing, as Wolf mentioned, has always been amongst
(24:06):
the best in the league. That in itself I think
is huge. Red zone passing. I mean, I've been harping
on that all off season. They haven't had a good
red zone passer since Ben and Wilson. Absolutely is and
always has been. And again, I mean the fact that
Arthur Smith knows these things now and all how many
times did they play action bootleg boom, you know, helped
(24:29):
the O line that was struggling and find a pretty
easy completion. Everything's just so much smoother.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And when you look at what he's done in the
red zone historically, he's always been good at it. I
think last year was twenty touchdowns to one interception in
the red zone.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
It was very close to that, if not, I think
he nailed it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, that's amazing. I got that stat from your partner
Dale Lolly. By the way, I stole that from him
as I want to do. I'm okay with steel on
a stat and it's a great stat.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And the other thing, you have no problem with it.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
No the other one, and I'll take you. I'll go
ahead and take this one.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I look this one up, wolf, is that you know,
the formula for the Steelers with winning under Mike Tomlin
has basically been to keep the quarterback pretty much under wraps,
don't turn it over.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Let's let our defense win it.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Let's find a way to run the ball, find out
it grind out some points. Maybe it's through a turnover,
maybe you get a block, you know in special teams,
find some way to manufacture a win. And it begins
with that. We're gonna take care of the football and
then we're gonna take it away. We're gonna win that
turnover ratio. And they've been, as we mentioned earlier, the
(25:38):
best in the league since the beginning of last season.
Now you take a quarterback, that's what he's done. He's
the third best quarterback in NFL history in terms of
touchdown to interception ratio.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
That's the stat. I look at matter, Yes, thank you
very much, look at one.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So so now you're taking the same mindset, which is,
let's not turn the ball over. But you're doing that,
it's like let's add water. It's like, you know, bollyon
cube becomes a bowl of soup. I mean, all of
a sudden, you've got you know, you don't have to
sort of narrow it down to let's not turn it over. Well,
(26:14):
we're not going to turn it over because we have
a quarterback who historically doesn't turn it over. Okay, that's
our mo. But can also add the big plays as
we saw last night.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And that's what you wanted. That's what you wanted when
you brought in Russ. That's the type of thing you
wanted to add to your offense. Was that bullion to
soup and all that other stuff. Look, the thing about
it is when you want you want to emphasize to
justin ball security, making sure don't put the ball in jeopardy.
And what happens, well, your average target per you know,
(26:45):
yards per target go way down and you don't attack
the back end of the defense. You look at this
New York Jets defense. You got three guys in the
back end. Three of their best players are either unavailable
or heavily nicked. I can't remember which it was, but
you got to attack it, you got to go after him.
And I think that's exactly what Russ did. And you
know it's no, no, no, smack it justin because I
(27:08):
think the emphasis was don't put the ball in jeopardy,
which means don't throw the long ball unless you know
you got to clear and present, you know, receiver wide open.
And so to me right now, it's like you said,
things are wide open now and you don't have people
attacking downhill all the time. On the running game, look
a look at Nagy. I mean, you know not you've
(27:30):
back to back one hundred yard games and by golly,
that burst. I mean this guy, he's what got five
twenty plus yard runs if you know another Matt stat
which you know, nobody ever rips stats off me because
nobody's ever sure if I'm correct, including me. But you
know the fact is, when you know you see that,
(27:51):
that's exactly what you need, those big plays, those things
that take you down the field and get the job done.
And I just think Nogy's done a terrific job over
the whole course of this season of increasing his volatility.
Let's say as a runner, he has more combative, gains
more yardage. He's even ghosting people in the runs instead
of running them over, So kudos to him. And I
(28:13):
love this running game that is starting to really come
out and express itself.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And let's talk more about that running game and about
the defense coming up. We can say this, we gave
him a cherry turnover, seven cookies, a bullyon Cube and
Russ cook and this year Theer's won by the final
score of thirty seven to fifteen. Back with more on
this Steer's Victory room. We continueing the point after on
the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Back to the point after on dv E.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Rogers gets a snap straight back, looking steps up, still looking.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Nowhere to go, and he is sacked Larryogan joby back
at the seventeen yard line.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The Zach Hungrier segment is brought to you by the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank Get food volunteer don't at
Pittsburgh Foodbank dot org. So great workout of the Steelers defense,
and Matt, let's start with you in this segment. Overall again,
Rogers got things going and then the Steelers ripped off
thirty one consecutive points and even though they won the
(29:16):
time of possession. They won it sort of in glorious fashion.
They were trailing going into that final drive and then
they just chewed up all but the last, you know,
twenty five seconds or so of the clock to go
on a you know, seven plus minute drive to win
the time of possession battle. But Aaron Rodgers had ample
opportunity to attack the Steelers defense, and the Steelers defense was.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Up to the task.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yes, they got hurt by Briests, always a great player,
they weren't hurting the running game. They shut down the
Jets running game. Hall was coming off his first one
hundred yard game of the season. Are really just a
lot to like about the Steelers defensive performance.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
And some notes just watching the game, I thought the
Steelers tackling in the first half was poor and it
greatly greatly improved, And that was an absolute key, maybe
the key because you know, Rogers was getting the ball
out so quick and his time to throw in the
first half was remarkably quick. So I'm sure there's people saying,
(30:10):
you only got that one sack to pick from? Where
was TJ When the ball comes out in two point
two to two point three, you can't almost get there
if no one blocks you. I mean, so that was
the plan was. He doesn't like getting hit anymore. His
line's been kind of poorous this year despite investing in it.
So he's got really good receivers, including bress Hall. I'm
gonna get it to them quick and they're gonna make
(30:31):
people miss, and that's gonna be our offense. And when
the Steelers start tackling better and realizing the game plan,
it drastically changed for the Jets.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, so much to like about this game defensively, Wolf.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
You know, again, the.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The Jets got going, and sometimes you think of, okay,
what is the what kind of adjustment is the other
offense going to make? And what kind of adjustments will
Aaron Rodgers make? Well, the positive adjustments, it seemed to me,
including the tackling that might match just alluded to, all
came on the side of the Students defense. All came
on Tyra Austin and the Students defense figuring out a
(31:06):
way to stop the Jets offense with all those stars, Well.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
There's no question about it. I mean, look, you got
Aaron Rodgers, you got those wide receivers. You got to
get after it. And even if you can't get to them.
Part of the things that they go on. When you
got a guy getting the ball out in two point two,
get your hands up, and guys got their hands up,
and guys, well there's a fourth down. That's a turnover, right, Matt.
And then in the Matt Williamson book, that's a turnover exactly.
(31:33):
And I think what Keanu Benton had one or two?
Uh where he had one?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Yeah, the only time they single blocked him, I think,
which was why they usually don't, right.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
So there was there was a lot of good stuff
there from a lot of people doing a good job.
And I can't say enough how good it was to
see Alex high Smith back and doing what he does
because he is really an unsung hero on the other
end of Obi wat Kenobi, which is, you know, he
is just a Jedi knight as far as an edge rusher,
and you know, watching him have to deal with three
(32:06):
people coming at him on just about every single play
is it's got to be nauseating at times to him.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, and Rob real quick. Earlier in the show, we
were talking about hidden yardage and you know special teams,
you know where you winning the margins that might not
show up in the box score. Their ability to swat
down passes now is unbelievably good, and it's kind of
like block kicks like it's I mean, only the Chiefs
had more last year. They have to be near the
(32:32):
top of the league this year. I don't know what's
going on, but I feel like JJ Swatt stopped by
camp and taught everyone how to bat down passes or
something a couple of years ago, because they did it regularly.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Four of them yesterday team I can kind of bet,
and one by Watt, one by Cam Hayward. So great
work there. I also wanted to, you know, give props
for sure to both Naji Harris and Jalen Warn. I
want to start with Naji Harris because you know he has,
you know, the statistics about him being hit in the
backfield more than any other runner, and you know, it
(33:05):
seems like forever he's had a black you know, break
two tackles just to get back to the line of scrimmage.
And some people saying, well, he's not running to the
right hole, or it's a blocking problem, or it's he's
not getting to the hole quickly enough. I don't know
what the issue is, but I do know this. In
the last two weeks, he has done a couple of
things that have really impressed me. Jones, the defensive back
(33:25):
for the Raiders, came up and again this is a
defensive back, much smaller guy than Najy comes up to
meet Nag and the whole nag. He makes a move
and Jones fell down. Like you talk about it, they
talk about an ankle breaking move.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
He fell down. Usually a guy stumbles or something.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
He actually fell down, which is something you know, they
made a commercial about that a couple of years ago. Oh,
that would never happen. I was in a basketball game.
So anyway, he does that. Then we saw the touchdown
run that followed it later on that same drive where
he just kind of slid sideways like like somebody trying
to creep silently through a door. You know, Hey, my
wife's sleeping. Got to sleep through the door. You know,
(34:02):
he was able to do that. And then so we've
seen the niftiness. He had another move yesterday, a nifty
move to get to the hole. But then the other
thing is and we all three have seen this, which
is Najie Harris working with this machine and I asked
him about it, and practice this week, go wait, what
is that machine? While he was doing it, by the way,
so he's backing up and I thought, maybe you know.
(34:23):
So what happens is he's got a band tied around
his waist, so imagine this a band. There's a machine,
and he's got the band tied around his waist and
he's moving backwards and I'm thinking, okay, well this is
to build up what the hamstring or the thighs, and
then he sprints forward when he gets it to a
certain tension, and you know he's asking him about that.
He said, no, it's actually a sprinter's thing. It is designed. Yes,
(34:47):
you get a little workout in, but it is designed
to make you faster. So I said, well, you look
great on that thirty six yard running, So well, how
how big of a run do I have to go
to to mention it on the radio? And he goes
forty and I said, okay, well I mentioned it last
and there he after a thirty four yard. I mentioned
it because again he's showing the speed he is. I
(35:08):
think most people think of him as a between the
tackles guy, and he's certainly great at that. But the
footwork he has shown and the speed and it is
something I want to underline this. It is something he
has worked extremely hard at developing. And it's not always
you think of, hey, this is how fast I run.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Well, he's worked very, very hard at it, and over
the last couple of weeks it has shown and it
has paid big dividends for him and for the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
No.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Oh, I'm sorry, good Matt, I say, Robbie beat me
to it because I knew we were going to talk
about nause and I think everyone's aware of his violence,
his running style, how much upper body he uses, stiff arms,
pushing people away, you know, heavy reluctance to go down,
doesn't dip him out of bounds. But I was going
to throw in there. I didn't even think about the
machine he's been using. But I do know that he's
(35:58):
a little bit leaner. We talked about that in camp.
He's clearly faster, and he's clearly more elusive. And you know,
the next gen stats chart this stuff. He had four
runs last night of over fifteen miles an hours. That's
really moving for somebody his size, no question about it.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Look, you know that machine, that's an overspeed machine that's
designed to increase the length of your stride and make
your stride longer. And guys would use back in the
day before we had some fancification of machines. You'd have
a gentle downhill that guys would run. They'd sprint down
the hill right in an effort to increase the range
(36:35):
of motion longer just a little bit. So that's what
it's all about. But he's using effectively. Not only that,
it's a mindset of maybe, Okay, let's not punish just
you know, myself by running into everybody that I meet
out there. Let's get around him. And that's what he's doing.
He's ghosting people and doing a fine job. And he's
got an offensive line that is coming around to despite
(36:57):
multiple changes in personnel, is hanging in there and slugging
it out.
Speaker 5 (37:02):
So two more things on Naji one loved to leap
into the end zone. You guys like that, well, I did.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I think I think the people in the end zone
were a little afeared when they saw that massive prairie
mammals running then, you know, to join them in that.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
I'm glad they'd take a knee at the end of
the game too, might as well to score again. Yeah,
you know, well, I don't, you know, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They weren't trying to write. They were just they were
just if you get the first down there, then you
could take the knie that. If you take the kneel down,
then they get the ball back. So you're just trying,
you know, if you pick up the first down. If
he had gotten down to the five, I guarantee you
they would have well, that would have been it would
have been the last play of the game.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
They wouldn't have had to run another play. So but
I loved that.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I love seeing that there was one other play too,
before we get to Jail and Warren again, because they
both had similar runs, one which the students challenged and
another one in which they did not, where Nagi was
in a bit of a scrum and they blew the
whistle and I thought it was a little premature.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
He didn't look happy about it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
No, he was not, and he was still fighting and
he was getting a push and the Jets were I mean.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
He popped out of there like a cork out of
a champagne bottle.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I think he was gone. And I don't think it
was because the jets let up. I think it was
because he had pushed his way through, but unfortunate, that's
the way it goes. I did want to point that out.
But back to back hundred yard games for him and
then Wolf to see Jalen Warren out there, and both
of us were really impressed by that short pass he
took from Russell Wilson the eleven yard or where he
(38:29):
was moving left to right, stuck his foot in the
ground the left foot, did a reverse pivot, got up
field where it looked like he was going to be
short of.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
A first down. Again, little plays, that was an important play.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
If he's tackled short of a first down, Jets have
an opportunity to kind of get back in there and
keep rolling. That was a big play. But just he
just you know, twelve carries forty four yards. He just
I thought, past the eye test, began to look more
like Jalen Warren as he knocks some of his own
rust off as well and gets healthy.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Absolutely, you know in that play that you're describing, that
pass play, how important was it to be able to
generate a first down off of that? And the fact
is he caught that ball, But as he was about
to catch the ball, he was locating if you take
a look at it, he's locating where the defenders are
and where he's got to go for his move to
get away from the defenders. The instant he snatches that
(39:18):
ball out of the air, I mean that is really
I can't even imagine the difficulty of that, you know.
I mean to be able to look around and see
where the defenders are, know that I'm going to catch
his ball, I'm gonna reverse pivot and a hard you know,
stick that foot in the ground as you called it,
and turn around and get north and south to be
able to get that first down. That's really something, and
that's just why one of the reasons why he's a
(39:41):
third down magnet. I mean, this guy gets it done
on third down and the way that Plus he had
a run late in the game that was a beautiful
cutback and he saw the end man on the line
edging in already and it was a nice job by
him getting around him. So Jalen Warrens really rounded into
what he was before and what he always will be,
which is an exceptional back.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
That was the third quarter run you're talking about with
it with this with the plant inside, got it down
to the two yard line. It was a terrific run,
great cutback.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
Matt.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
This guy's a weapon and he hasn't been available to
the Steelers.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Yeah, and we all use the term rust and it's
a little generic, but really, to me last week it
looked like the speed of the game, which anyone that's
been on an NFL sideline for five seconds understands how
fast and violent things happened between those white lines. The
speed of the game can be a hard thing to
get back, you know, it might take you a game
(40:34):
to deal with wile things are happening really quick around here.
And I thought last night he was back to handling
the speed of the game, dictating the flow of the
game and the other thing I'm gonna throw and it
applies to him and Nausey. They're really good in protection
and for someone that studies the entire league, there rarely
are there two backs in a backfield that you can
(40:55):
trust to throw it, to hand it to them and protect.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
You know, Matt is exactly right and just jumping in.
It's the speed of the game is you know, that's
really a hard thing. That is really the is Mike
Tomlin refers to it. It's a moving train, you know,
catching a moving train. It's not just the offensive side
of it, where you're learning stuff and trying to find
that rhythm, but it's the game in game decision making
process where you snatch a ball out of there and
(41:21):
reverse pivot and get the first down like that, the
speed of the game, the moving train. Yeah, that's all
big stuff. And that applied to rush too.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
So Matt, during the open of the game, you know,
I conflated sixth week and the Steelers record, and so
for a brief moment I said the six and two
Steelers would win it. But I met was sixth week
for the four and two Steelers after six weeks. But
what do they need to do to get to six
and two. I've listened before the buy the New York
Giants coming in Monday Night Football. It's a Giants team
(41:51):
with a really talented defense that has not been able
to find their way offensively with much success, despite the
fact that you know they've got Malik Neighbors is a
really impressive looking first round choice at wide receiver.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
He's a superstar in the making. Him and Wan del
Robinson are the ones that get all the targets and
Robinson's just a slot machine. Efficient Neighbors is a do
it all superstar in the making. A huge problem for
the Giants, though, is Andrew Thomas is a Pro Bowl
type left tackle that was injured two weeks ago, didn't
play this past week, and their pass protection against Philly
(42:26):
was atrocious. I mean, like you rarely see it that bad,
and so many sacks in that game because they rush
the pass are extremely well too. They have three superstars
on the defensive line. Dexter Lawrence is a rare nose
tackle and the best pass rushing nose tackle I've ever seen.
They have the youngest defense in the league, a lot
(42:47):
of high picks on that side of the ball, but
locking quarterback play leaves a little to be desired.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Well, how do they go into this week? I'm sure
extremely motive eyes on the prize, right, I mean not
overlooking this Giants team ready to go exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So, I mean this is an opportunity to get ready
for a little time off, you know, with the bye
week coming up, and certainly you know you want to
be all in and be able to relax a little
bit over that. And I just think this is an
offensive line that's got to come together and get some
things done, which, by the way, I got to tell
you something, I was so impressed. If you saw Michael
(43:28):
Clemens bullrush Dan Moore, which is like catching a car
rolling downhill. He came right down the middle of and
Danny just sank stuffed him. Then he bent him over
backwards and put him on his back and showed him
the sky. I'm telling you what, that was impressive. And
for Ryan McCollum to do the job that he did,
to come in and conduct traffic and do all the
things you need to do and get that stamp done,
(43:50):
great job. And I thought Broderick Jones again was another
example of him gaining a little more confidence, and that's
what he needs because he's got so much talent as
has got to come around. And I just like what
we've got going on now and hopefully they can keep
it going and expand on it.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Well.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
We'd like to invite you to gear up with the
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Get the latest sideline apparel, jerseys, terrible towels, authentic memorabilia,
and custom exclusives you can only find directly from the team.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Visit one of the official.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Steelers pro shops located at Akroscher Stadium, Grove City Premium Ountlets,
or Tanger outlets, or gear up online at shop dot
Steelers dot com. For Craig Wolfley and Matt Williamson, I'm
Rob King. We thank you for listening to the point
after on the Steelers Audio Network
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(00:22):
now here are your hosts, Rob King, Craig Wolfley, and
Matt Williamson.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And we welcome you to the Point After on the
Steelers Audio Network. And what a fine day this is.
Following this to this thirty seven to fifteen victory a
route as it turned out over the New York Jetsy.
Victory improves the Steelers to five and two on the season.
It was good, it looked good. There are a lot
of things to like about last night's performance on Sunday
(00:48):
Night Football. Our first reaction is brought to you by
First National Bank. Let's get started, member FDIC wolf Let's
get started with you. Your first reaction to last night's win, Well.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I think it was tremendous and sense of you know,
there was this unknown anticipation, knowing but not knowing that
Russ was going to be the starter. You know what
I mean? That was probably the worst kept secret in
Pittsburgh last week, is whether or not they were going
to go with him and roll them out there, and
certainly they did, and you know, it was it was
interesting because you look at the start of this game
(01:20):
and it was not exactly I'm sure how Russ would
have liked to have started off this game, but you know,
seeing a veteran who I think it was this one
hundred and eighty eighth game or something like that for Russ,
and how he pulled himself together, got the job done
and finished with a flourish and a bang man. It
was just wonderful to watch. The defense was just overall
(01:42):
so very impressive. And they went over and they knocked
the living Ayahuska out of you know, hyah Watska. I
guess it's called out out of Aaron Rodgers, you know.
So I loved it. It was tremendous, a great team
effort Matt.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Without question, and the offense looked a lot sharper, a
lot of things that you can't you know, put numbers
on you know, just veteran running the run the show there,
getting everybody involved. I love what you're seeing, like from
Darnell Washington and you know, little things like that. The
offensive line I thought had some struggles early but got
better as the game went on. That was impressive. The
second half really wasn't all that competitive. A lot of
(02:21):
splash on both sides of the ball, but especially the offense,
and really good stuff. And oh, by the way, they
block another kick. I mean, I saw Dale and I
saw Danny Smith in the cafeteria on Thursday and we
kind of joked, We're like, Coach T's gonna make you
give you a hard time if you don't block a
kick a game. He's like he already is, you know,
like that's just an expection expectations. Now it's good stuff.
(02:44):
They really had two?
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, they should have had two. That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Nine kicks blocks since the beginning of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
That's the most in the NFL. And you know, I'm
I'm glad you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Mentioned that, Matt, because I want to start there only
because I don't want to forget about it as his
program rolls on, because there's.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
So many big things that happened.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But there were a couple things that happened on special
teams that I thought were really nice. You know, Corless
Weightman had three of his punts go inside the twenty
and the one that pinned the Jets deep back inside
their own ten yard line. It was down at the
seven yard line, and that was the sequence that led
(03:23):
to the interception by Beanie Bishop. You know, there's a penalty.
The Jets found themselves in some trouble. They found themselves
trying to press the ball down the field. They decided
they wanted to press the ball. It gave him bad
field position, it gave him a long field. Of course,
the block kick, there was a nine yard return by
Calvin Austin when they had a punt safe unit out.
There just little things that I felt like. And Chris Boswell, again,
(03:47):
you cannot gloss over the fact that this guy is
just an incredible kicker. And you know, I look back
at his statistics and of course you can't cherry pick
out and take out the two bad years he had.
Two bad years were worse than most other great kickers
bad years. He's six all time in field goal percentage.
If you took out those two years, he would be
(04:08):
far and away number one. His career field goal percentage
would be over ninety two percent. He has just been
such a weapon for this Yeers. And so I just
thought a lot of things that the special teams unit did,
and including the block and what should have been another block.
I think we all thought, and I believe somebody told
me that, you know, we were obviously calling the game
of the radio that one of the their you know,
(04:30):
their their gene sterotor of of Sunday Night Football said yeah,
bad call. So I just thought, again, I don't want
to gloss that over because I think the special teams
has been a significant factor in this Yeelers winning games.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
I couldn't agree more. And you know, to take it
even a step further, like they're getting a lot of
first downs via penalty and not giving them up. I mean,
I'm just talking about hidden yardage type things, you know.
I mean, people don't listen to me regularly. I look
at a blocked or a missed field goal alone, a
blocked one the same as a turnover. I look at
a missed fourth down exactly the same as a turnover.
(05:06):
They had several of those to add to your turnover
differential and Rob, I remember in camp when you would
join us on the drive and we would talk about Johnston,
And I know you did the math of Harvin to Johnston,
how many yards over the course of the year the
Steelers would gain if he had an exact same year
as he had in Houston the year before versus what
(05:29):
Harvin did. And there was so much hidden yardage there,
and I think we're going down that same path again.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, I think that, and again to recap for people,
and I can't remember that. It was like twenty five
yards a lot, yeah, which was enough. You know, if
you just again, you could use that yardage anyway you want.
It's still it's real yardage. But let's say you added
it to your offense. The Steelers offense would have improved
to top twenty in the league from mid twenties. Wherever
they were, they would moved up like six spots just
(05:56):
in those twenty five yards. So you know, when you
look at it an offense, yeah, you know, it's a
twenty fifth ranked offense or twenty fourth ranked office.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Any think, well, it's the eighteenth ranked offense.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That's not far away from being average, just by the
hidden yardage in special teams and then Wolf once again.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Rob real quick. Yeah, I was digging into stats, believe
it or not this morning.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
No, No, can't be.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I mean, just from interceptions this year, the Steelers have
gained one hundred and thirty seven yards more than they've
given up.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know like that, that's a lot, it is, And
I think that that's I was gonna make. I'm glad
you said that, because I was going to make the
transition Wolf to turnovers, and going into last night's game,
the Steelers had Bob Labriole. I believe Doug, this stat
up the best, uh the best turnover ratio since the
beginning of last season belonging to the Pittsburgh Steelers, And
once again last night it was a factor, a huge,
(06:48):
factory factor in their victory.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
There's no question about it. And then what Beanie Bishop did. Look,
you had to know going into the game, and I
think we talked about it off the air pregame and
during the week and stuff like that. You knew Aaron
Rodgers was gonna put his finger on Beanie. You take
a look at the secondary, you know right away that
at some point in time he's going to try to
exploit and abuse that young man, and it was the
other way around. It was the rookie putting it on
(07:13):
the veteran. And what a great job he did that
on one handed catch over the middle was just outstanding.
And then then he has he goes in, he weaves
and zigs and zags his way across the field only
to wind up six inches short of the goal line.
And that just had to be a crusher. What a
great game this young man played, and under a lot
(07:33):
of pressure because you knew he was going to be
under a giant microscope.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know, Matt, when you talk about veteran quarterbacks and
their ability to probe and find what they think is
either a weak area on a team, maybe a weak
player on a team. When I say area, I mean
area of the field could be a weak position. There's
a lot of different ways veteran quarterbacks can do that.
And Wolf makes a great point. I think Aaron Rodgers
(07:58):
thought maybe that guy might be Beanie Bishop, especially before
Dante Jackson went out of the game, but on the
same side, on the same side of the coin of
a different side of the field. Russell Wilson did that.
You know, Sauce Gardner goes out of the game on
the pass interference call, and two plays later, who does
Russ go to but Pickens in the end zone. And
(08:20):
Eccles is a nice player, but he's not Sauce Gardner.
And so he found that, you know, he said, look,
we've got it. We have an advantage here. And that's
the kind of thing a veteran quarterback can bring to
a team.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Oh, without question. I think it's one of the most
important things they bring to a team. I mean, like
a great example was Flaco coming off the bench a
couple of weeks ago, such a different player, such a
different diagnoser than Anthony Richardson, who has all the talent
in the world. Joe runs like you and I nowadays,
you know, I mean, but he is very sharp above
the neck. And that's not to imply that Fields isn't.
(08:53):
But you would have been shocked if he didn't see
that boost from Wilson with all the football he's played,
Rogers had forever.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Well, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It's something my father used to say about something that
looked easier than it was. He would say, a child
of three could do that with thirty years of practice.
So you know, there is that notion that you know
the veterans can make it look easy, and they make
the game easier because of what they do. It's certainly
(09:24):
not easy, but making it look easy is something a
veteran quarterback can do. And you know, Russell Wilson wolf
was the big big topic going into this game.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Had to knock some rust off early. And then when he.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Did, he he showed the Steelers faithful why the Steelers
had faith in him and him being the guy as
soon as he was healthy enough to play unquestionably.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So look, this was the plan from the beginning when
the designation of pole position came about. This is why
they hired him. They hired him to lead. They hired
him to be the guy that you know, maybe you
have a rough stock, but you know you can pull
yourself together. One of the things that is always indicative
of greatness is that quarterback in the huddle that can
is able to manifest himself in front of the guys
(10:11):
and pull everybody together even when things aren't going good.
One thing about the blonde bomber Terry Bradshaw, you always
felt like, no matter how bad the game was or
what's going on, that this guy can pull your fanny
out of the fire. And that's one of the things
that they're looking for. And it takes an experienced guy.
It takes some time. It takes over one hundred games.
It takes a while for a guy to be able
(10:33):
to come in and do those things on a regular basis.
That builds that sort of Some people call it an aura,
some people call it, you know, that personal magnetism, what
have you. It's a guy that's able to get it done,
and the ten other guys in the huddle are looking
at him and believing in him. And when you do that,
you get all the oars rowing in the same direction.
And he certainly, Hey, let's face it, it was not a
(10:55):
pretty thing. In the very beginning. They came out and
they had a couple three and outs and things weren't
looking good. And after that RPO, when rushed through the
ball into the ground, you know, he's starting to go hmm.
But at the same time, he also kept thinking, this
is a guy that's won a Super Bowl. There's a
guy that has been through some ups and downs and
so forth. He can still pull it together, and pull
it together. He did, and he did it in a
(11:15):
big way.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Well, when you're saying hmm, some fans are saying boo.
We definitely heard that at Akerscher Stadium. I think by
the end of the night, you know, sixty six thousand
Russell Wilson fans were parading out of Akerscher Stadium. But Matt,
you know this is again and I think we're all
feeling the same way. This is absolutely no knock on
(11:38):
Justin Field. So I still believe can be a really
good NFL quarterback. But you look at Russell Wilson's resume,
you look at why he came here, you look at
what happened to him the last couple of years. So
this is a nine time pro bowler who was kind
of embarrassed really at the end of last year by
his coach bench the last couple of games, with good
(12:00):
numbers eighth in the league and quarterback rating, the usual
touchdown interception ratio where he's third best of all time
in NFL history, And you add all that up, and
the expectation is that you're going to be seeing a sharp,
focused Russell Wilson ready to lead the team to higher
heights than we've seen them be lifted to in the
(12:22):
last several years.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah, unquestionably. And I remember the day he got traded
to Denver. I was asked, if he never plays again,
is Russell Wilson a Hall of Famer? And I said, yeah,
I think so. I think he's got enough. And then
I was asked the same question the day he signed
with the Steelers, and I said, I'm not sure these
last two years didn't do him any favors at all.
(12:44):
And he's aware of that. He's a very proud athlete.
He's a very proud man that's accomplished unbelievable things at
this level if you have and I think he is
aware of his legacy. I mean the pride factor, hanging
with Cam Hayward and TJ. Watt and just watching him
at camp, even when he wasn't on the field, he
looked like QB one. And I know that that's not
something you can put like stats too or anything like that,
(13:06):
but just walking them, watching him on the in the cafeteria,
walking around campus, that type of thing, he was QB one.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, we are just scratching the surface. This is a
game that needs to be scratched, uh, because there's a
lot of great stuff that happened in this game for
the Steelers. We are going to get into a lot
more of that when we continue in the point after
on the Steelers Audio network.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Back to the point after on DVD.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's a snap Steelers rushing four Rogers throws over the
middle of the field, and there's your interception.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
It is picked off, Craik Willfleet, you called it, and
it is picked off by Beatie Bishop, who is having a.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Terrific game for the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The play of the game is brought to you by
S and T Bank, proudly serving our community since nineteen
oh t two. stBank dot com s and T Bank
member fdi C thanks for being with us on the
point after on this to this audio network. And so
what I was referring to there on that call was
as the Steelers got the ball, I'm looking at the clock, Matt,
and I'm thinking, okay, let's get the ball back. Maybe
(14:09):
you can put three up on the board. Maybe you
can make this a one score game going into the half.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
In fact, that's almost exactly what I said. And Wolf said,
how about a turnover. Let's get a turnover instead, and
the students got a turnover.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
I like the way Wolf thinks, you know, don't just
settle for let's get through it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yeah, all right, full confession. I was thinking of cherry
turnovers at that point. But you know that's not that's
not mixed this up.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Well, yeah, go ahead, Matt.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Said, we kind of mentioned it earlier. I'm sure the
game plan was to attack Bishop. You know, you got
three big, three good receivers now with Adams in town,
Lizard is your number three. And they did, and I'm
sure he's used to that to some degree. From what
I saw, the Steelers didn't travel porter all that much.
They kind of left it and left and righted it
for a while there. And Rob we were kind of
(14:57):
talking right before we hit record for the show that
there were a couple of times, and the Steelers had
this game in hand for a lot of the second half,
but there were a few times throughout the course of
the game where they just got that play, that turnover,
that cherry turnover that you know, just kind of made
life so much harder on the Jets.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Well, you think about, let's say that turnover doesn't happen.
Let's say Rogers marches the team down the field and
then kick a field goal. Right, We're not gon, We're
gonna think small again. We're not gonna think he scores
a team.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Now it's eighteen to six, right, that's a different feeling
going into the half fan fifteen to thirteen, completely different feeling.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
When you're up about thirteen to thirteen.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Right, we're talking about it terrible.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Okay, So as long as we're on turnovers and the
edible turnover type, so I have to say this, Matt
and Wolf, you can follow this up.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
But so last night, Wolf was so distraught about that call.
You know, we're both.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Talking about I only got to lay off the carbs,
and it was a lot easier for me to tell
that to Wolf after I two pieces of banana cake
before the game.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
But okay, no more carbs.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
That's it, you know, no more sugar, no more cookies,
and most like, oh, these calls are driving me to
eat a cookie. And by the end of the game
he was like, I think I'm about six cookies in
because there were so.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Many calls and not.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I mean there was I thought Friarmouth coming out of
the break, you know, the play he made the great
one handed catch.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I don't have to go back and look at it.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It looked to me like he got tugged, you know,
on the Jersey coming out of that break. Otherwise it's
Rudd in the money and he just runs into the
end zone. There was a play that they threw the
sauce guard or sauce gardener was covering pickings in the
corner of the end zone and Sauce had his right
hand kind of inside holding onto pickings Jersey and his
left hand was on pickens forearm with the one arm
(16:45):
he was trying to corral the ball in with. I
mean just a lot of there were a lot of
different instances where, you know, and again it doesn't matter anymore,
but it got my partner thinking cookie last night.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
I also think if there was a lot of allowance
of offensive linemen to be liberal in this game and
say the least I mean from a Steeler perspective, High
Smith first, Tyron Smith. They were alone a lot and
there could have been many flags, you know, but that
kind of went both ways.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You know, it did do a degree. But I was
very egregious when Larry Jogan Joby slammed Breese Hall as
you should. You got to put them in the dirt,
crying out loud. What is football if you tackle a
guy and you don't put him down? In the dirt. Now,
I know that there's something with a whistle. I thought
I heard a whistle. That was an appropriate response from
Larry in due time. But I don't know. Some people say,
(17:40):
you know, they say no, it was a little bit
earlier or whatever. I don't know. But to me, that
just seemed egregious. And I got to tell you that
call on Minka Fitzpatrick was ridiculous. Exactly, when you hurdle something,
your arms don't just you don't put your arms up
and then just hold your arms up. You jump. You're
an athlete. Your body moved is one. You draw all
(18:01):
your knees up, you tuck, and your hands come down
as a matter of recourse. That's how the human body,
how God made human physiology to move, okay, And I
simply just slapping the backside of an offensive lineman with
your fingertips is all about just judging the distance basically
and in a movement again of physiology. So I just
(18:23):
I thought that was just an egregious error by the officials.
And that's the second time the officials have taken away
a make a block, if you remember. The other one
was that not only did he block it, but he
took it back. I think it was against San Francisco. No,
I can't remember, a couple of years ago. Regardless, it
was a big block and it was a six pointer
at the end of it. And it's just a shame
(18:43):
because those are things that make it does and I
don't know, it drove me nuts.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I think Danny Smith agrees with you.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I don't know whether they showed it on TV, but
we can see printing out, yeah, about a quarter the
way out onto the field. And I mean, I suppose
to play Devil's Advocate a little bit. You can understand
where the official you know, I don't know exactly what
they're looking at. You know, there's not one official for
every player out in the field. And I just wonder
if they saw the hurtling action, saw the arms going backward,
(19:15):
and assumed that that was what happened, because I do
think that happens. There are you know, calls get bought,
calls get sold. You know, a guy throws his arms
up in the air and you know they teach him
to do that. Now, oh he must have been held.
And then you look at the replay and say, well,
I don't know was he really held there or not.
So I just, you know, I wonder if that I
(19:38):
almost think that that had to be what was behind it? Hey,
a little bit out of the corner of the eye,
you see the guy coming. I don't know, but but
it was a bad call.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The second half made it all obsolete.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
So it did, it did, and we were pleased with that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So let's go back to talking about the offense and
the Russ Wilson factor. And again, Wolf, if I'm going
to take a you know, tell us copic view, I'm
way up and I'm looking down at this. What this
makes me think of is what this offense can be
with a quarterback.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Who's been to nine Pro Bowls at the Helm.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
We haven't seen this kind of quarterback since we saw
Ben Roethlisberger, you know, before the end of his career.
Better personnel around him, you know, more mobile, a little
bit younger Ben. But when Ben walked out of the tunnel,
and not just in his prime, but later in his career,
you know, you felt like.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Hey, this you others can score.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
They can score with teams, and I feel like that
that is a necessary component to you know, reaching the
stated goal, which is getting into the playoffs, winning some games,
making some noise, and being a real contender. There comes
a time in a game in which Buffalo or Kansas
City or you know last year's Philadelphia team or Washington
(20:56):
this year the Lions, where you better the red the vikings,
you better be able to score some points. You're not
gonna be able to win every game sixteen to ten.
This is no revelation to this Steelers.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
They know that.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It's amazing that Mike Tomlin to me, has been able
to guide this team to the record. He's been able
to guide them to when they haven't had that component.
But it feels like, I know it's just one game,
but it feels like they have that component now.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It really feels to me like what you're doing is
giving You've got a bigger playbook going on right now. Look.
One of the things the difference between two quarterbacks to
me is like I think that Russ is a playmaker
and I think that Justin is a game changer because
with Russ, you've got everything going on, plus the back
end of the defense which you needed to attack. You've
got to be able to and who throws a better
(21:45):
long ball to a guy like George Pickens then you
know Russ. I mean, that's to me, that's just tremendous.
The way he arcs it and gives George Pickens an
opportunity to use all that magic and coming down with
the ball. It's great stuff. And I think this is
a great opportunity for Justin to do what basically we're
going to do from the very get go, and that
(22:06):
was to give him an opportunity to learn. And here
he goes out and stakes the Steelers to a four
and two record early on. That was tremendous. That's just tremendous.
And there's a lot of potential there to be manifested
by Justin Fields, and I'm sure we're going to see
some great things from him in the future. Right now,
this is where it is because Russ is able to
marshal all the resources of the offense. I love that
(22:28):
reversal into Mount Washington. Are you kidding me? Did you
see those defensive backs trying to curl up? I mean
when he's rumbling at him, and I'm thinking to myself,
here's six seven, nearly three hundred pounds of meat on
the hoof coming at you with the ball, and this
guy can hurtle you and YO you want to do
is go low so you don't get killed, you know,
(22:50):
And I don't know. It was just great to see.
I love the running game that came out of this.
I think again, the screen game is something that they
got to work on and get me because that is
such a big part of the offense. But Russell Wilson
did a nice job of throwing down the you know
that those long balls and giving George Picktt's a nice
opportunity to go after it. And I got to tell
(23:11):
you, you know, Sauce Gardner. I think they call him sauce
because he puts more sauce on a receiver than he
does on a play to spaghetti. I mean, you know,
sauce on spaghetti. It's ridiculous some of the things that
he gets away with. I know he's a good cover corner,
but by golly, some of the things you already talked
about he got away with a lot back there.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So Matt, your overall view, and again let's overreact one
game in to Russell Wilson being the quarterback and thirty
seven points being put on the board. Your view on
what Russell Wilson can mean to this Doer's offense.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
I think it just expands everything for Arthur Smith. You
know that the teams were crashing or loading the boxes.
It's such a ridiculous level coming into this game. And
now you know the fact that he can attack all
over the field. He's really really good off play action.
The deep passing, as Wolf mentioned, has always been amongst
(24:06):
the best in the league. That in itself I think
is huge. Red zone passing. I mean, I've been harping
on that all off season. They haven't had a good
red zone passer since Ben and Wilson. Absolutely is and
always has been. And again, I mean the fact that
Arthur Smith knows these things now and all how many
times did they play action bootleg boom, you know, helped
(24:29):
the O line that was struggling and find a pretty
easy completion. Everything's just so much smoother.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And when you look at what he's done in the
red zone historically, he's always been good at it. I
think last year was twenty touchdowns to one interception in
the red zone.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
It was very close to that, if not, I think
he nailed it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, that's amazing. I got that stat from your partner
Dale Lolly. By the way, I stole that from him
as I want to do. I'm okay with steel on
a stat and it's a great stat.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And the other thing, you have no problem with it.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
No the other one, and I'll take you. I'll go
ahead and take this one.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I look this one up, wolf, is that you know,
the formula for the Steelers with winning under Mike Tomlin
has basically been to keep the quarterback pretty much under wraps,
don't turn it over.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Let's let our defense win it.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Let's find a way to run the ball, find out
it grind out some points. Maybe it's through a turnover,
maybe you get a block, you know in special teams,
find some way to manufacture a win. And it begins
with that. We're gonna take care of the football and
then we're gonna take it away. We're gonna win that
turnover ratio. And they've been, as we mentioned earlier, the
(25:38):
best in the league since the beginning of last season.
Now you take a quarterback, that's what he's done. He's
the third best quarterback in NFL history in terms of
touchdown to interception ratio.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
That's the stat. I look at matter, Yes, thank you
very much, look at one.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So so now you're taking the same mindset, which is,
let's not turn the ball over. But you're doing that,
it's like let's add water. It's like, you know, bollyon
cube becomes a bowl of soup. I mean, all of
a sudden, you've got you know, you don't have to
sort of narrow it down to let's not turn it over. Well,
(26:14):
we're not going to turn it over because we have
a quarterback who historically doesn't turn it over. Okay, that's
our mo. But can also add the big plays as
we saw last night.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And that's what you wanted. That's what you wanted when
you brought in Russ. That's the type of thing you
wanted to add to your offense. Was that bullion to
soup and all that other stuff. Look, the thing about
it is when you want you want to emphasize to
justin ball security, making sure don't put the ball in jeopardy.
And what happens, well, your average target per you know,
(26:45):
yards per target go way down and you don't attack
the back end of the defense. You look at this
New York Jets defense. You got three guys in the
back end. Three of their best players are either unavailable
or heavily nicked. I can't remember which it was, but
you got to attack it, you got to go after him.
And I think that's exactly what Russ did. And you
know it's no, no, no, smack it justin because I
(27:08):
think the emphasis was don't put the ball in jeopardy,
which means don't throw the long ball unless you know
you got to clear and present, you know, receiver wide open.
And so to me right now, it's like you said,
things are wide open now and you don't have people
attacking downhill all the time. On the running game, look
a look at Nagy. I mean, you know not you've
(27:30):
back to back one hundred yard games and by golly,
that burst. I mean this guy, he's what got five
twenty plus yard runs if you know another Matt stat
which you know, nobody ever rips stats off me because
nobody's ever sure if I'm correct, including me. But you
know the fact is, when you know you see that,
(27:51):
that's exactly what you need, those big plays, those things
that take you down the field and get the job done.
And I just think Nogy's done a terrific job over
the whole course of this season of increasing his volatility.
Let's say as a runner, he has more combative, gains
more yardage. He's even ghosting people in the runs instead
of running them over, So kudos to him. And I
(28:13):
love this running game that is starting to really come
out and express itself.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And let's talk more about that running game and about
the defense coming up. We can say this, we gave
him a cherry turnover, seven cookies, a bullyon Cube and
Russ cook and this year Theer's won by the final
score of thirty seven to fifteen. Back with more on
this Steer's Victory room. We continueing the point after on
the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Back to the point after on dv E.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Rogers gets a snap straight back, looking steps up, still looking.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Nowhere to go, and he is sacked Larryogan joby back
at the seventeen yard line.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The Zach Hungrier segment is brought to you by the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank Get food volunteer don't at
Pittsburgh Foodbank dot org. So great workout of the Steelers defense,
and Matt, let's start with you in this segment. Overall again,
Rogers got things going and then the Steelers ripped off
thirty one consecutive points and even though they won the
(29:16):
time of possession. They won it sort of in glorious fashion.
They were trailing going into that final drive and then
they just chewed up all but the last, you know,
twenty five seconds or so of the clock to go
on a you know, seven plus minute drive to win
the time of possession battle. But Aaron Rodgers had ample
opportunity to attack the Steelers defense, and the Steelers defense was.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Up to the task.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yes, they got hurt by Briests, always a great player,
they weren't hurting the running game. They shut down the
Jets running game. Hall was coming off his first one
hundred yard game of the season. Are really just a
lot to like about the Steelers defensive performance.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
And some notes just watching the game, I thought the
Steelers tackling in the first half was poor and it
greatly greatly improved, And that was an absolute key, maybe
the key because you know, Rogers was getting the ball
out so quick and his time to throw in the
first half was remarkably quick. So I'm sure there's people saying,
(30:10):
you only got that one sack to pick from? Where
was TJ When the ball comes out in two point
two to two point three, you can't almost get there
if no one blocks you. I mean, so that was
the plan was. He doesn't like getting hit anymore. His
line's been kind of poorous this year despite investing in it.
So he's got really good receivers, including bress Hall. I'm
gonna get it to them quick and they're gonna make
(30:31):
people miss, and that's gonna be our offense. And when
the Steelers start tackling better and realizing the game plan,
it drastically changed for the Jets.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, so much to like about this game defensively, Wolf.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
You know, again, the.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The Jets got going, and sometimes you think of, okay,
what is the what kind of adjustment is the other
offense going to make? And what kind of adjustments will
Aaron Rodgers make? Well, the positive adjustments, it seemed to me,
including the tackling that might match just alluded to, all
came on the side of the Students defense. All came
on Tyra Austin and the Students defense figuring out a
(31:06):
way to stop the Jets offense with all those stars, Well.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
There's no question about it. I mean, look, you got
Aaron Rodgers, you got those wide receivers. You got to
get after it. And even if you can't get to them.
Part of the things that they go on. When you
got a guy getting the ball out in two point two,
get your hands up, and guys got their hands up,
and guys, well there's a fourth down. That's a turnover, right, Matt.
And then in the Matt Williamson book, that's a turnover exactly.
(31:33):
And I think what Keanu Benton had one or two?
Uh where he had one?
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Yeah, the only time they single blocked him, I think,
which was why they usually don't, right.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
So there was there was a lot of good stuff
there from a lot of people doing a good job.
And I can't say enough how good it was to
see Alex high Smith back and doing what he does
because he is really an unsung hero on the other
end of Obi wat Kenobi, which is, you know, he
is just a Jedi knight as far as an edge rusher,
and you know, watching him have to deal with three
(32:06):
people coming at him on just about every single play
is it's got to be nauseating at times to him.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, and Rob real quick. Earlier in the show, we
were talking about hidden yardage and you know special teams,
you know where you winning the margins that might not
show up in the box score. Their ability to swat
down passes now is unbelievably good, and it's kind of
like block kicks like it's I mean, only the Chiefs
had more last year. They have to be near the
(32:32):
top of the league this year. I don't know what's
going on, but I feel like JJ Swatt stopped by
camp and taught everyone how to bat down passes or
something a couple of years ago, because they did it regularly.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Four of them yesterday team I can kind of bet,
and one by Watt, one by Cam Hayward. So great
work there. I also wanted to, you know, give props
for sure to both Naji Harris and Jalen Warn. I
want to start with Naji Harris because you know he has,
you know, the statistics about him being hit in the
backfield more than any other runner, and you know, it
(33:05):
seems like forever he's had a black you know, break
two tackles just to get back to the line of scrimmage.
And some people saying, well, he's not running to the
right hole, or it's a blocking problem, or it's he's
not getting to the hole quickly enough. I don't know
what the issue is, but I do know this. In
the last two weeks, he has done a couple of
things that have really impressed me. Jones, the defensive back
(33:25):
for the Raiders, came up and again this is a
defensive back, much smaller guy than Najy comes up to
meet Nag and the whole nag. He makes a move
and Jones fell down. Like you talk about it, they
talk about an ankle breaking move.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
He fell down. Usually a guy stumbles or something.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
He actually fell down, which is something you know, they
made a commercial about that a couple of years ago. Oh,
that would never happen. I was in a basketball game.
So anyway, he does that. Then we saw the touchdown
run that followed it later on that same drive where
he just kind of slid sideways like like somebody trying
to creep silently through a door. You know, Hey, my
wife's sleeping. Got to sleep through the door. You know,
(34:02):
he was able to do that. And then so we've
seen the niftiness. He had another move yesterday, a nifty
move to get to the hole. But then the other
thing is and we all three have seen this, which
is Najie Harris working with this machine and I asked
him about it, and practice this week, go wait, what
is that machine? While he was doing it, by the way,
so he's backing up and I thought, maybe you know.
(34:23):
So what happens is he's got a band tied around
his waist, so imagine this a band. There's a machine,
and he's got the band tied around his waist and
he's moving backwards and I'm thinking, okay, well this is
to build up what the hamstring or the thighs, and
then he sprints forward when he gets it to a
certain tension, and you know he's asking him about that.
He said, no, it's actually a sprinter's thing. It is designed. Yes,
(34:47):
you get a little workout in, but it is designed
to make you faster. So I said, well, you look
great on that thirty six yard running, So well, how
how big of a run do I have to go
to to mention it on the radio? And he goes
forty and I said, okay, well I mentioned it last
and there he after a thirty four yard. I mentioned
it because again he's showing the speed he is. I
(35:08):
think most people think of him as a between the
tackles guy, and he's certainly great at that. But the
footwork he has shown and the speed and it is
something I want to underline this. It is something he
has worked extremely hard at developing. And it's not always
you think of, hey, this is how fast I run.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Well, he's worked very, very hard at it, and over
the last couple of weeks it has shown and it
has paid big dividends for him and for the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
No.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Oh, I'm sorry, good Matt, I say, Robbie beat me
to it because I knew we were going to talk
about nause and I think everyone's aware of his violence,
his running style, how much upper body he uses, stiff arms,
pushing people away, you know, heavy reluctance to go down,
doesn't dip him out of bounds. But I was going
to throw in there. I didn't even think about the
machine he's been using. But I do know that he's
(35:58):
a little bit leaner. We talked about that in camp.
He's clearly faster, and he's clearly more elusive. And you know,
the next gen stats chart this stuff. He had four
runs last night of over fifteen miles an hours. That's
really moving for somebody his size, no question about it.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Look, you know that machine, that's an overspeed machine that's
designed to increase the length of your stride and make
your stride longer. And guys would use back in the
day before we had some fancification of machines. You'd have
a gentle downhill that guys would run. They'd sprint down
the hill right in an effort to increase the range
(36:35):
of motion longer just a little bit. So that's what
it's all about. But he's using effectively. Not only that,
it's a mindset of maybe, Okay, let's not punish just
you know, myself by running into everybody that I meet
out there. Let's get around him. And that's what he's doing.
He's ghosting people and doing a fine job. And he's
got an offensive line that is coming around to despite
(36:57):
multiple changes in personnel, is hanging in there and slugging
it out.
Speaker 5 (37:02):
So two more things on Naji one loved to leap
into the end zone. You guys like that, well, I did.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I think I think the people in the end zone
were a little afeared when they saw that massive prairie
mammals running then, you know, to join them in that.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
I'm glad they'd take a knee at the end of
the game too, might as well to score again. Yeah,
you know, well, I don't, you know, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They weren't trying to write. They were just they were
just if you get the first down there, then you
could take the knie that. If you take the kneel down,
then they get the ball back. So you're just trying,
you know, if you pick up the first down. If
he had gotten down to the five, I guarantee you
they would have well, that would have been it would
have been the last play of the game.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
They wouldn't have had to run another play. So but
I loved that.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I love seeing that there was one other play too,
before we get to Jail and Warren again, because they
both had similar runs, one which the students challenged and
another one in which they did not, where Nagi was
in a bit of a scrum and they blew the
whistle and I thought it was a little premature.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
He didn't look happy about it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
No, he was not, and he was still fighting and
he was getting a push and the Jets were I mean.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
He popped out of there like a cork out of
a champagne bottle.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I think he was gone. And I don't think it
was because the jets let up. I think it was
because he had pushed his way through, but unfortunate, that's
the way it goes. I did want to point that out.
But back to back hundred yard games for him and
then Wolf to see Jalen Warren out there, and both
of us were really impressed by that short pass he
took from Russell Wilson the eleven yard or where he
(38:29):
was moving left to right, stuck his foot in the
ground the left foot, did a reverse pivot, got up
field where it looked like he was going to be
short of.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
A first down. Again, little plays, that was an important play.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
If he's tackled short of a first down, Jets have
an opportunity to kind of get back in there and
keep rolling. That was a big play. But just he
just you know, twelve carries forty four yards. He just
I thought, past the eye test, began to look more
like Jalen Warren as he knocks some of his own
rust off as well and gets healthy.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Absolutely, you know in that play that you're describing, that
pass play, how important was it to be able to
generate a first down off of that? And the fact
is he caught that ball, But as he was about
to catch the ball, he was locating if you take
a look at it, he's locating where the defenders are
and where he's got to go for his move to
get away from the defenders. The instant he snatches that
(39:18):
ball out of the air, I mean that is really
I can't even imagine the difficulty of that, you know.
I mean to be able to look around and see
where the defenders are, know that I'm going to catch
his ball, I'm gonna reverse pivot and a hard you know,
stick that foot in the ground as you called it,
and turn around and get north and south to be
able to get that first down. That's really something, and
that's just why one of the reasons why he's a
(39:41):
third down magnet. I mean, this guy gets it done
on third down and the way that Plus he had
a run late in the game that was a beautiful
cutback and he saw the end man on the line
edging in already and it was a nice job by
him getting around him. So Jalen Warrens really rounded into
what he was before and what he always will be,
which is an exceptional back.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
That was the third quarter run you're talking about with
it with this with the plant inside, got it down
to the two yard line. It was a terrific run,
great cutback.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
Matt.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
This guy's a weapon and he hasn't been available to
the Steelers.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Yeah, and we all use the term rust and it's
a little generic, but really, to me last week it
looked like the speed of the game, which anyone that's
been on an NFL sideline for five seconds understands how
fast and violent things happened between those white lines. The
speed of the game can be a hard thing to
get back, you know, it might take you a game
(40:34):
to deal with wile things are happening really quick around here.
And I thought last night he was back to handling
the speed of the game, dictating the flow of the
game and the other thing I'm gonna throw and it
applies to him and Nausey. They're really good in protection
and for someone that studies the entire league, there rarely
are there two backs in a backfield that you can
(40:55):
trust to throw it, to hand it to them and protect.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
You know, Matt is exactly right and just jumping in.
It's the speed of the game is you know, that's
really a hard thing. That is really the is Mike
Tomlin refers to it. It's a moving train, you know,
catching a moving train. It's not just the offensive side
of it, where you're learning stuff and trying to find
that rhythm, but it's the game in game decision making
process where you snatch a ball out of there and
(41:21):
reverse pivot and get the first down like that, the
speed of the game, the moving train. Yeah, that's all
big stuff. And that applied to rush too.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
So Matt, during the open of the game, you know,
I conflated sixth week and the Steelers record, and so
for a brief moment I said the six and two
Steelers would win it. But I met was sixth week
for the four and two Steelers after six weeks. But
what do they need to do to get to six
and two. I've listened before the buy the New York
Giants coming in Monday Night Football. It's a Giants team
(41:51):
with a really talented defense that has not been able
to find their way offensively with much success, despite the
fact that you know they've got Malik Neighbors is a
really impressive looking first round choice at wide receiver.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
He's a superstar in the making. Him and Wan del
Robinson are the ones that get all the targets and
Robinson's just a slot machine. Efficient Neighbors is a do
it all superstar in the making. A huge problem for
the Giants, though, is Andrew Thomas is a Pro Bowl
type left tackle that was injured two weeks ago, didn't
play this past week, and their pass protection against Philly
(42:26):
was atrocious. I mean, like you rarely see it that bad,
and so many sacks in that game because they rush
the pass are extremely well too. They have three superstars
on the defensive line. Dexter Lawrence is a rare nose
tackle and the best pass rushing nose tackle I've ever seen.
They have the youngest defense in the league, a lot
(42:47):
of high picks on that side of the ball, but
locking quarterback play leaves a little to be desired.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Well, how do they go into this week? I'm sure
extremely motive eyes on the prize, right, I mean not
overlooking this Giants team ready to go exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So, I mean this is an opportunity to get ready
for a little time off, you know, with the bye
week coming up, and certainly you know you want to
be all in and be able to relax a little
bit over that. And I just think this is an
offensive line that's got to come together and get some
things done, which, by the way, I got to tell
you something, I was so impressed. If you saw Michael
(43:28):
Clemens bullrush Dan Moore, which is like catching a car
rolling downhill. He came right down the middle of and
Danny just sank stuffed him. Then he bent him over
backwards and put him on his back and showed him
the sky. I'm telling you what, that was impressive. And
for Ryan McCollum to do the job that he did,
to come in and conduct traffic and do all the
things you need to do and get that stamp done,
(43:50):
great job. And I thought Broderick Jones again was another
example of him gaining a little more confidence, and that's
what he needs because he's got so much talent as
has got to come around. And I just like what
we've got going on now and hopefully they can keep
it going and expand on it.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Well.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
We'd like to invite you to gear up with the
latest game day necessities at the official Steelers pro shops.
Get the latest sideline apparel, jerseys, terrible towels, authentic memorabilia,
and custom exclusives you can only find directly from the team.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Visit one of the official.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Steelers pro shops located at Akroscher Stadium, Grove City Premium Ountlets,
or Tanger outlets, or gear up online at shop dot
Steelers dot com. For Craig Wolfley and Matt Williamson, I'm
Rob King. We thank you for listening to the point
after on the Steelers Audio Network
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