September 9, 2024 • 47 mins
Rob King, Craig Wolfley, and Matt Williamson with the first edition of the Point After of the 2024 season as they break down the Steelers big victory against the Falcons.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Steelers Point After Show on WDBE Pittsburgh,
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(00:21):
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Clearview your financial partner for a better life. Visit Clearview
FCU dot org. And now here are your hosts, Rob King,
Craig Wolfley, and Matt Williamson.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello and welcome to the Point After on the Steelers
Audio Network, coming to you for a second consecutive season
with the same cast which includes the Matt Williamson and
the Craig Wolfley. I'm gonna put a V in front
of you too, Wolf.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And I'm Rob King. Well, you know what, for a
chunky guy like me, you might want to go with
two E's.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
A different sort of be but not a slim one.
It's just not a slim one.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's all Steer's win by the final score of eighteen
to ten. Nice victory for the team. Keep in mind
they were three and a half point underdogs before anybody
knew who was going to be quarterbacking for him. I
don't know what the final line was, as you guys
have probably heard me say, I don't I don't partake
in the gambling part of things. I just think the
line is fun to know because you get a perception
(01:26):
of who people think is going to win the game.
I don't know if that's what the final line wound up,
but this on that yeah, this year there's one. And
let let's wolf start with just your overall impressions of
the Stewards victory.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, first of all, the line never bothered me because
that's why I played offensive line, because you only got
to go to three, you know, snap guy. But the
fact of the matter is this game really surpassed the
hitting expectations that I had. I thought, you know, we're
going to come in and things are going to happen,
and you know, we'll see. But it was a much
more violent game than what I anticipated. The hitting to
(01:59):
me was really on a nice level. That was a
lot of fun, enjoyable. It was old school. You saw
the Steelers come out and do some real old school budgeting.
You know. I really enjoyed that, you know. And we
saw Arthur Smith being Arthur Smith. He was who we
thought they were or whatever it was it Danny Green
said so long ago. And I thought that the offense
(02:21):
really represented well considering the fact that you go the
quarterback that you know you weren't sure about coming in
the whole week. You were expecting Russell Wilson, and you
got Justin Fields, who I thought it quitted himself well
and defensively speaking, just to wrap this up, I thought
the defense was just outstanding. I mean, I love the
way this defense just tore into the falcons and kept
(02:41):
after hm. It really was fun to watch.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Matt Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I mean I thought that was the biggest takeaway was
I think this defense has a chance to be the
best one in the entire league. And of course led
by TJ. Watt, who frankly played as well as good
of a singular players defensive game that I've ever I mean,
it was Lawrence Taylor level to me. I mean, he
was unblockable snap after snap and just had a massive
(03:06):
ripple effect. But the team speed showed up. All the
things that they built in the offseason showed up on
defense and then on offense. To be honest, as the
week went on and it was getting less and less
likely Russell Wilson was going to play and man, see
them all, who's not there as a stabling force? I
was getting more and more concerned about the outcome of
this game. But I get the coaching staff, especially Arthur
(03:27):
Smith and coach Tomlin, a lot of credit for playing
to what they had, you know, utilizing tight ends, making
fields life easier, and they have a pretty good familiarity
with fields with all his snaps we got in Latrope.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that certainly helped. And well, if I'm going to
bounce back to Matt here, because Matt we were talking,
we were on the drive on Friday film for Dale
and talking about the fact that this Falcons offensive line,
I think we can we can pretty clearly say top
five in the league.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Do you think I.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Would say around especially to run blocks right, And you know,
I was asking, well that that you know the front
seven and we know they've got some playmakers, and so
you went, I went into this game thinking the front
seven of the Steelers would have to outplay that front
five of the Falcons because if you if you give
Kirk Cousins too much time, and you give Pitts and
(04:18):
Drake London too much time and B John Robinson and
we can talk about some of these guys in a minute,
because I think we all feel the same way about
B John Robinson. Uh, but you said, hey, I feel
really comfortable with the Steelers front seven against anybody any matchup,
including this Falcons offensive line, which is a good.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
One, absolutely. And what I didn't see coming is I
think their best offensive lineman, Chris Lenstrom got whooped. I mean,
I thought he had a long day. He actually left
the game with injury, came back, I mean, and across
the board, I think the Steelers front seven has an
advantage over every line that they are going to see.
And we said this exact same thing Friday, and what
we dug into that at that show as well, rob
(04:58):
But I thought was really interesting is you knew Bijeon
or Algier, Pitts, London Mooney was going to be on
the field all the time, but who was that fifth
guy going to be on offense? Because Ram's history tells
you it's going to be a receiver. But with all
respect to Ray Ray McLeod, he's not an every down player,
right And then or do you go in and get
the blocking tight end instead, Well, if you put the
(05:22):
blocking tight end, you're kind of playing left handed. That's
not really what they want to do. They're much more
of an eleven team. But my point is you can't
have five man protections against the Steelers, and you know,
Kyle Pitts going by and just kind of putting an
elbow into you or whatever is going to slow down TJ.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Watt No.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
And I think that, you know when you look at that.
And one of the things that I thought that they
might do Wolf, which is what they did do, is
use a lot of times use Warner as your tight
end and because you've got a block and pedigree with
with the forty nine ers, and use Pits more as
a wide receiver. So you might say, hey, it's too
tight end personnel, but Pitt's is more. He's like a
(06:02):
Kellen Winslow type of tight end, which is basically to
say he's a receiver who will occasionally block, not a
blocker who will occasionally receive.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No question about it. Look, they did what they had
to do, you know, they just didn't realize how ferocious
that pass rush was going to be. And simply put,
who can ever prepare for TJ? Watt? I mean, the
guys really as close to an unstoppable I played against
LT number of times. Okay, and I agree with you.
I think he's starting to come on. Yeah, he's now
(06:32):
getting to a level that is pretty remarkably similar to
Lawrence Taylor. But you know, and looking at this this
in my mind, we went to this game looking at
that five someme upfront. These guys have played together a
long time. They had multiple seasons of snaps. A lot
of these guys had over a thousand STAPs. It seems like, Matt,
you had all the stats, and I was reading all
the stuff and going, wow, this line knows each other.
(06:53):
When you know each other, you're gonna communicate, you're gonna
be all together, You're going to know the strengths and
weaknesses of each member of that line. You know, So
it shouldn't be something that they were surprised by. They
would be ready for. Well, I think they were surprised.
I was surprised because This was a good line of
powerful guys who they have good contact balance. They're five
guys that get hat on a hat, meaning they don't
(07:15):
turn people loose. But there was some situations where they
just got overpowered. None better than when Dante Jackson got
that second interception. You know in the fourth quarter, you
watch that's a collapsing well all around Cousins. I mean,
that's what we used to call a team meeting at
the quarterback. Yeah, all four guys were right there.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
And rob real quick. And this doesn't take anything away
from the Steelers defense, but Wolf and I were talking
before we hit record. So many of these teams that
didn't play anybody in the preseason didn't look.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So great on Sunday.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
I mean the Browns of Bengals. I mean, you can
go on and on. I give Tomlin credit for quote
putting his guys in harm's way, even if it's a
little but getting them out there. I mean, Cousins to me,
coming off that injury, didn't look like the guy that
in Minnesota last year at all. And their line, you know,
continuity and all and talent was the strengthier, but it
(08:06):
didn't show. You know, so I think these these coaches
need to reassess that.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I agree with you. I also think that you know,
one of the statistics. You see all these statistics and
you know where and and some of them are really
fun and you do by the way, Matt Williams and.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
I go a little overboard, but you know, it does
a great job.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He does a great job. I was with him as
a reporter. I was with him on the air, and
I was using his stats, and I told.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I couldn't reveal my sources, but I was using his
own stats right back at her.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But let me just say this, if I can understand
the stats, anybody goes there great.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And I think that, uh, you know, statistics are are
fun to break down, and they're they're trying to they're
fun to kind of try to put in context. But
I thought one of the stats that was really interesting
that came from one of the Falcons reporters during the
course of the week later on in the week, was that, Okay,
so we know that before he got hurt. You know,
Kirk Cousins had the you know, the the most touchdown passes,
(09:05):
I think, and I don't know if he had the
highest quarterback rating, but his numbers were fantastic.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Pretty much halfway through the season.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
One of the things they said was that he was
number one in the league in rhythm passing. So get
the ball, get it out, and if you do that,
he's almost unstoppable. And on the first drive, I thought
he looked fairly sharp after the one year interception when
(09:32):
they were they were playing with some rhythm. But so,
how do you upset a quarterbacks rhythm? Well, there's a
couple of different ways you can do it. One, you
can shut down his receivers, so he so rhythm passing.
You get the ball, you take your little drop, you turn,
and you fire it on time. Right, that's what you do.
That's what rhythm passing is. Maybe you as you're dropping
(09:53):
back and taking your three step drop, you read, you
don't like your first read. You can square your shoulder
and throw it to the next guy, but you have
time to do that. That's throwing within rhythm. Well, how
can you disrupt that rhythm? Well, to me and maybe
you guys can count a third way. There's two ways.
One is to shut off those receivers, make sure they're
not open, and then the second is to disrupt them
(10:15):
by getting a pass rush in his face and upset
the footwork. I thought the Steelers did both of those
things in this game. I thought that they Cousins would
look out and the Steelers were. It felt like, and
again I have to go back and look at it.
We're calling a game live. It felt like they were
uptight to the line of scrimmage. There weren't a lot
of guys open credit by the way, I think, Okay,
(10:37):
I'll get back to the receiver cornerback matchup. But do
we all agree that's basically how you upset the rhythm
well and too. Yeah, they did both well, I thought.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But the other thing that they'll do is they'll sugar it,
you know, they'll disguise are coverage a little pre snap
like oh he's over here, Oh he's over there now,
that sort of thing, right, and that you can only
do that after a period of time working together. Too.
The other thing is redirecting guys, you know, and that's
when you play up tight. You can give good bang
on guys stuff like that. I mean, nobody did it
better than the great Mel Blunt, who was with us
(11:05):
on Saturday. We did a show. I mean, of course,
that was just a beatdown by Mel all day long
on somebody. But that sort of thing in whatever context,
you can do it nowadays in football because as Mel said,
you know, I'm the guy that all these defensive backs
they come up and go, You're the guy that blew
it for the rest of them.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, So I thought they did a great job on that.
By the way, it just and we can circle back
to this, but there were two I thought really intriguing
Matt receiver cornerback matchups, right pickings against aj Terrell who
just signed that massive, four year, eighty one million dollar
contract that for about ten minutes made him the second
(11:43):
highest paid defensive back football and patrick's Ortan signed one
and you know everybody else will sign him later. So
there was that matchup. And then on the other side
there was Joey Porter Junior against Drake London and to me,
big time wins in both categories for the Steelers. Dickens
got the better of Terrell, Enjoy Porter Junior got the
better of Drake London.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
So quick question for you guys, I mean, because you
had the bird's eye view I was watching on TV.
I have not watched the All twenty two yet, but
I assume those matchups came to fruition a high percent
of the time.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Right, I would have to go back and look, but yeah,
it felt like that way. Watch it felt like there
were a lot of those Yes. For me to say
that they were the two of those guys absolutely followed
the other guys one hundred percent of the time, I
can't say that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And the reason it feels that way is because London
didn't do anything. Yeah, I mean, if you're watching on TV,
the ball never went to him. He was getting shut
down and I assumed and certainly you could tell on
TV a lot by Porter. I mean, And it's funny
like I've had a couple of conversations about Porter at
training camps saying like, didn't seem like he had a
(12:51):
stellar camp. I'm like, he just didn't. They would didn't
ask a ton of them. I mean, I have no
concerns about him at all. I mean, he played at
a pro bowl level yesterday.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Right, And he was going against Pickens a lot in camp,
and that you know, Mike and Mike tom Win, iron
sharpens iron, That's that's a pretty good matchup.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That is, there's no doubt about it. They pushed each
other all the time. Now they sometimes it got a
little intense. You know you're watching it, You're like going,
be cool, dudes, because you know you are ultimately on
the same same team. But the fact is just the
way that they push each other, that's how winning is done.
You know, you two guys going at it. I always
point out Keith Willis Tounch Chilkin drafted or signed a
(13:31):
year apart, you know, but they went against each other
for over a decade, and at the end of it,
touch was a you know, one of the all time Steelers,
and Keith Willis was the all time sack leader. Iron
sharpens iron and that's a great example of it.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Now, a couple of things in that are I think
pro pickens and give Terrell maybe a little bit of
a break. Well, first of all, I don't know about
that pass interference.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I thought that was highly questionable.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Very yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
He did no way shape or formed then his arm.
It was one of those things where if they didn't
call it, I would have said fine. I think I
said at the time you Wolf were talking on Rivers
on the air during the commercial break, where I thought like,
if you didn't call that, I would have been fine
with it. If you called it and the more I
looked at him like, I don't know, did he really
was there any kind of push?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So, so I think that would have put Pickens over
one hundred yards. The other one was that the long
pass play in which he so the one he cut
across the field. I don't think Terrell. I'm not sure
Terrell was with him on that one. They're playing kind
of a deep zone on that. And then the other
one that was on that underthrown ball where Pickens cut
(14:42):
inside him and made a terrific catch went down. The
phantom touched to the ground, I said, touched to the
ground on that one.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
But that wash.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
You know, that's a very very difficult adjustment for a
defensive back to make.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Two things that I want to just say one as
far as the pass interference. I looked at the replan,
I thought, who's pushing who? Because they were both guilty
of it. Yeah. And then second of ball was that
pass thrown by Justin Fields across the field. I gotta
tell you, he sold that so good. On the rollout.
I'm sitting there going, wow, he's gonna run. And else
he pulls up and throws it across the field. I
thought don't do that. You never throw across the field.
(15:20):
Oh he can plete it. Oh good throw.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, I think obviously a design play and and sort
of underscores his arm strength. That might have been his
best throw of the day. I was right on the
money and he drilled that ball.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
His arm fright showed up. Yes, different than what we've
seen in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Okay, So we're just getting started. We have more to
come here alongside Craig Wolfy and Matt Williams and I'm
rob king. You're listening to the point after on this
yeer there's audio network back.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
To the point after on DVD.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Cousins in the shotgun gets the snap back, looking under pressure.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Throws intercepted, picked off. It's dot Jackson crossing the thirty
five to thirty on his feet down inside the twenty
to the seventeen yard line. The pressure got the Cousins
on the other end. It's Dante Action Jackson with the interception.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
He likes that, by the way, Action Jackson, So do I?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah? So do I I like that?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
He said he likes to be called Action Jackson.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So we're waiting now, we're waiting for him to give
us a little action, and he gave us a little
action game one. You're listening to the point after on
this year, there's audio network to play. The game is
brought to you by S and T Bank, proudly serving
our community since nineteen oh two. S and T bank
dot com S and T Bank member FDIC and I
thought that, you know the Jackson and Deshaun Elliott. How
(16:42):
about that you're two new members of the secondary, both
coming up with big plays and interceptions.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
For you, there's no question about it. I mean, you
look at these guys, I didn't. I you know, you
obviously know they're good, right, but I didn't know how
good they were because you know, it's just one of
those things you really pay a whole lot of attention
to unless you're Matt Williamson. Okay, but the fact of
the matters for guys like me, I'm always you know,
looking around the box, looking at the line, stuff like that,
and then you see these guys in action and action
(17:08):
Jackson is really the term you want to use on
this guy. I couldn't believe what a great interception he got,
and the fact that he dropped one earlier had to
really frost his You know, you know, frost him because
I mean the fact is he pulled it off at
the time when you need it pulled off. He did
it under the pressure gauge of that fourth quarter and
that them driving the ball. And what a great job
(17:28):
he did.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He said, By the way, his eyes got to the
first one too late. And that's one of those things
you don't think about, right, right, Like how hard is it?
Receivers always got his eyes in the ball, right As
a defensive back, you're trying to watch both and if
you see the ball at the last second, it's a
hard ball to catch.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yeah, I urge people to like put theirselves in someone's helmet,
you know, and try to think as those guys do.
You're staring at this guy and you gotta flip your
eyes around it, and you know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But what I will say this, I always I always
have to throw this in there because there was a
I don't know if people still say this, but back
in the day that the thing was, you know, defensive
backs they're the you know. So I was a wide
receiver at some point in my career, the slowest wide
receiver in America before I became the slowest quarterback in America.
So they said, you know, hey, defensive backs, and say, hey,
(18:13):
remember the best athletes on the few other defensive backs.
And the response to that was yeah, and if you
could catch, you'd be playing one.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Anyway. So sorry, he got.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Along those lines, I mean, those two. And apparently the
Steelers have been after Jackson for a while, Like they
liked him coming out of school. They liked them every
step of the way. That poor guy went through like
six defensive schemes in Carolina, you know, like it's hard
to thrive that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Way, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
I mean, some stability goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And I think wasn't he asked to be kind of
the number one corner at times?
Speaker 5 (18:43):
At times, I mean, it's always turmoil there, right, I mean,
they drafted Horn to be the one, then he's always heard.
I mean it's always turmoil. But I mean, talk about athleticism,
those two plus Wilson and Queen all new additions, that
back seven is so much more athletic and fast than
what we're used to. I mean, with all respect to
Peterson and Wallace and you know, Miles Jacket at this
(19:04):
stage of his career, they don't fly around the back
seven like this defense.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Does right, So that helps eliminate the big plays. And
by the way, I think Jackson being slotted in as
clearly as the number two guy like Cam Sutton went
to Detroit. You know, he had great success here. He's
our number one corner. Well miscast a little bit, but
that doesn't mean he's not a really good football player.
So when he comes back and can play in the
slotter the number two corner for you, that's going to help.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I think Deshaun.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Elliott is a guy that's really really gonna solidify. Not
only is he going to do his job, but he's
going to allow Minka Yeah to flourish in a larger way.
But you know, Andy Wide was speaking of the press
a couple weeks into the preseason and he talked about
the speed on the back end, and the guys you
(19:49):
just mentioned bring more speed, fewer big plays. I think
surrendered when that happens.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Wolf.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm also a big believer that speed leads to turnovers.
And I know every code which teaches here's how we're
going to punch the ball out, and here's how we're
going to create turnovers and all this other stuff, And
I get that and there's a reason I think turnover
stats are year to year because it's hard to create
and it's hard to do something create turnovers consistently just by technique.
(20:17):
I believe if you have fast players, fast players make
sudden things happen at the ball. You're there and there's
a sudden flash, and then you know you're not there anymore.
The ball pops in the air, or the quarterback is hit,
or you think guy out of the ball, he's not
exactly right. That's where I think the speed element will
(20:38):
help the Steelers get more turnovers this year.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Oh, there's unquestionably so. I mean that sort of factor,
that X factor of speed is something that it's just
like the X factor of physicality in the offensive line
that Andy Whitel was talking.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Absolutely, he's up that a great deal.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So that sort of thing on the back end is
something that is going to grow with as these guys
are able to play together more and doing more of
the sugaring where they're you know, they're disguising their coverages,
they're doing things that are going to offset what the
quarterback is looking at. You know, I mean, I can't
even begin to tell you the times of watching Troy
Paulamalu operate and doing things that you go they just
(21:15):
can't be done. But the reason a lot of times
he could do what couldn't be done was the fact
that Ryan Clark was covering areas that exactly it was
being exited by Troy Paul a mol So that's sort
of Yin and yang thing existing between the back end guys,
especially allowing make them more center field stuff. Man, I'm
all for it. I'm all for you know, more magic
(21:35):
makeup moments.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I think in addition like that, Matt, it's like you're
adding one player, but it's like you're adding a player
and a half because not only is he better than
the person Deshaun Elliott, who've.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Always thought is a good player.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, yeah, not only is he better than the guy
he's replacing, because he's a really good player.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So so you already.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You gain one there, but then you gain another half
because that allows Minka to do more things because of that.
So the addition of one player, this is what I
love about football, right, The addition of one player can
have such a trickle down effect on other players around him,
And I usually think of that in terms of the
great player like we've had this discussion before with the TJ.
(22:15):
Watt force multiplier, right, is a force multiplier. So think
about this, Kyle Pitts has to chip him. Now, what
does that mean, Well, Kyle Pitts might have trouble getting
out in his pattern. That's going to help your guy
defensively in the flat. It's going to help the guy
next to you because they can't double team Cam Heyward
if they're double teaming TJ.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Watt.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
And like you said, a force multiplier. So anyway, I'm sorry,
but I usually think of that as a great player
having an effect on the good player. This time, I
think the good player and Deshaun Elliott is helping the
superstar player in Minkea fits back one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
And there's two things you guys said a lot of
great stuff, and there's two things I just wanted to
add along those lines. Is Minca is a superstar and
people are like he di'n't have any interceptions. Last year
he had a down year.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
No.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
I think I wrote an article right around week twelve
last year about I was comparing him. All he did
was put out fires, like we don't have anyone to
cover a tight end. Go put that fire out, Maka.
We don't have anyone that can cover deep middle. Go
put that fire out, Maca. I mean like they didn't
let Minca be Minka so much as much. And that's
one of the beauties of him is he does everything
so well and better than most, but instead of putting
(23:17):
him in position to succeed, he was putting out fires
instead of building the house, you know what I mean.
And then the other thing that we were talking about
in kind of the Ryan Clark fashion with Troy is
it's wonderful that you have revis Or, Dion or Porter
following a guy, but whenever he follows London in motion,
ten other people on the field have to adjust to you.
(23:38):
It's much easier to play sides, you know what I mean,
So people don't think about that. I mean, Jackson and
all the other defensive backs have to adjust just because Joey's,
you know, chasing around Drake.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think the way you describe Mika Fitzpatrick to me wolf,
the way Matt described him is also a way I
would describe Patrick Queen. So it's going to be fascinating
to see how he's utilized. And I think he's one
of those rare guys that you can utilize in different
ways depending upon what the other team is doing. Of course,
(24:10):
you're always trying to gain plan in little ways, but
I would expect Patrick Queen to be able to do
those things at a high level. He can blitz from
the inside linebacker position. Wasn't asked to do that a
ton last year in Baltimore a couple of years ago
at a higher sack total. He can cover, he can
stop the run. Now you can't cover and blitz at
(24:31):
the same time, right, I mean, there's only one out there.
But I think whatever they choose to have him do,
he's going to be able to do. And what an
absolute luxury that is for Tara lawstin that defensive staff
to be able to have a player not only like Minka,
but also now a Patrick Queen in the middle of
that field that can do so many things so well
(24:51):
that you can use him based on the best way
to stop another team.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
There's no doubt about it. I mean, I make a
Fitzpatrick is just a fierce competitor and let's lets we
not forget his run stopping abilities. When he's able to
come as a single high safety come up and make
a play within three yards of the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I've seen that happen over and over in his career.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Da Dad, I believed it was a Bejon Robinson.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
It looked like it was going to.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Be a huge play, knocks the stuffing out of them.
So you've got that. Then you've also got a land
In Roberts, who, in my mind, as I always say,
that guy is like twenty three and me, he'll hit
you so freaking hard that on your next twenty three
and me test, his DNA is going to show up
on your family ancestry. Okay, that's hard hitting. And then
you've got Peyton Wilson. And again we're harkening back to
(25:37):
last year when Mike tom referred to you know, a
pair and of spare you know, I mean, you're getting
some guys with some selective roles and they're starting to
carve them out. And Pat Queen, I've I was just
thrilled to watch them, To watch him come on and
take some of those beef eaters on right and disengage
in such a violent manner. That was just fun. I mean,
(25:58):
you know, they just hearkened to the old days of
what you know, you're engrossed in a battle with the
linebacker over you, and it's a three four and it
was a lot more pure back then, where they didn't
have a lot of subpackages, and you're just going at
it all day, you know, and watching Pat Queen, I'm
telling you that that's a tough ombre. That dude can
come down and bang with the best of them in
downhill stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And I think this win is going to look better
and better as the year goes on. I think that
Kirk Cousins is going to get more acclimated to that offense.
I did want to bring up one thing though, and
I think that looking at their roster and looking at
the Steelers roster, and again, it's hard to know the
Falcons as well as you know the Steelers because you
see the Steelers in mini camp and you're following the draft,
(26:39):
and you see him during the camp in the trope,
and you're watching all the preseason games. But I think
that the edges of the Falcons roster, the depth there
he is. I mean when Ray Ray McLeod, I know
they had injury there. When he's your third receiver, you'd
probably like to be your fifth, and your punt returners.
He was with the Steelers when he had his best season.
You know they they I think they're lack you know,
(26:59):
they need another path rusher. They're lacking some depth in
some areas. But earlier this week, Kirk Cousins called Kyle
Pitts the best player on the Falcons. So, first of all,
I'm a j Terrell, I'm thinking, really and if I'm
if I'm Simmons or Baits, your two All Pro safeties,
is he the best player in the team of them?
But that's exactly going to get if you never if
(27:23):
that was the first football game you'd ever watched, I
think you look at Jon Robinson and say, who's number
seven for the Falcons?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Because that guy's really good.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Every time he touched the ball, I got a little
tremor of terror. I mean it felt like if you
gave him the ball. I don't know how many offensive
plays you run sixty if you got to play, if
you got the ball all sixty.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Times, I wouldn't have played the Falcons.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I mean, you can see why you had a Tyler
all gear Algier get one thousand and thirty five yards
rushing and you replaced him. You replaced a thousand yard
rusher averaging five yards of carry with a first round
pick when you had other needs. Because and he's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You're not even talking about the past receptions he's got
right in fact that he runs so many routes, the
fact that he had a target share, as Matt pointed out,
and his stats that was second only to Christian McCaffrey.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Just reviewed your sources.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
You know, if anybody thought we'll put it this way,
if anybody thought I was collecting my own stats, you
don't know me very well.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Sometimes the special players are that way. Like when you
said that about Algier, it made me think of the Vikings,
like Chester Taylor. I think he had twelve hundred yards
and they had the six pick in the draft, and
they're like, I'm taking Adrian.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Peterson, right.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Yeah, you know, like these are Hall of Fame difference
maker force multipliers.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I think b Jon Robinson. I think I'm gonna have
a lot of fun watching him as a fan. And again,
because we don't watch a lot of Falcons, and because
our jobs require us to watch a lot of tape.
I mean, Matt probably watches a lot of Falcons. I
don't watch a lot. I so going back and watching tape,
I might have seen him odd here there the highlights,
(29:06):
just watching a game with him. I'm just I can't
wait to watch the rest of his career now that
the Steelers aren't gonna be playing him again and again.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It points back to that offensive line of the Falcons
that was built by Arthur Smith. Right now, Okay, that
running game was built by Arthur Smith. You know, you
take a look at that, and those guys are, like
I said, they're very good at staying on their feet,
staying engaged. And you don't have to blow people off
the line of scrimmage, but you can stretch him, you know,
and you get him turned. And a guy like el
(29:34):
I'm sorry, like Bjon Robinson takes great advantage of that.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So we talked a lot about the defense. I just
want to and we're gonna talk about the Steers offense
in a moment, and I think Arthur Smith is a
good transition to talk that because when you think about
the Falcons offense last year. Now, Arthur Smith, he kind
of got Matt Ryan at the end of his career
and he gets three seven and ten seasons and they
dismiss him and they bring in a new coach and
they've got a new offensive coordinator coming from that Rams Tree.
(29:58):
You know that's been so productive. But his quarterback last
year is not in the NFL.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
He's not.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
He got cut by the by the not employed bitter.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Think about that. You went seven and ten with a
guy who's a young guy. It's not like God, it's
not like an old guy at the end of his career. Okay,
we got one lash shot out of the gun from him. No,
we're talking about a young guy who you drafted to
be your quarterback of the future and he's not in
the NFL.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Rob taking a step Frost.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
When he was the offensive coordinator with Tennessee, everyone thought
Ryan Tannehill was a first round bust. The Titans got
him for a fifth round pick and turned him into
a Pro bowler. I mean they thought his career was over.
They just wanted to get his contract off the books
in Miami. We'll take him for a fifth Smith turns
him into a Pro Bowl player. Then he goes and
he gets the shell of Matt Ryan case, Keenum and
(30:53):
Ritter who couldn't make the Cardinals this year. I mean
it was Smith was not perfect as a head coach
down there, but his quarterback play over those three years
was last in the league.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Right And by the way, one thing he loved to
hear I love to hear this.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
He's probably like, give me exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I don't want to put words in his out.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'm sure he's like, that would have been, that would
have been a guy's not in the NFL this year.
But loved hearing and reading through the Falcons articles how
much those players loved him and wished him well. And
you could tell that the former Falcons players really really
liked playing for Arthur Smith.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
There's no question about it. You know, I gotta believe.
I know he says no, there's no revenge and all
that he's got some can we call him Art Holiday,
you know, Doc Holliday. A little bit of reckoning was
meeted out there. I would think for him, that had
to be really enjoyable. Look, in the NFL, it's too
much of a closed society to carry big time brudges,
(31:52):
you know and burn bridges. But I would say that,
you know what little time brudges are. Okay, Yeah, there's
just a little bit of reckoning there that was nicely done.
Good for Arthur.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
I bet Russ wouldn't mind beating the Broncos and I forge.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
That revenge.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Steelers win eighteen to ten over the Falcons. We're going
to look at their offensive performance and take a quick
sneak peek ahead to the Broncos when we continue on
the point after on the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Back to the point after on DV, E.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
Cousins gets the snap looking, TJ Wat gets there and
TJ Watt slings them down on the play that will
end this game. TJ Wat bows to the crowd, kicks
up the leg and finishes off this victory for the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The Sack Hunger segment is brought to you by the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Get food, volunteer or donate
at Pittsburgh Foodbank dot org. I thought it was fund
that TJ after he sacked him, he did, he steped
like ten yards and Fielding bowed to the crowd.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It was great. Great. How many times have we seen
a walkoff sack? You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
He just earned it, Yes, and he earned it. And
what a great job.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I mean, starting with the first half, how many times
was that dude strangled held almost tackled all sorts of stuff,
and yet he's still able to come through with some
of the biggest plays at the biggest moments. It's really
remarkable and hats off to him. I mean, it's just
awesome to watch him play. They've got the sack of
the game was one didn't count right.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, he gave me Yeary all kinds of trouble with
the right tackle position, all kinds of trouble. And he's
a good, solid player. I mean, t you know, we've
been talking about this. Steers have a lot of great
defensive players, but we're watching just an all time great
in his prime in t J.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Watt.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I mean, it's he was so disruptive. But they've got
a lot of great players in that defense. I'm gonna
just two butts in the same sentence. They've but they've
got a lot of great players in that defense, but TJ.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Watt is kind of where it starts.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Well. It was kind of fun to watch because early
in the week I was watching Caleb McGarry and he
just carries his hands low. When you do that against
a guy like DJ Watt, you are made to order
for the trap, the chop, cross, chop, anything like that,
and he's just he was made to order for it,
and he did, he delivered it.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I'm so glad this is radio not television, and Wolf
isn't demonstrating on me the chop, the cross chop, the
up chop, the down chop.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know, when you've had it done to you, you remember,
I'd be staggered up off the mat right about now.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So the Steelers offense, you know, first of all, first
snap of the game, I'm like, oh no, really, man,
I mean, because don't forget when Fields had the fumble
issues in the preseason. That was with her big at center,
So now you're thinking, oh my. And then the second
snap he bobbled the second snap under center on the
pitch wid de Najie Harris, and then that was that.
(34:49):
Right that they got that out of the way. Matt
I thought the game plan. You know, you got two
basically rookies offensive line, and Ben j Anderson's taking two
snaps in his career year as an offensive lineman. You
have a center in Zach Frazer who's a rookie, and
so these guys are going against a Falcons defensive line
that's probably more rotationally good than Superstar players.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Those guys are solid.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
They've got some solid players up front. So and then
you're starting the quarterback you didn't really expect to start,
so there's some game plan issues involved. I thought it
seemed like the offensive line set up pretty well. And
I thought after you know, the first missing a thrower too,
and maybe needing to settle down. I thought Justin fields
hacquitted himself well as well.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Yeah, that both of you are excellent at stealing some
of my stats. I'm gonna steal some things we talked
about off behind the scenes here from you guys. Is
Wolf and I before were talking about Fields that he
probably was a little stiff, a little nervous coming into
that situation and it showed right. And you know, you
were just talking about how good the safeties are for
(35:54):
Atlanta and the Steelers attempted zero passes between the numbers.
I mean, you don't ever see that zero and you
could say, wow, I mean that that's that's terrible. You
can't do that. Well, you can't do it every week,
but for that day with a quarterback that's rolling left,
rolling right, throwing that direction once even across the field,
you know, it wasn't like and avoiding those two safeties.
(36:16):
They got them comfortable. You know, they got them some
easy throws, some layup throws, and to me, that's good coordinating.
I agree, unquestionably.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So look, I thought it was brilliant start off with
a fake snap fumble and then quarterback snakes right, yeah,
you got to yeah, absolutely, you know. But you know,
I look at it and it was beautiful. You're changing
and varying the launch point. And even as a pass
rushing group as the Falcons are, they're not real effective,
(36:45):
having had real effective pass rushers in their history. The
fact is, you know, you just when you when you
roll out like that, you give the quarterback one third
to read. You just get one third. You know, you
get a high low situation. Maybe you know, one guy
out in the flat, one guy a little bit deeper
you but when if your playing got somebody in the fight,
you put him in conflict and you got an easy
read for the quarterback. And I think that is just
(37:05):
smart coaching.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And he's already moving his feet, just keep going, which
he did do it. I know he's good at it.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
It didn't feel like there were there were a few
quarterback runs. I remember one late in the fourth quarter
where he just took one off the right side and
it looked like a straight quarterback lead play. I don't
know how many of them were called, or how many
of them. They just said, Look, if you're out and
you're wide and you can you know the old rule
of them, you can get five yards take it.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
I think it was mostly that. I don't think they
were to run quarterback power with Wilson injured either, you know,
I don't think that you don't want to get that
to Allen point right.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It it would be uh fascinating, you know. So it
would be fascinating to watch Fields over the course of
a season on a better team and see how he
would progress by the same token. I thought, Russell Wilson,
the word I keep coming back to wolf seeing him
in camp, was just sharp. The ball comes out of
(38:02):
his hands, it's sharp. It's a spiral one hundred percent
of the time, it's on a line one hundred percent
of the time. It's very accurate. I just think he
looks extremely sharp. And I think now after you see
you know, Fields beat a team that you know, I
think is going to probably win nine or ten games
(38:23):
on the road. In the opener, I think that Steelers
fan should feel pretty good about the quarterback position.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
One way or the other.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
There's no question about it. And how where we go
from here, we'll see, you know. He let the work
unveil itself what these guys are capable of doing. But
justin Fields took a good step forward and showing that yes,
I am capable of some excellent quarterbacking, and certainly with
a guy like Arthur Smith who has done resurrection opportunities
such as with right Tannehill and yeah the other guys. Boy,
(38:51):
that's a nice guy that you have an offensive court
and say, hey, I want to learn under this guy.
I want to be, you know, be rebuilt as a
quarterback threat and do so with a guy like Arthur
Smith who's capable of helping him in that way.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
A couple things stood out to me too about nothing
bad about Fields, but fumbled to snap early. There were
some procedural things that weren't super clean. I mean, I
don't know if that fourth and one everyone was set
where they needed to be, Wilson Ben those type of
guys have been around the block, get you in and
out of the huddle, and they're precise and all those
type of things, and I think that would have been different.
(39:23):
And then it's what I looked it up real quick.
But the Steelers ran eleven plays in the red zone,
ain't scoring any of them. Wilson, over his career, excels
in the red zone. He throws touchdown passes like I
don't know if you'd ended up with six field goals
if Wilson's your quarterback, I think that's a knock on fields.
Wilson's a starter.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I think there were some times where the students got
a little cautious with their play calling.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
I also think they knew that Atlanta wasn't going anywhere right right?
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (39:50):
You?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
And I think that's a really really important distinction. Is
you know, we talk about this. I think, you know,
probably off microphone as much or more than we talk
about it on microphone. But I think when you know,
you'll see a you know, coach would be consulting a
flip card and we'll say this is the time, you
know we're down by such and such, you know, we
(40:13):
go for two. I think if that requires more feel
yeah than just doing that, I think, is it gonna
rob your team of some momentum if you score six
and then you don't get to right, you know, Hey,
it's uh, you know it says sixty three percent chance
on fourth and one and a half from the forty
six to get a first down. Well, uh, you know
(40:35):
you've got an all pro guard and Chris Linstrom. But
hey man, Cam Heyward's kind of having his way with him.
Do you maybe think twice about just consulting that flip card?
Speaker 5 (40:45):
So I think there's some more to your play call.
What's that take a step for? Like, oh, we can't
get we can't block Aaron Donald, but the flip card
tells us to go for it on fourth and two?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Right, exactly what play calling?
Speaker 5 (40:54):
Yeah, exactly, you know, And we can't have that conversation.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
One doesn't involve Aaron Donald's right.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So I think the Steelers ud have done, and did
yesterday a very good job of coaching to the game
and the game conditions and best strengths.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
I told everyone's always like you're gonna regress the mean
in one score games, right, not if you have a
better feel for the game than the guy on the
other sideline.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Right, you know, yes, And can we just say this,
how about Najie Harris.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
I do want to get to ninety.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
But I do think that's an tell us ahead of time.
I'm sorry, Wolf, because I do. But I just wanted
to follow up with that, Wolf, with your with your
thoughts on this, because you know Mike Tomlin will allow games,
if for lack of a better word, to get to
the fourth quarter and say we feel comfortable winning this game.
(41:47):
I would think from a coaching field point, that's something.
But I've never been an NFL player. I would think
that that permeates down through your team where you're like, Okay,
this is it, this is this is what we do.
We win, We win one score games in the fourth quarter.
Now let's go out and do it. So people's you know,
(42:08):
fans of the sky is falling and we should have
gone forward on fourth and one, and you know we
should have tried to get a touchdown there instead of
settling for a field goal, and blah blah blah blah blah.
But but I would think not only that few for
the game match talking about from the coaching level, but
that's got to permeate down through your roster.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Too, unquestionably so. But look, success we get success, and
when you have a little success in close scoring games,
that creates confidence in guys because you have you enter
into uh, let's face it, he had my he had
Ben Roethlisberger for a large part of his career.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
You've win a lot of games, come from behind and
everything else.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
And let me tell you something, there's nothing like walking
into a huddle looking at the score, knowing that you
got a couple of minutes, you might be down, or
you got to drive the ball. And I got a
blonde bomber, you got you know, Terry Bradshaw, you got
Ben Roethlisberger or something. Okay, you got all the confidence
in the world. It permeates to all the other guys
in the huddle, and that you can't buy that kind
of reputation and so far with guys. And I simply
(43:01):
think that it's a great thing to have. And I'll
say this, I spent almost twenty years on the sidelines
watching Mike up close. There is not, in my mind
a coach more in tune with his gut instinct than
Mike Tomlin. I mean that's great. I mean it's unbelievable
because even as we go back years ago to San
Diego when Lev Bell scored and immediately he's going for
(43:23):
two I'm watching him close on the sidelines. There was
no hesitation. He already knew he's one step ahead. He
believes in the process of his thought, his coaches and
everything he comes into the game with. And then I
think that guy just goes by a lot of gut
instinct and it bears well for him.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
So Naja Harris, I did want to bring him up
wolf and I.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Thought, oh good, I think we should.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I thought you and I were talking earlier with Max
on the locker room. I thought this year's best drive
was one installed on the fourth and one. I thought
that they really brought Nagy to bear that it was
really that time of the game, much like could see
with Jerome Bettis where they kind of knew you were
gonna run it, and you were still able to run it.
You're still successful and that's part of being a physical
(44:08):
football team. Is that a Naji Harris getting you know,
quote unquote better as the game goes.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
On, unquestionably. So, Look, one of the beautiful things about
Naji the guy is part running back in part cage fighter.
You know, I mean just watching him, watching him in
the second half compete when he's taken on two, three,
four and sometimes he didn't get buddy yard after that contact.
But he's fighting off four or five guys. He's still
on his speed and the boys are coming to his rescue.
(44:36):
You know, you got to get around him and sheriff
the pile because he's not going down easy man. Okay,
So you better get out there and defend your guy.
And that's what I love seeing with the offensive line.
They were getting down there. Defend your guy and finish
off the play, go to the whistle. And I love
the competitive nature of Nagy. I mean, tear my helmet off. Okay,
I'll you know I'm still coming at you, man. I
(44:58):
love that. And the fact is he does not I
hate to say the word, but he does not fumble. Okay,
leave it go. I don't want to jink something. Didn't
hear it, Yeah, didn't hear it. But you know, literally,
this guy here, when you put the ball in his
hands and you just grind away and you tenderize and
marinate that defense, that's a great position to be in.
When you're a hog, when you're an offensive lineman, you
(45:19):
live for that moment. That's like having that's like having
a bucket of chicken wings with all the blue cheese
you can eat, man, I mean, yeah, it's a great time.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
You listen to Wolf and it it almost makes you
want to get a ball and run behind him until
you actually think about who'd be tackling. We're all done,
we're all gone on here, man. But you're getting you're
getting it. You're getting us all pumped up here. Well
real quick, we got about I think it's just about
a minute left. Denver Broncos on the road. You have
any early thoughts on that game.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
Matt, Denver in September is the worst place to play
in the league because of the high air. You're always
sucking wind. Their record is phenomenal in September over decades,
but they're a bad football team. And the Steelers played
a lot of different players. I think you can rest
TJ and Cam and all those guys in that situation.
(46:07):
Bo Nicks looked way over his head and it's Frank,
it's one of the worst rosters in the league.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Okay, So that's some good early thing.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Note to the Hugs. Yeah, Strap one was their tanks
on your back.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Yeah, that's worried about the game. Hey, I know I've
been there.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
I remember coming out for Warlams going chuck light. I'm
sucking win.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
I can't breathe.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Early in the year, it's terrible in particular.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Right, Well, find a way to win, and find a
way to get yourself too. And oh, before you get
that first home game. Everyone talks about how tough the
schedule was on the other end, but I mean, going
to Atlanta was no joke. Going to Denver's no joke
for some of the reasons you just brought up as well.
Speaker 5 (46:37):
They're ten and three in their last thirteen road games
regular season.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
I'm going to repeat that stat later.
Speaker 5 (46:43):
It's already in the Denver stat pack.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Don't worry.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yeah, And and I won't reveal my sources.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Hey, I didn't get mine yet. Where is it?
Speaker 7 (46:50):
The latest game day necessities? He's the official Steer. There's
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(47:12):
Steelers dot com. For Craig Wolfley, Matt Williamson, I'm Rob King,
thanks for joining us for the point after on the
Steelers Audio Network
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(00:21):
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Clearview your financial partner for a better life. Visit Clearview
FCU dot org. And now here are your hosts, Rob King,
Craig Wolfley, and Matt Williamson.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello and welcome to the Point After on the Steelers
Audio Network, coming to you for a second consecutive season
with the same cast which includes the Matt Williamson and
the Craig Wolfley. I'm gonna put a V in front
of you too, Wolf.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And I'm Rob King. Well, you know what, for a
chunky guy like me, you might want to go with
two E's.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
A different sort of be but not a slim one.
It's just not a slim one.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's all Steer's win by the final score of eighteen
to ten. Nice victory for the team. Keep in mind
they were three and a half point underdogs before anybody
knew who was going to be quarterbacking for him. I
don't know what the final line was, as you guys
have probably heard me say, I don't I don't partake
in the gambling part of things. I just think the
line is fun to know because you get a perception
(01:26):
of who people think is going to win the game.
I don't know if that's what the final line wound up,
but this on that yeah, this year there's one. And
let let's wolf start with just your overall impressions of
the Stewards victory.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, first of all, the line never bothered me because
that's why I played offensive line, because you only got
to go to three, you know, snap guy. But the
fact of the matter is this game really surpassed the
hitting expectations that I had. I thought, you know, we're
going to come in and things are going to happen,
and you know, we'll see. But it was a much
more violent game than what I anticipated. The hitting to
(01:59):
me was really on a nice level. That was a
lot of fun, enjoyable. It was old school. You saw
the Steelers come out and do some real old school budgeting.
You know. I really enjoyed that, you know. And we
saw Arthur Smith being Arthur Smith. He was who we
thought they were or whatever it was it Danny Green
said so long ago. And I thought that the offense
(02:21):
really represented well considering the fact that you go the
quarterback that you know you weren't sure about coming in
the whole week. You were expecting Russell Wilson, and you
got Justin Fields, who I thought it quitted himself well
and defensively speaking, just to wrap this up, I thought
the defense was just outstanding. I mean, I love the
way this defense just tore into the falcons and kept
(02:41):
after hm. It really was fun to watch.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Matt Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I mean I thought that was the biggest takeaway was
I think this defense has a chance to be the
best one in the entire league. And of course led
by TJ. Watt, who frankly played as well as good
of a singular players defensive game that I've ever I mean,
it was Lawrence Taylor level to me. I mean, he
was unblockable snap after snap and just had a massive
(03:06):
ripple effect. But the team speed showed up. All the
things that they built in the offseason showed up on
defense and then on offense. To be honest, as the
week went on and it was getting less and less
likely Russell Wilson was going to play and man, see
them all, who's not there as a stabling force? I
was getting more and more concerned about the outcome of
this game. But I get the coaching staff, especially Arthur
(03:27):
Smith and coach Tomlin, a lot of credit for playing
to what they had, you know, utilizing tight ends, making
fields life easier, and they have a pretty good familiarity
with fields with all his snaps we got in Latrope.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that certainly helped. And well, if I'm going to
bounce back to Matt here, because Matt we were talking,
we were on the drive on Friday film for Dale
and talking about the fact that this Falcons offensive line,
I think we can we can pretty clearly say top
five in the league.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Do you think I.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Would say around especially to run blocks right, And you know,
I was asking, well that that you know the front
seven and we know they've got some playmakers, and so
you went, I went into this game thinking the front
seven of the Steelers would have to outplay that front
five of the Falcons because if you if you give
Kirk Cousins too much time, and you give Pitts and
(04:18):
Drake London too much time and B John Robinson and
we can talk about some of these guys in a minute,
because I think we all feel the same way about
B John Robinson. Uh, but you said, hey, I feel
really comfortable with the Steelers front seven against anybody any matchup,
including this Falcons offensive line, which is a good.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
One, absolutely. And what I didn't see coming is I
think their best offensive lineman, Chris Lenstrom got whooped. I mean,
I thought he had a long day. He actually left
the game with injury, came back, I mean, and across
the board, I think the Steelers front seven has an
advantage over every line that they are going to see.
And we said this exact same thing Friday, and what
we dug into that at that show as well, rob
(04:58):
But I thought was really interesting is you knew Bijeon
or Algier, Pitts, London Mooney was going to be on
the field all the time, but who was that fifth
guy going to be on offense? Because Ram's history tells
you it's going to be a receiver. But with all
respect to Ray Ray McLeod, he's not an every down player,
right And then or do you go in and get
the blocking tight end instead, Well, if you put the
(05:22):
blocking tight end, you're kind of playing left handed. That's
not really what they want to do. They're much more
of an eleven team. But my point is you can't
have five man protections against the Steelers, and you know,
Kyle Pitts going by and just kind of putting an
elbow into you or whatever is going to slow down TJ.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Watt No.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
And I think that, you know when you look at that.
And one of the things that I thought that they
might do Wolf, which is what they did do, is
use a lot of times use Warner as your tight
end and because you've got a block and pedigree with
with the forty nine ers, and use Pits more as
a wide receiver. So you might say, hey, it's too
tight end personnel, but Pitt's is more. He's like a
(06:02):
Kellen Winslow type of tight end, which is basically to
say he's a receiver who will occasionally block, not a
blocker who will occasionally receive.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No question about it. Look, they did what they had
to do, you know, they just didn't realize how ferocious
that pass rush was going to be. And simply put,
who can ever prepare for TJ? Watt? I mean, the
guys really as close to an unstoppable I played against
LT number of times. Okay, and I agree with you.
I think he's starting to come on. Yeah, he's now
(06:32):
getting to a level that is pretty remarkably similar to
Lawrence Taylor. But you know, and looking at this this
in my mind, we went to this game looking at
that five someme upfront. These guys have played together a
long time. They had multiple seasons of snaps. A lot
of these guys had over a thousand STAPs. It seems like, Matt,
you had all the stats, and I was reading all
the stuff and going, wow, this line knows each other.
(06:53):
When you know each other, you're gonna communicate, you're gonna
be all together, You're going to know the strengths and
weaknesses of each member of that line. You know, So
it shouldn't be something that they were surprised by. They
would be ready for. Well, I think they were surprised.
I was surprised because This was a good line of
powerful guys who they have good contact balance. They're five
guys that get hat on a hat, meaning they don't
(07:15):
turn people loose. But there was some situations where they
just got overpowered. None better than when Dante Jackson got
that second interception. You know in the fourth quarter, you
watch that's a collapsing well all around Cousins. I mean,
that's what we used to call a team meeting at
the quarterback. Yeah, all four guys were right there.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
And rob real quick. And this doesn't take anything away
from the Steelers defense, but Wolf and I were talking
before we hit record. So many of these teams that
didn't play anybody in the preseason didn't look.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So great on Sunday.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
I mean the Browns of Bengals. I mean, you can
go on and on. I give Tomlin credit for quote
putting his guys in harm's way, even if it's a
little but getting them out there. I mean, Cousins to me,
coming off that injury, didn't look like the guy that
in Minnesota last year at all. And their line, you know,
continuity and all and talent was the strengthier, but it
(08:06):
didn't show. You know, so I think these these coaches
need to reassess that.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I agree with you. I also think that you know,
one of the statistics. You see all these statistics and
you know where and and some of them are really
fun and you do by the way, Matt Williams and.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
I go a little overboard, but you know, it does
a great job.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He does a great job. I was with him as
a reporter. I was with him on the air, and
I was using his stats, and I told.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I couldn't reveal my sources, but I was using his
own stats right back at her.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
But let me just say this, if I can understand
the stats, anybody goes there great.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And I think that, uh, you know, statistics are are
fun to break down, and they're they're trying to they're
fun to kind of try to put in context. But
I thought one of the stats that was really interesting
that came from one of the Falcons reporters during the
course of the week later on in the week, was that, Okay,
so we know that before he got hurt. You know,
Kirk Cousins had the you know, the the most touchdown passes,
(09:05):
I think, and I don't know if he had the
highest quarterback rating, but his numbers were fantastic.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Pretty much halfway through the season.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
One of the things they said was that he was
number one in the league in rhythm passing. So get
the ball, get it out, and if you do that,
he's almost unstoppable. And on the first drive, I thought
he looked fairly sharp after the one year interception when
(09:32):
they were they were playing with some rhythm. But so,
how do you upset a quarterbacks rhythm? Well, there's a
couple of different ways you can do it. One, you
can shut down his receivers, so he so rhythm passing.
You get the ball, you take your little drop, you turn,
and you fire it on time. Right, that's what you do.
That's what rhythm passing is. Maybe you as you're dropping
(09:53):
back and taking your three step drop, you read, you
don't like your first read. You can square your shoulder
and throw it to the next guy, but you have
time to do that. That's throwing within rhythm. Well, how
can you disrupt that rhythm? Well, to me and maybe
you guys can count a third way. There's two ways.
One is to shut off those receivers, make sure they're
not open, and then the second is to disrupt them
(10:15):
by getting a pass rush in his face and upset
the footwork. I thought the Steelers did both of those
things in this game. I thought that they Cousins would
look out and the Steelers were. It felt like, and
again I have to go back and look at it.
We're calling a game live. It felt like they were
uptight to the line of scrimmage. There weren't a lot
of guys open credit by the way, I think, Okay,
(10:37):
I'll get back to the receiver cornerback matchup. But do
we all agree that's basically how you upset the rhythm
well and too. Yeah, they did both well, I thought.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But the other thing that they'll do is they'll sugar it,
you know, they'll disguise are coverage a little pre snap
like oh he's over here, Oh he's over there now,
that sort of thing, right, and that you can only
do that after a period of time working together. Too.
The other thing is redirecting guys, you know, and that's
when you play up tight. You can give good bang
on guys stuff like that. I mean, nobody did it
better than the great Mel Blunt, who was with us
(11:05):
on Saturday. We did a show. I mean, of course,
that was just a beatdown by Mel all day long
on somebody. But that sort of thing in whatever context,
you can do it nowadays in football because as Mel said,
you know, I'm the guy that all these defensive backs
they come up and go, You're the guy that blew
it for the rest of them.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, So I thought they did a great job on that.
By the way, it just and we can circle back
to this, but there were two I thought really intriguing
Matt receiver cornerback matchups, right pickings against aj Terrell who
just signed that massive, four year, eighty one million dollar
contract that for about ten minutes made him the second
(11:43):
highest paid defensive back football and patrick's Ortan signed one
and you know everybody else will sign him later. So
there was that matchup. And then on the other side
there was Joey Porter Junior against Drake London and to me,
big time wins in both categories for the Steelers. Dickens
got the better of Terrell, Enjoy Porter Junior got the
better of Drake London.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
So quick question for you guys, I mean, because you
had the bird's eye view I was watching on TV.
I have not watched the All twenty two yet, but
I assume those matchups came to fruition a high percent
of the time.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Right, I would have to go back and look, but yeah,
it felt like that way. Watch it felt like there
were a lot of those Yes. For me to say
that they were the two of those guys absolutely followed
the other guys one hundred percent of the time, I
can't say that, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
And the reason it feels that way is because London
didn't do anything. Yeah, I mean, if you're watching on TV,
the ball never went to him. He was getting shut
down and I assumed and certainly you could tell on
TV a lot by Porter. I mean, And it's funny
like I've had a couple of conversations about Porter at
training camps saying like, didn't seem like he had a
(12:51):
stellar camp. I'm like, he just didn't. They would didn't
ask a ton of them. I mean, I have no
concerns about him at all. I mean, he played at
a pro bowl level yesterday.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Right, And he was going against Pickens a lot in camp,
and that you know, Mike and Mike tom Win, iron
sharpens iron, That's that's a pretty good matchup.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That is, there's no doubt about it. They pushed each
other all the time. Now they sometimes it got a
little intense. You know you're watching it, You're like going,
be cool, dudes, because you know you are ultimately on
the same same team. But the fact is just the
way that they push each other, that's how winning is done.
You know, you two guys going at it. I always
point out Keith Willis Tounch Chilkin drafted or signed a
(13:31):
year apart, you know, but they went against each other
for over a decade, and at the end of it,
touch was a you know, one of the all time Steelers,
and Keith Willis was the all time sack leader. Iron
sharpens iron and that's a great example of it.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Now, a couple of things in that are I think
pro pickens and give Terrell maybe a little bit of
a break. Well, first of all, I don't know about
that pass interference.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I thought that was highly questionable.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Very yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
He did no way shape or formed then his arm.
It was one of those things where if they didn't
call it, I would have said fine. I think I
said at the time you Wolf were talking on Rivers
on the air during the commercial break, where I thought like,
if you didn't call that, I would have been fine
with it. If you called it and the more I
looked at him like, I don't know, did he really
was there any kind of push?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So, so I think that would have put Pickens over
one hundred yards. The other one was that the long
pass play in which he so the one he cut
across the field. I don't think Terrell. I'm not sure
Terrell was with him on that one. They're playing kind
of a deep zone on that. And then the other
one that was on that underthrown ball where Pickens cut
(14:42):
inside him and made a terrific catch went down. The
phantom touched to the ground, I said, touched to the
ground on that one.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
But that wash.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
You know, that's a very very difficult adjustment for a
defensive back to make.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Two things that I want to just say one as
far as the pass interference. I looked at the replan,
I thought, who's pushing who? Because they were both guilty
of it. Yeah. And then second of ball was that
pass thrown by Justin Fields across the field. I gotta
tell you, he sold that so good. On the rollout.
I'm sitting there going, wow, he's gonna run. And else
he pulls up and throws it across the field. I
thought don't do that. You never throw across the field.
(15:20):
Oh he can plete it. Oh good throw.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, I think obviously a design play and and sort
of underscores his arm strength. That might have been his
best throw of the day. I was right on the
money and he drilled that ball.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
His arm fright showed up. Yes, different than what we've
seen in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Okay, So we're just getting started. We have more to
come here alongside Craig Wolfy and Matt Williams and I'm
rob king. You're listening to the point after on this
yeer there's audio network back.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
To the point after on DVD.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Cousins in the shotgun gets the snap back, looking under pressure.
Speaker 6 (15:55):
Throws intercepted, picked off. It's dot Jackson crossing the thirty
five to thirty on his feet down inside the twenty
to the seventeen yard line. The pressure got the Cousins
on the other end. It's Dante Action Jackson with the interception.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
He likes that, by the way, Action Jackson, So do I?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah? So do I I like that?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
He said he likes to be called Action Jackson.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So we're waiting now, we're waiting for him to give
us a little action, and he gave us a little
action game one. You're listening to the point after on
this year, there's audio network to play. The game is
brought to you by S and T Bank, proudly serving
our community since nineteen oh two. S and T bank
dot com S and T Bank member FDIC and I
thought that, you know the Jackson and Deshaun Elliott. How
(16:42):
about that you're two new members of the secondary, both
coming up with big plays and interceptions.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
For you, there's no question about it. I mean, you
look at these guys, I didn't. I you know, you
obviously know they're good, right, but I didn't know how
good they were because you know, it's just one of
those things you really pay a whole lot of attention
to unless you're Matt Williamson. Okay, but the fact of
the matters for guys like me, I'm always you know,
looking around the box, looking at the line, stuff like that,
and then you see these guys in action and action
(17:08):
Jackson is really the term you want to use on
this guy. I couldn't believe what a great interception he got,
and the fact that he dropped one earlier had to
really frost his You know, you know, frost him because
I mean the fact is he pulled it off at
the time when you need it pulled off. He did
it under the pressure gauge of that fourth quarter and
that them driving the ball. And what a great job
(17:28):
he did.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
He said, By the way, his eyes got to the
first one too late. And that's one of those things
you don't think about, right, right, Like how hard is it?
Receivers always got his eyes in the ball, right As
a defensive back, you're trying to watch both and if
you see the ball at the last second, it's a
hard ball to catch.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yeah, I urge people to like put theirselves in someone's helmet,
you know, and try to think as those guys do.
You're staring at this guy and you gotta flip your
eyes around it, and you know.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But what I will say this, I always I always
have to throw this in there because there was a
I don't know if people still say this, but back
in the day that the thing was, you know, defensive
backs they're the you know. So I was a wide
receiver at some point in my career, the slowest wide
receiver in America before I became the slowest quarterback in America.
So they said, you know, hey, defensive backs, and say, hey,
(18:13):
remember the best athletes on the few other defensive backs.
And the response to that was yeah, and if you
could catch, you'd be playing one.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Anyway. So sorry, he got.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Along those lines, I mean, those two. And apparently the
Steelers have been after Jackson for a while, Like they
liked him coming out of school. They liked them every
step of the way. That poor guy went through like
six defensive schemes in Carolina, you know, like it's hard
to thrive that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Way, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
I mean, some stability goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And I think wasn't he asked to be kind of
the number one corner at times?
Speaker 5 (18:43):
At times, I mean, it's always turmoil there, right, I mean,
they drafted Horn to be the one, then he's always heard.
I mean it's always turmoil. But I mean, talk about athleticism,
those two plus Wilson and Queen all new additions, that
back seven is so much more athletic and fast than
what we're used to. I mean, with all respect to
Peterson and Wallace and you know, Miles Jacket at this
(19:04):
stage of his career, they don't fly around the back
seven like this defense.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Does right, So that helps eliminate the big plays. And
by the way, I think Jackson being slotted in as
clearly as the number two guy like Cam Sutton went
to Detroit. You know, he had great success here. He's
our number one corner. Well miscast a little bit, but
that doesn't mean he's not a really good football player.
So when he comes back and can play in the
slotter the number two corner for you, that's going to help.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I think Deshaun.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Elliott is a guy that's really really gonna solidify. Not
only is he going to do his job, but he's
going to allow Minka Yeah to flourish in a larger way.
But you know, Andy Wide was speaking of the press
a couple weeks into the preseason and he talked about
the speed on the back end, and the guys you
(19:49):
just mentioned bring more speed, fewer big plays. I think
surrendered when that happens.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Wolf.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm also a big believer that speed leads to turnovers.
And I know every code which teaches here's how we're
going to punch the ball out, and here's how we're
going to create turnovers and all this other stuff, And
I get that and there's a reason I think turnover
stats are year to year because it's hard to create
and it's hard to do something create turnovers consistently just by technique.
(20:17):
I believe if you have fast players, fast players make
sudden things happen at the ball. You're there and there's
a sudden flash, and then you know you're not there anymore.
The ball pops in the air, or the quarterback is hit,
or you think guy out of the ball, he's not
exactly right. That's where I think the speed element will
(20:38):
help the Steelers get more turnovers this year.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Oh, there's unquestionably so. I mean that sort of factor,
that X factor of speed is something that it's just
like the X factor of physicality in the offensive line
that Andy Whitel was talking.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Absolutely, he's up that a great deal.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So that sort of thing on the back end is
something that is going to grow with as these guys
are able to play together more and doing more of
the sugaring where they're you know, they're disguising their coverages,
they're doing things that are going to offset what the
quarterback is looking at. You know, I mean, I can't
even begin to tell you the times of watching Troy
Paulamalu operate and doing things that you go they just
(21:15):
can't be done. But the reason a lot of times
he could do what couldn't be done was the fact
that Ryan Clark was covering areas that exactly it was
being exited by Troy Paul a mol So that's sort
of Yin and yang thing existing between the back end guys,
especially allowing make them more center field stuff. Man, I'm
all for it. I'm all for you know, more magic
(21:35):
makeup moments.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I think in addition like that, Matt, it's like you're
adding one player, but it's like you're adding a player
and a half because not only is he better than
the person Deshaun Elliott, who've.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Always thought is a good player.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, yeah, not only is he better than the guy
he's replacing, because he's a really good player.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So so you already.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You gain one there, but then you gain another half
because that allows Minka to do more things because of that.
So the addition of one player, this is what I
love about football, right, The addition of one player can
have such a trickle down effect on other players around him,
And I usually think of that in terms of the
great player like we've had this discussion before with the TJ.
(22:15):
Watt force multiplier, right, is a force multiplier. So think
about this, Kyle Pitts has to chip him. Now, what
does that mean, Well, Kyle Pitts might have trouble getting
out in his pattern. That's going to help your guy
defensively in the flat. It's going to help the guy
next to you because they can't double team Cam Heyward
if they're double teaming TJ.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Watt.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
And like you said, a force multiplier. So anyway, I'm sorry,
but I usually think of that as a great player
having an effect on the good player. This time, I
think the good player and Deshaun Elliott is helping the
superstar player in Minkea fits back one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
And there's two things you guys said a lot of
great stuff, and there's two things I just wanted to
add along those lines. Is Minca is a superstar and
people are like he di'n't have any interceptions. Last year
he had a down year.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
No.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
I think I wrote an article right around week twelve
last year about I was comparing him. All he did
was put out fires, like we don't have anyone to
cover a tight end. Go put that fire out, Maka.
We don't have anyone that can cover deep middle. Go
put that fire out, Maca. I mean like they didn't
let Minca be Minka so much as much. And that's
one of the beauties of him is he does everything
so well and better than most, but instead of putting
(23:17):
him in position to succeed, he was putting out fires
instead of building the house, you know what I mean.
And then the other thing that we were talking about
in kind of the Ryan Clark fashion with Troy is
it's wonderful that you have revis Or, Dion or Porter
following a guy, but whenever he follows London in motion,
ten other people on the field have to adjust to you.
(23:38):
It's much easier to play sides, you know what I mean,
So people don't think about that. I mean, Jackson and
all the other defensive backs have to adjust just because Joey's,
you know, chasing around Drake.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think the way you describe Mika Fitzpatrick to me wolf,
the way Matt described him is also a way I
would describe Patrick Queen. So it's going to be fascinating
to see how he's utilized. And I think he's one
of those rare guys that you can utilize in different
ways depending upon what the other team is doing. Of course,
(24:10):
you're always trying to gain plan in little ways, but
I would expect Patrick Queen to be able to do
those things at a high level. He can blitz from
the inside linebacker position. Wasn't asked to do that a
ton last year in Baltimore a couple of years ago
at a higher sack total. He can cover, he can
stop the run. Now you can't cover and blitz at
(24:31):
the same time, right, I mean, there's only one out there.
But I think whatever they choose to have him do,
he's going to be able to do. And what an
absolute luxury that is for Tara lawstin that defensive staff
to be able to have a player not only like Minka,
but also now a Patrick Queen in the middle of
that field that can do so many things so well
(24:51):
that you can use him based on the best way
to stop another team.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
There's no doubt about it. I mean, I make a
Fitzpatrick is just a fierce competitor and let's lets we
not forget his run stopping abilities. When he's able to
come as a single high safety come up and make
a play within three yards of the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I've seen that happen over and over in his career.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Da Dad, I believed it was a Bejon Robinson.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
It looked like it was going to.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Be a huge play, knocks the stuffing out of them.
So you've got that. Then you've also got a land
In Roberts, who, in my mind, as I always say,
that guy is like twenty three and me, he'll hit
you so freaking hard that on your next twenty three
and me test, his DNA is going to show up
on your family ancestry. Okay, that's hard hitting. And then
you've got Peyton Wilson. And again we're harkening back to
(25:37):
last year when Mike tom referred to you know, a
pair and of spare you know, I mean, you're getting
some guys with some selective roles and they're starting to
carve them out. And Pat Queen, I've I was just
thrilled to watch them, To watch him come on and
take some of those beef eaters on right and disengage
in such a violent manner. That was just fun. I mean,
(25:58):
you know, they just hearkened to the old days of
what you know, you're engrossed in a battle with the
linebacker over you, and it's a three four and it
was a lot more pure back then, where they didn't
have a lot of subpackages, and you're just going at
it all day, you know, and watching Pat Queen, I'm
telling you that that's a tough ombre. That dude can
come down and bang with the best of them in
downhill stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And I think this win is going to look better
and better as the year goes on. I think that
Kirk Cousins is going to get more acclimated to that offense.
I did want to bring up one thing though, and
I think that looking at their roster and looking at
the Steelers roster, and again, it's hard to know the
Falcons as well as you know the Steelers because you
see the Steelers in mini camp and you're following the draft,
(26:39):
and you see him during the camp in the trope,
and you're watching all the preseason games. But I think
that the edges of the Falcons roster, the depth there
he is. I mean when Ray Ray McLeod, I know
they had injury there. When he's your third receiver, you'd
probably like to be your fifth, and your punt returners.
He was with the Steelers when he had his best season.
You know they they I think they're lack you know,
(26:59):
they need another path rusher. They're lacking some depth in
some areas. But earlier this week, Kirk Cousins called Kyle
Pitts the best player on the Falcons. So, first of all,
I'm a j Terrell, I'm thinking, really and if I'm
if I'm Simmons or Baits, your two All Pro safeties,
is he the best player in the team of them?
But that's exactly going to get if you never if
(27:23):
that was the first football game you'd ever watched, I
think you look at Jon Robinson and say, who's number
seven for the Falcons?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Because that guy's really good.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Every time he touched the ball, I got a little
tremor of terror. I mean it felt like if you
gave him the ball. I don't know how many offensive
plays you run sixty if you got to play, if
you got the ball all sixty.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Times, I wouldn't have played the Falcons.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I mean, you can see why you had a Tyler
all gear Algier get one thousand and thirty five yards
rushing and you replaced him. You replaced a thousand yard
rusher averaging five yards of carry with a first round
pick when you had other needs. Because and he's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You're not even talking about the past receptions he's got
right in fact that he runs so many routes, the
fact that he had a target share, as Matt pointed out,
and his stats that was second only to Christian McCaffrey.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Just reviewed your sources.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
You know, if anybody thought we'll put it this way,
if anybody thought I was collecting my own stats, you
don't know me very well.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Sometimes the special players are that way. Like when you
said that about Algier, it made me think of the Vikings,
like Chester Taylor. I think he had twelve hundred yards
and they had the six pick in the draft, and
they're like, I'm taking Adrian.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Peterson, right.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Yeah, you know, like these are Hall of Fame difference
maker force multipliers.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I think b Jon Robinson. I think I'm gonna have
a lot of fun watching him as a fan. And again,
because we don't watch a lot of Falcons, and because
our jobs require us to watch a lot of tape.
I mean, Matt probably watches a lot of Falcons. I
don't watch a lot. I so going back and watching tape,
I might have seen him odd here there the highlights,
(29:06):
just watching a game with him. I'm just I can't
wait to watch the rest of his career now that
the Steelers aren't gonna be playing him again and again.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
It points back to that offensive line of the Falcons
that was built by Arthur Smith. Right now, Okay, that
running game was built by Arthur Smith. You know, you
take a look at that, and those guys are, like
I said, they're very good at staying on their feet,
staying engaged. And you don't have to blow people off
the line of scrimmage, but you can stretch him, you know,
and you get him turned. And a guy like el
(29:34):
I'm sorry, like Bjon Robinson takes great advantage of that.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So we talked a lot about the defense. I just
want to and we're gonna talk about the Steers offense
in a moment, and I think Arthur Smith is a
good transition to talk that because when you think about
the Falcons offense last year. Now, Arthur Smith, he kind
of got Matt Ryan at the end of his career
and he gets three seven and ten seasons and they
dismiss him and they bring in a new coach and
they've got a new offensive coordinator coming from that Rams Tree.
(29:58):
You know that's been so productive. But his quarterback last
year is not in the NFL.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
He's not.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
He got cut by the by the not employed bitter.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Think about that. You went seven and ten with a
guy who's a young guy. It's not like God, it's
not like an old guy at the end of his career. Okay,
we got one lash shot out of the gun from him. No,
we're talking about a young guy who you drafted to
be your quarterback of the future and he's not in
the NFL.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Rob taking a step Frost.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
It's amazing.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
When he was the offensive coordinator with Tennessee, everyone thought
Ryan Tannehill was a first round bust. The Titans got
him for a fifth round pick and turned him into
a Pro bowler. I mean they thought his career was over.
They just wanted to get his contract off the books
in Miami. We'll take him for a fifth Smith turns
him into a Pro Bowl player. Then he goes and
he gets the shell of Matt Ryan case, Keenum and
(30:53):
Ritter who couldn't make the Cardinals this year. I mean
it was Smith was not perfect as a head coach
down there, but his quarterback play over those three years
was last in the league.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Right And by the way, one thing he loved to
hear I love to hear this.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
He's probably like, give me exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I don't want to put words in his out.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'm sure he's like, that would have been, that would
have been a guy's not in the NFL this year.
But loved hearing and reading through the Falcons articles how
much those players loved him and wished him well. And
you could tell that the former Falcons players really really
liked playing for Arthur Smith.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
There's no question about it. You know, I gotta believe.
I know he says no, there's no revenge and all
that he's got some can we call him Art Holiday,
you know, Doc Holliday. A little bit of reckoning was
meeted out there. I would think for him, that had
to be really enjoyable. Look, in the NFL, it's too
much of a closed society to carry big time brudges,
(31:52):
you know and burn bridges. But I would say that,
you know what little time brudges are. Okay, Yeah, there's
just a little bit of reckoning there that was nicely done.
Good for Arthur.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
I bet Russ wouldn't mind beating the Broncos and I forge.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
That revenge.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Steelers win eighteen to ten over the Falcons. We're going
to look at their offensive performance and take a quick
sneak peek ahead to the Broncos when we continue on
the point after on the Steelers Audio Network.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Back to the point after on DV, E.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
Cousins gets the snap looking, TJ Wat gets there and
TJ Watt slings them down on the play that will
end this game. TJ Wat bows to the crowd, kicks
up the leg and finishes off this victory for the Steelers.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The Sack Hunger segment is brought to you by the
Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Get food, volunteer or donate
at Pittsburgh Foodbank dot org. I thought it was fund
that TJ after he sacked him, he did, he steped
like ten yards and Fielding bowed to the crowd.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It was great. Great. How many times have we seen
a walkoff sack? You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
He just earned it, Yes, and he earned it. And
what a great job.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I mean, starting with the first half, how many times
was that dude strangled held almost tackled all sorts of stuff,
and yet he's still able to come through with some
of the biggest plays at the biggest moments. It's really
remarkable and hats off to him. I mean, it's just
awesome to watch him play. They've got the sack of
the game was one didn't count right.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, he gave me Yeary all kinds of trouble with
the right tackle position, all kinds of trouble. And he's
a good, solid player. I mean, t you know, we've
been talking about this. Steers have a lot of great
defensive players, but we're watching just an all time great
in his prime in t J.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Watt.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I mean, it's he was so disruptive. But they've got
a lot of great players in that defense. I'm gonna
just two butts in the same sentence. They've but they've
got a lot of great players in that defense, but TJ.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Watt is kind of where it starts.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Well. It was kind of fun to watch because early
in the week I was watching Caleb McGarry and he
just carries his hands low. When you do that against
a guy like DJ Watt, you are made to order
for the trap, the chop, cross, chop, anything like that,
and he's just he was made to order for it,
and he did, he delivered it.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I'm so glad this is radio not television, and Wolf
isn't demonstrating on me the chop, the cross chop, the
up chop, the down chop.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know, when you've had it done to you, you remember,
I'd be staggered up off the mat right about now.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So the Steelers offense, you know, first of all, first
snap of the game, I'm like, oh no, really, man,
I mean, because don't forget when Fields had the fumble
issues in the preseason. That was with her big at center,
So now you're thinking, oh my. And then the second
snap he bobbled the second snap under center on the
pitch wid de Najie Harris, and then that was that.
(34:49):
Right that they got that out of the way. Matt
I thought the game plan. You know, you got two
basically rookies offensive line, and Ben j Anderson's taking two
snaps in his career year as an offensive lineman. You
have a center in Zach Frazer who's a rookie, and
so these guys are going against a Falcons defensive line
that's probably more rotationally good than Superstar players.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Those guys are solid.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
They've got some solid players up front. So and then
you're starting the quarterback you didn't really expect to start,
so there's some game plan issues involved. I thought it
seemed like the offensive line set up pretty well. And
I thought after you know, the first missing a thrower too,
and maybe needing to settle down. I thought Justin fields
hacquitted himself well as well.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
Yeah, that both of you are excellent at stealing some
of my stats. I'm gonna steal some things we talked
about off behind the scenes here from you guys. Is
Wolf and I before were talking about Fields that he
probably was a little stiff, a little nervous coming into
that situation and it showed right. And you know, you
were just talking about how good the safeties are for
(35:54):
Atlanta and the Steelers attempted zero passes between the numbers.
I mean, you don't ever see that zero and you
could say, wow, I mean that that's that's terrible. You
can't do that. Well, you can't do it every week,
but for that day with a quarterback that's rolling left,
rolling right, throwing that direction once even across the field,
you know, it wasn't like and avoiding those two safeties.
(36:16):
They got them comfortable. You know, they got them some
easy throws, some layup throws, and to me, that's good coordinating.
I agree, unquestionably.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So look, I thought it was brilliant start off with
a fake snap fumble and then quarterback snakes right, yeah,
you got to yeah, absolutely, you know. But you know,
I look at it and it was beautiful. You're changing
and varying the launch point. And even as a pass
rushing group as the Falcons are, they're not real effective,
(36:45):
having had real effective pass rushers in their history. The
fact is, you know, you just when you when you
roll out like that, you give the quarterback one third
to read. You just get one third. You know, you
get a high low situation. Maybe you know, one guy
out in the flat, one guy a little bit deeper
you but when if your playing got somebody in the fight,
you put him in conflict and you got an easy
read for the quarterback. And I think that is just
(37:05):
smart coaching.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And he's already moving his feet, just keep going, which
he did do it. I know he's good at it.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
It didn't feel like there were there were a few
quarterback runs. I remember one late in the fourth quarter
where he just took one off the right side and
it looked like a straight quarterback lead play. I don't
know how many of them were called, or how many
of them. They just said, Look, if you're out and
you're wide and you can you know the old rule
of them, you can get five yards take it.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
I think it was mostly that. I don't think they
were to run quarterback power with Wilson injured either, you know,
I don't think that you don't want to get that
to Allen point right.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It it would be uh fascinating, you know. So it
would be fascinating to watch Fields over the course of
a season on a better team and see how he
would progress by the same token. I thought, Russell Wilson,
the word I keep coming back to wolf seeing him
in camp, was just sharp. The ball comes out of
(38:02):
his hands, it's sharp. It's a spiral one hundred percent
of the time, it's on a line one hundred percent
of the time. It's very accurate. I just think he
looks extremely sharp. And I think now after you see
you know, Fields beat a team that you know, I
think is going to probably win nine or ten games
(38:23):
on the road. In the opener, I think that Steelers
fan should feel pretty good about the quarterback position.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
One way or the other.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
There's no question about it. And how where we go
from here, we'll see, you know. He let the work
unveil itself what these guys are capable of doing. But
justin Fields took a good step forward and showing that yes,
I am capable of some excellent quarterbacking, and certainly with
a guy like Arthur Smith who has done resurrection opportunities
such as with right Tannehill and yeah the other guys. Boy,
(38:51):
that's a nice guy that you have an offensive court
and say, hey, I want to learn under this guy.
I want to be, you know, be rebuilt as a
quarterback threat and do so with a guy like Arthur
Smith who's capable of helping him in that way.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
A couple things stood out to me too about nothing
bad about Fields, but fumbled to snap early. There were
some procedural things that weren't super clean. I mean, I
don't know if that fourth and one everyone was set
where they needed to be, Wilson Ben those type of
guys have been around the block, get you in and
out of the huddle, and they're precise and all those
type of things, and I think that would have been different.
(39:23):
And then it's what I looked it up real quick.
But the Steelers ran eleven plays in the red zone,
ain't scoring any of them. Wilson, over his career, excels
in the red zone. He throws touchdown passes like I
don't know if you'd ended up with six field goals
if Wilson's your quarterback, I think that's a knock on fields.
Wilson's a starter.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I think there were some times where the students got
a little cautious with their play calling.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
I also think they knew that Atlanta wasn't going anywhere right right?
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (39:50):
You?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
And I think that's a really really important distinction. Is
you know, we talk about this. I think, you know,
probably off microphone as much or more than we talk
about it on microphone. But I think when you know,
you'll see a you know, coach would be consulting a
flip card and we'll say this is the time, you
know we're down by such and such, you know, we
(40:13):
go for two. I think if that requires more feel
yeah than just doing that, I think, is it gonna
rob your team of some momentum if you score six
and then you don't get to right, you know, Hey,
it's uh, you know it says sixty three percent chance
on fourth and one and a half from the forty
six to get a first down. Well, uh, you know
(40:35):
you've got an all pro guard and Chris Linstrom. But
hey man, Cam Heyward's kind of having his way with him.
Do you maybe think twice about just consulting that flip card?
Speaker 5 (40:45):
So I think there's some more to your play call.
What's that take a step for? Like, oh, we can't
get we can't block Aaron Donald, but the flip card
tells us to go for it on fourth and two?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Right, exactly what play calling?
Speaker 5 (40:54):
Yeah, exactly, you know, And we can't have that conversation.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
One doesn't involve Aaron Donald's right.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So I think the Steelers ud have done, and did
yesterday a very good job of coaching to the game
and the game conditions and best strengths.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
I told everyone's always like you're gonna regress the mean
in one score games, right, not if you have a
better feel for the game than the guy on the
other sideline.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Right, you know, yes, And can we just say this,
how about Najie Harris.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
I do want to get to ninety.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
But I do think that's an tell us ahead of time.
I'm sorry, Wolf, because I do. But I just wanted
to follow up with that, Wolf, with your with your
thoughts on this, because you know Mike Tomlin will allow games,
if for lack of a better word, to get to
the fourth quarter and say we feel comfortable winning this game.
(41:47):
I would think from a coaching field point, that's something.
But I've never been an NFL player. I would think
that that permeates down through your team where you're like, Okay,
this is it, this is this is what we do.
We win, We win one score games in the fourth quarter.
Now let's go out and do it. So people's you know,
(42:08):
fans of the sky is falling and we should have
gone forward on fourth and one, and you know we
should have tried to get a touchdown there instead of
settling for a field goal, and blah blah blah blah blah.
But but I would think not only that few for
the game match talking about from the coaching level, but
that's got to permeate down through your roster.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Too, unquestionably so. But look, success we get success, and
when you have a little success in close scoring games,
that creates confidence in guys because you have you enter
into uh, let's face it, he had my he had
Ben Roethlisberger for a large part of his career.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
You've win a lot of games, come from behind and
everything else.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
And let me tell you something, there's nothing like walking
into a huddle looking at the score, knowing that you
got a couple of minutes, you might be down, or
you got to drive the ball. And I got a
blonde bomber, you got you know, Terry Bradshaw, you got
Ben Roethlisberger or something. Okay, you got all the confidence
in the world. It permeates to all the other guys
in the huddle, and that you can't buy that kind
of reputation and so far with guys. And I simply
(43:01):
think that it's a great thing to have. And I'll
say this, I spent almost twenty years on the sidelines
watching Mike up close. There is not, in my mind
a coach more in tune with his gut instinct than
Mike Tomlin. I mean that's great. I mean it's unbelievable
because even as we go back years ago to San
Diego when Lev Bell scored and immediately he's going for
(43:23):
two I'm watching him close on the sidelines. There was
no hesitation. He already knew he's one step ahead. He
believes in the process of his thought, his coaches and
everything he comes into the game with. And then I
think that guy just goes by a lot of gut
instinct and it bears well for him.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
So Naja Harris, I did want to bring him up
wolf and I.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Thought, oh good, I think we should.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I thought you and I were talking earlier with Max
on the locker room. I thought this year's best drive
was one installed on the fourth and one. I thought
that they really brought Nagy to bear that it was
really that time of the game, much like could see
with Jerome Bettis where they kind of knew you were
gonna run it, and you were still able to run it.
You're still successful and that's part of being a physical
(44:08):
football team. Is that a Naji Harris getting you know,
quote unquote better as the game goes.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
On, unquestionably. So, Look, one of the beautiful things about
Naji the guy is part running back in part cage fighter.
You know, I mean just watching him, watching him in
the second half compete when he's taken on two, three,
four and sometimes he didn't get buddy yard after that contact.
But he's fighting off four or five guys. He's still
on his speed and the boys are coming to his rescue.
(44:36):
You know, you got to get around him and sheriff
the pile because he's not going down easy man. Okay,
So you better get out there and defend your guy.
And that's what I love seeing with the offensive line.
They were getting down there. Defend your guy and finish
off the play, go to the whistle. And I love
the competitive nature of Nagy. I mean, tear my helmet off. Okay,
I'll you know I'm still coming at you, man. I
(44:58):
love that. And the fact is he does not I
hate to say the word, but he does not fumble. Okay,
leave it go. I don't want to jink something. Didn't
hear it, Yeah, didn't hear it. But you know, literally,
this guy here, when you put the ball in his
hands and you just grind away and you tenderize and
marinate that defense, that's a great position to be in.
When you're a hog, when you're an offensive lineman, you
(45:19):
live for that moment. That's like having that's like having
a bucket of chicken wings with all the blue cheese
you can eat, man, I mean, yeah, it's a great time.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
You listen to Wolf and it it almost makes you
want to get a ball and run behind him until
you actually think about who'd be tackling. We're all done,
we're all gone on here, man. But you're getting you're
getting it. You're getting us all pumped up here. Well
real quick, we got about I think it's just about
a minute left. Denver Broncos on the road. You have
any early thoughts on that game.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
Matt, Denver in September is the worst place to play
in the league because of the high air. You're always
sucking wind. Their record is phenomenal in September over decades,
but they're a bad football team. And the Steelers played
a lot of different players. I think you can rest
TJ and Cam and all those guys in that situation.
(46:07):
Bo Nicks looked way over his head and it's Frank,
it's one of the worst rosters in the league.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Okay, So that's some good early thing.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Note to the Hugs. Yeah, Strap one was their tanks
on your back.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Yeah, that's worried about the game. Hey, I know I've
been there.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
I remember coming out for Warlams going chuck light. I'm
sucking win.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
I can't breathe.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Early in the year, it's terrible in particular.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Right, Well, find a way to win, and find a
way to get yourself too. And oh, before you get
that first home game. Everyone talks about how tough the
schedule was on the other end, but I mean, going
to Atlanta was no joke. Going to Denver's no joke
for some of the reasons you just brought up as well.
Speaker 5 (46:37):
They're ten and three in their last thirteen road games
regular season.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
I'm going to repeat that stat later.
Speaker 5 (46:43):
It's already in the Denver stat pack.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Don't worry.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yeah, And and I won't reveal my sources.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Hey, I didn't get mine yet. Where is it?
Speaker 7 (46:50):
The latest game day necessities? He's the official Steer. There's
pro shops. Get the latest Sideline apparel, Jersey's Terrible towels,
authentic memorabilia, and custom exclusive as you can only find
directly from the team. Visit one of the official Steelers
pro shops located at Akroscher Stadium, Grove City Premium Outlets,
or Tanger Outlets, or gear up online at shop dot
(47:12):
Steelers dot com. For Craig Wolfley, Matt Williamson, I'm Rob King,
thanks for joining us for the point after on the
Steelers Audio Network
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