HR1: Reflection

Published Jan 13, 2025, 10:15 PM
Dale and Matt share their thoughts, feelings, and takeaways from the team's loss to the Ravens in the first round of the playoffs.

At least, he's the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the Black and Gold Steelers Nation Radio.

And Welcome to the Drive.

I am Dale LOLLI he is the Matt Williamson and Matt game didn't go exactly like we thought it would on Saturday.

No, it went pretty terribly, pretty terribly just kind of.

It was the Ravens who came out and kind of, you know, we talked about it last week. Is that Spider Man meme? You know, I know what you're gonna do, and you look like me, and I look like all that stuff. And Lamar Jackson hadn't run the ball that much against the Steelers, No, and he came in and ran the ball I think five consecutive plays on the opening drive of that game. That wasn't five plays for big yardage, right, but it was five consecutive plays to convert first downs. And it just continued from there and the Steelers couldn't stop it. They couldn't stop Derrick Henry and they lost twenty eight fourteen.

Yeah, and the Jackson runs became pretty obvious. I mean, your edge guy, whether it's Wad or high Smith. It seemed like mostly they were going more.

To Watt side whatever.

What isn't interested in Lamar at all? Yeah, mean he is crashing down the line of scrimmage pair that.

Was that was a defensive plan. Usually he's doing.

It's where the Steelers zagged instead of Right, Okay, TJ, you got the running back in these situations. Right, it used to be TJ you got You've got Lamar in these situations.

I think Lamar's eyes opened this big and said, if that's if they're going, if I'm gonna watch DJ run right across my face and I've got a handful of yards to make anyone on the planet miss, I'm doing that over and over and over.

Yeah, you know.

And frankly, the Steelers din't play with a lot of energy, and they were the weaker team. They were obviously the weaker team, especially in the first half against what I think is an awesome offense. And I think, frankly, I think the Ravens might win Super Bowl. But when that when Lamar became very aware of how the Steelers were playing it, it makes it really tough.

And and there's an's there's more to that. And then when they didn't play it that way. They just handed it to Henry.

Yeah exactly. I mean they not that they guessed right, but they were always right. And you know, if you're gonna play it that way, where I'm just using Wad an example, he didn't do anything wrong, but he comes crashing down the line of scrimmage, Well, Queen or your phil guy has to scrape over, knowing that, and they were always slow to it.

Well, we found out today Ian Rapaport reporting that Patrick Queen had to get four bags of IV fluids up step slow in that game.

Yeah, again, flat footed, worn out. Yeah, I mean he.

Looked I saw him after the game, and he looked like he's exhausted. And I had no idea that is the case at that time. And now it kind of adds up, It really adds up. I mean because there were a handful of plays. I'm not saying he's dogging it, but he barely moved, you know, like it was a couple of steps here and there.

I mean, like they're playing with nothing in the tank.

Yeah, and so the Steelers, you know, right, the Steelers lose twenty eight fourteen. That was a defensive side of things. Offensively there just wasn't. I didn't see the fight offensively in the first half either. Guys weren't breaking tackles. Guys weren't right fighting for first downs. I texted you every time yesterday when I saw that in those games.

When a tight end would run over defensive back, tight end ward run a quarterback quite a few times, quarterback would run over a defensive back.

Ye running back would run it just constant.

Yesterday I had I had to have texted you five or six times, like, look at that, look at that right, and it didn't happen the Steelers.

It's playoff football.

You're big and bruising in Flick Payne. I mean, Henry did Tamiica, Yeah.

You know what I mean, Like this is what it's all about. It this one.

Well, and that's the thing I mean. You know, when you look at this Ravens offense coming into this game. We talked about it last week.

You had to know.

You had to know that they were going to lean on Henry sure if you let them do it. They didn't have the receivers, they didn't have no and why the Steelers didn't have Joey Porter Junior travel with Bateman is beyond me is.

Beyond me, and frankly, to take a step further, this added up. I didn't know it until actually reading it today. The Ravens were an eleven eleven percent of the time, I mean an ungodly low number, like the lowest number in the last five years of any playoff team.

Now we saw that coming.

They don't have good receivers and the best guys out and they got a bunch of big dudes. They had a sixth offensive lineman on the field twenty two percent of the time, and that's not even counting Ricard as a sixth offensive lineman, who's really a seventh offensive lineman. And the Steelers still played nickel a lot over fifty percent of the snaps. For a nickel you could be the best schemed up team in the league. You just got little people playing against big people.

And that's the thing. So, I mean, I understand being concerned. You have to have enough people in the field that can run with Lamar Jackson, I get that right, And that's what the Chargers did to them in Jackson's first playoff game, is they went with seven defensive best a bunch.

Of Darwin James out there right right, just flooding the middle of the field and being fast.

The problem becomes Henry. Those guys having attack on Henry.

Right now, Henry has done I saw this today too, that this December and beyond in his career is by far the best of any back in NFL history. I mean, it's remarkably good. Every playoff game he's in, he's a hammer. He's over one hundred and fifty yards repeatedly, the most in history. And the four of them, Yeah, and Terrell Davis is the only one that's even like close to him, and they're not the same, you know, I mean, and he does this to everybody. He gets stronger. Defenses just get weaker throughout the course of the year. Attrition they get. It's harder to tackle big people in the cold. And so much of his yards were after first contact in this game that he's a pretty remarkable specimen. And I whan you match him with Lamar, I mean, the thunder and lightning that they provide is rare in NFL history, And that.

You knew that you played against. Right that being.

Said, I thought the backbreaker, you down fourteen to nothing late in a half. First of all, you had to play the pickings down the sideline that would have made it. You would have had to boll to seven down fourteen to nothing at that point, I could pick.

It's credit. He played a whale game.

Yeah, yeah, I thought Humphreys sold the pass interference call and.

Probably call more often than not, was my thought. But in the.

Borderline, border line, But okay, he pushed off a little bit. But show me a receiver that doesn't down the field that Humphrey did a great job of selling it.

It happened. It is what it is.

The Ravens go to the length of the field, but they used all their timeouts. They get the ball with eleven seconds left. Yeah, at the five, the Steelers have Lamar Jackson himed in in the pocket. They've got hands on him. I think Herbig had him. Yeah, and he escapes and throws a touchdown pass with two seconds left in the first half, and now it's twenty one nothing.

His time to throw on that play was like six point three seconds or so. Hardball talked about it after the game.

He's like, because they had no timeouts left right right, If he's tackled in the field to play, that's it.

It's fourteen to nothing.

At the half and you feel the Steelers are going all right, we just got badly out played in the first half.

But it's only two scores. As we saw in the Houston League game, he.

Can't do is take a sack. Yeah, and they're beating blockers left it right, but making him get a sack.

Nobody got him on the ground superhero, And to me, that was just such a bad breaker because you had what you want. You had the pass rush on him, even if he's for six seconds, if he scrambles in that situation, there were guys waiting there. He was probably going to get tackled short of the goal line. And he flips the ball out to the flat and Hill goes in from He's one of the only people on the plane that they can make that play. You know, sometimes you just have to tip. I mean the other guys get paid too. Yeah, And I thought the guys are really good. There were some plays that Jackson made that I thought, well, there's only about two guys on the face of the earth that can make that particular play. The other one was the killer. They get the sack for for some reason, the Steelers make it twenty eight to fourteen they're showing some life, showing some life back in the game.

There's water. They're back in the football game. But they come out.

They get a sack on the Ravens. Don't even have Henry on the field to open that nextar. They didn't put him on the field that entire possession and they go three and out. I'm sorry. They get the sack. The Steelers get the sack on first down. This is the open third quarter. I'm getting to be in the half, right, Yeah. They get the sack on first down. It's it's now second and twenty one, and they roll Jackson out to his right. They had for card just completely. He just all right, let wat come in and then just sealed him off to the inside because they knew they were rolling to the right.

He cut. He runs all the way across the field.

Nobody opened, nobody opened, nobody open, and then throws back to the middle of the field. I think it was Agilar that caught that one for a twenty two yard game. He caught it short of the sticks and goes out. Maybe it was Tylan Wallace, either one, it doesn't matter. He threw about a sixteen yard pass and he ends up getting just enough he gets twenty one yards on that or twenty two yards to convert the first down.

And I'm like, their.

Guys are just getting past the line of the line to gain and the Steelers guys didn't all day long.

Absolutely, and I'm not gonna call him out. Well, fire Muth was the perfect example of that. You know, like, it's a little guy in front of you. Run him over two instances.

In the first half where and he dropped the first play of the game, the first actually the first two series that the Steelers had the ball.

Now, the first one was it was fourth and long and he caught it and he had to get i think seven or eight yards and he came up two yards short. He got gang tackled in that one, but you got it. The second one, he catches the ball in the flat. It's it's third and two. Yeah, and all he has to do is get past one hundred and eighty pounds of Darius Washington.

Yeah right, you're a tight end. You're two hundred and fifty pounds.

That guy's five ft nine and one hundred and eighty pounds, and you let him get you on the ground.

Short of sticks and play, you have to have. You got to have it, and you you know.

Everything gets magnified, especially physicality in the playoffs, especially Raven Steelers, you know, and you got to be the hammer there. You can't, you can't come up short. And there's too many of those instances on both sides of the ball, you know, I mean there's.

Again.

It's just this is a really good football team, a really physical football team. But I would have liked to see more fight.

Not that they laid down, it's just they they went backwards way too often, you know, the powerfeld the other way. Yeah, they had no running game, no running game. They gained twenty nine yards on eleven carries.

Twenty nine yards or two hundred ninety nine. Yeah, you won't see a bigger difference in that.

And honestly, I mean, if you look at what Russell Wilson did in this game, he was twenty of twenty nine. Four of those twenty nine were.

Throwing or throw aways. Yeah, I saw that in your article.

He had twenty He was twenty of twenty five when he was actually given time to throw, and he got the ball down the field when they attacked, and I didn't think they attacked enough early.

I don't either. And again, there's so much Monday morning quarterbacking involved. But I bet if Tomlin or Arthur Smith or whatever, we're sitting here and said, let's do it again. You know what you know now, I think you put the ball in Russ's hands more.

That's what you brought him here for.

Yeah, And frankly, I thought Pickings leading up to the game. I said many times the series have any chance, Picking needs to be one of the best players on the field, and I thought he was. And I actually made some notes in the third quarter. I'm like, I might throw it to the Pickens every time and just see what happens. Yeah, I mean, like, I know the Austin play was desperation, but watching it on TV, he threw into triple coverage to a really small receiver in the end zone. Frankly, he didn't have much choice. But you could hardly even see Austin because there was so much purple around him, you know what I mean, Like, you got one dude that's a supreme playmaker that was playing well. I almost felt at that point just give him the ball every time and see what happens, because he's an immensely.

Time I mean the Ravens knew that as well, and of course he was getting doubled all the time, all the time, yeah, all the time, you know. But again they had chunk pass plays. You know the play that Austin made it's on third and three or third and ten from the three on their first touchdown drive was like, that's a big time catch.

Yeah, it's a big time.

Throw over the middle where everybody says Russell Wilson can't throw. I mean, he stuck that into a tight spot for a big game. He then comes out hits Mike Williams down the sideline. These were on third, third and long plays too, right, right, and then his Van Jefferson for the touchdown on third and long for a thirty yard touchdown pass I think.

You cited in your article, but he had five or six between like twenty five and thirty five yard catchers, I mean, chrunk plays.

All we heard the Ravens have fixed their their their issues with their.

With the deep ball.

Well, that would suggest that maybe they didn't. Teams just weren't trying it, and you know, you don't know until you know. I would have tried that earlier.

Yeah, And again they weren't on the field a whole heck of a lot.

I mean, that's obviously you have to convert some of those first downs.

I mean a lot of frankly, over the last five games, a lot of our Monday morning quarterback or why I would have done this more on offense. I've done that more on offense. But then it's like, wow, but they only ran ten plays in the free.

I mean, you got to run to stay on the field, got to stay on the field. Guy's got to fight for first downs.

Yeah.

And you know, I was talking with Wolf and Rob we do Air to Night Monday Night about you know, the time of possession thing. It seems like every Monday we've been talking about time of possession, you know, in the post game shows with those two. And in these five games, there's been three hundred minutes of football and the Steelers have had the football for like one hundred and twenty one of those three hundred minutes. But to me, that's the symptom. That's not the disease. You go to the doctor saying, Doc, time possessions all messed up. My arm hurts, you know, my my chest hurts. Whatever, And Doc does all the tests and says well, these are your problems. Well they're the problems are on both sides of the ball, you know, like you've got to get that time possession back and run more plays. But it's not just because you haven't run the ball well enough or you're giving up too much on the run. It's all the above, you know, and it just leads to bad time possession, which is we know, just snowballs and gets bigger and bigger and bigger down the hill.

I got some stats. I look some things up today. I had some thoughts as I was watching all the games take place here over the weekend. Yeah, this will be without the Monday night game, playoff game that will finish off the wild card weekend. But I gets some stats that I want to dig into that speak to what you just talked about there, and we'll do that when we return. He is the Matt Williamson. I am Dale Lolly. You're listening to the Drive. You're on the Steelers Audio Network. Matt and I will be back with more right after this.

At least is the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the Black and Gold cast in Steelers Nation.

Radio, and we are back. I'm Dale Lolli.

He is the Matt Williamson and Matt during the game yesterday or during the after the AFC.

Game and all the FC game for yeah, yeah, we're completing.

I tweeted out and I just did this for comparisons purposes, And people thought, oh, you're making an excuse for the Steelers. No, I wasn't at all. If you read my ten thoughts after the game, pretty blunt. They get their butts. But I said the AFC games were not competitive. Oh and here's how non competitive.

They were the Steelers.

The Steelers game was the closest of the TREA and the Steelers, and the Steelers scored the most points and gave up the fewest points of the AFC team.

It was bad. And so I would say that the Steelers is bad.

Their first half might have been the worst of any of the you know, but at least at one point, semi late in the game, it was still a game. I mean, Denver Buffalo wasn't at that point, you know, deep into the third quarter, you at least had your head above water. But you're right, it was three very lopsided games, but go go, So.

Maybe look up today, just the first round of the playoffs, not excluding tonight's game. Though far we've seen only one lower seeded team win that Washington was right against Tampa, not that you.

Know, right, They're not a powerhouse, right all right.

So Houston had four hundred and twenty nine yards of offense. Okay, remember they did nothing in the first quarter of that game.

No, and they had three turnovers in that game too.

Yeah, they turned the ball over three times. They averaged they ran seventy plays. Houston did Houston to fifty four for LA Baltimore had four hundred and sixty four yards of offense. They ran seventy two plays compared to forty five for the Steelers. Buffalo had four hundred and seventy one yards of offense they ran they had seventy two plays. Denver had forty two.

Wow. So these are like thirty play discrepancies. Thirty plays.

Now, Philadelphia green Bay was a little bit differently different because Philly.

Was just both those defenses played well. Yeah, and green Bay turned the ball over four times.

Philadelphia had none, right, right, you know, you lose the turnover battle four nothing, you're going to lose.

Yeah, And Philly never really did much through the air.

To Washington last night. Now, mind you, Washington only had eighty two rushing yards in that.

Game, including Jane Daniels.

Right, yeah, they ran sixty nine plays. Tampa ran forty four.

Wow.

So and obviously time possession is going to reflect on this, and that's how we ended last segment.

Time of possession.

Houston had the ball for thirty four to twenty five, Baltimore had it thirty nine to thirty three.

Buffalo had it for.

Forty one minutes and forty three almost forty two minutes. Denver didn't even have They had eighteen minutes and seventeen seconds in time of possession.

Denver scored on the first drive, and they scored on the first drive. I won a big back for that. Wow.

Philly won the time of possession thirty minutes and thirty three seconds. Even though they got out gained in the game. They controlled the game. Washington had it for thirty five.

Right, they controlled the game, Yeah, Philly. I mean the numbers might not reflect it, but they controlled the game.

Washington had it for thirty five to twenty six. Wow.

I mean it's massively important, and I think the later and later you get in the season, it becomes more and more important. And there was a time when the Steelers were ten to three, they were number one in time of possession. I mean they're capable of being that team as well. Now you gonna do it against the top tier teams. Yeah, so good.

The average is for the first five playoff games. These are the averages, and there's some outliers, and this is still the average. The average winning team held the ball for thirty seven minutes. The average winning team had four hundred point eight yards of total offense. The losing team had two seventy point two. The average winning team average five point nine yards per play, the losers had five point five. The average winning team had to ran sixty eight plays, the average losing team forty nine.

It's unbelievable. You can't ask anything. I don't care.

Denver's defense is good, Green Bay's defense is good. But you can't continually ask your defense to go out there. You have to be able to perform offensively over the course of the game.

You just have to.

That's again. During this five game losing streak, got a three hundred minutes. They've been on the field for like one hundred and twenty two Steelers. It's it's a losing proposition all day long, every you know, times a thousand.

Of the teams that lost yesterday in Saturday, Tampa averaged six point five yards per play. Okay, if you look at it, Washington averaged five point one. The Steelers averaged six point two yards per play.

Yeah. Yeah, they had some chunks, like Baltimore was at six point four.

It's not like they were totally, but Baltimore was able to continue lead more of them.

Yeah, but they could because.

They were able to get those first downs, right, you know, some of the other ones they're not. You know, Houston was at six point one yards per play. La was at four point eight.

I'm sure Buffalo had a big jem too. I mean they won by a million.

Again, Philly won that game because they turned They turned Green Bay over four times on the opening kickoff.

That's just a killer that was. I thought there was gonna be a blowout from that point.

But the winning teams turned the ball over three times, the losers turned it over nine, and all three of the turnovers for the winning teams were by Houston. I say Houston had a bunch early. Yeah, Okay, early None of the other winning teams turned the ball over. So when you talk about turnovers mattering.

True year after year, decade after decade, right especially, I'll say this all week. Everything gets magnified in the playoffs. I mean, if you think it's a trend in the regular season, multiply times one thousand in the playoffs because everything's you can't get away with. He turned the ball over a couple times against the Raiders. You know, the Chiefs can do that. You know the can do that. I mean, yeah, but you can't do that against the Bills and Ravens and Texans, et cetera, et cetera.

It's gonna get multi it's going to so.

I mean the Steelers in Denver didn't turn the ball over, right in those games. They just didn't have the football.

Didn't know football, and didn't produce first downs.

And didn't produce enough first down right, yeah, right.

The opponent from doing the same, just plays.

Run, plays run. I think the Ravens in the first half of that game were seven of eight on third downs.

Yeah, they were. They were miraculous because you have Lamar Jackson.

Yeah, and okay, it's third and two, Well, we need two yards, lamar go get us two yards.

Or even just eagle push push or saw a lot of tight ends taking snaps and getting that one yard, you know, the things like that.

Just keep the chains moving. Make them play at least three more plays. You know, that's another minute and a half or whatever. It's your defense is standing on you a long time in the middle of January.

I am now the belief that playing defense, particularly in the playoffs, is all about playing less.

De However, you have to get there. You have to play less defense. Yeah, I have to.

So your offense has to be one that moves the change.

And especially in the playoffs from a defensive standpoint, because there's Mahomes and there's Allen and maybe Stroud's not at that level, but all the quarterbacks are good. Like you're not going to run into too many Rudolphs in the play I mean, there aren't many that those guys. If you're on the field, they're going to figure you out.

Yeah.

And you know, even at that, like I mentioned and I got my things, my play is confused. The Steelers cut the score to twenty eight fourteen in late in the third quarter, so they're in the game. It's twenty fourteen, they get they're alive.

They're alive.

The Ravens come out and call they don't have Henry on the field and call three consecutive passing plays even know they're running, well, they're running the ball well now Lamar scrambled for six yards on one of them, but it was a pass play.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's always that trump card too, and I'm thinking, what are they doing here?

This is and so they end up punting and the Steelers get the ball back at like the I think it was around their own forty and I'm like, they just made this a ball game by doing that.

Yeah, it's almost like you have Shack and it's me guarding Shack and he's just dunking on my head.

And then you decide to check up.

Four threason right right, right right, like give it to the big guy, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, So that to me is, you know, Okay, the Steelers found a way to get off the field, get your offense back on the field.

Steelers.

I think they give up a sack on on that one on second down, yeah that you know, they got a first down, then give up the second down sack and put him you know too far and they had to end up having to punt the ball back again.

Yea, it's just.

You have to the offense and defense have to work hand in hand. I mean, really, it's a team game.

It's eleven guys on the field and they have to compliment one another, and you can't be super heavy one way or the other. Not that either unit was great for the Steelers, but you're right. I mean, I think during this five game losing streak against playoff caliber teams, you really see it. You know, like there were games or the offense played pretty well in that game, or defense played really well in that game, but it wasn't a total team effort, and you end up losing time possession over and over and over and again. That's it's a symptom. You know, how do I fix my time of possession? Well, your right guard blocks better, and your nose tackles stouter, blah blah blah blah blah.

But in the end, that needs fixed. I mean, to beat the good teams, yeah, no, there's no doubt. Yeah.

And I just look at you know, the some of the you know, especially in the AFC, the quarterbacks still standing mahomes.

That's a good yeah, so this is disheartening, but the Steelers got eliminated by Lamar, by Allen, and by Mahomes the last three years, and frankly, that's probably going to keep up because they're unbelievably good.

The only teams that have beaten those guys are each other for the most part.

And I'll throw Burrow in there too, because I think he's the only quarterback on the planet that's as good as those three. There's four elite quarterbacks. And I was joking on a different show, it's almost like having Bo Jackson and Techo Ball like the most It's such a quarterback driven league. It's such an advantage over everyone you play when you have a superhero at that position, and defenses can't they get figured out? And they I mean, these four are are historic type quarterbacks all at once, all in the freaking AFC, two of them in the division. You're gonna have to figure out a new way of playing football to compete with those guys in the playoffs. Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're they're remarkably good. And along those lines, just in the AFC. With respect to Houston's win, I bet it plays out like this that there's three big dogs in the AFC. Two of them wipe the floor with Denver and beat the Steelers pretty bad. Houston might go on to change my mind. I just think they played it. They just didn't play.

They played a team that turned it over four times.

If Houston would have played Baltimore or Buffalo, we'd be talking about them too. I mean, they just happened to not play one of the powerhouse.

Well, and we talked about the you know, the Steelers' best path to victory was to play Houston in the first of the playoffs.

And I would have picked them to win that game. I mean, I might pick them a win if they played today.

I thought that they would give the Ravens more of a game.

Obviously, of course, you know, right right right, we thought that would be a close game. But I do think when we look back at the history of the AFC.

In the twenty twenty four season, we're gonna say there's three powerhouses, and Kansas City's gonna mop the floor with Houston, and fortunately for them, they're gonna have to play one of them. Baltimore and Buffalo are gonna have to play two of them to get to the super Bowl. And that's the difference of seeding, and those three teams are really really good led by elite quarterbacks, and elite's a big work.

I think they're really really good because of the quarterback.

To me too, I mean, I think if you took any of those quarterbacks and put them with this Steelers roster, it.

Might be I see in the league. Yeah, one hundred percent believe that. And I like the Steelers roster. I like the Steelers makeup, but I might rather be the Bengals just because it's so hard to find that guy I might give. I was talking to my my buddy Peacock talking about the Niners. He's like, I might trade I might not. He's gone on a rant with the Niners.

He's like, I don't think I want to play play or pay party. I want to trade Bosa all these dudes and maybe get the next stud quarterback because that's kind of like the only way to win it all in this league. The problem is there's there's not that stud quarterback in this draft this year. If you can't be it's not that that's how I countered.

I'm like, it's great to be bad the year Burrow Herbert to Hurtz.

Love comes out, and maybe only one of them turns out to be elite, but at least you have a crack.

It's great to be the year river has been Eli comes out, you know, be bad the right year. I mean, it's not just tank tank tank tank tank. Now maybe next year it's great. This year doesn't look like it, you know, that's for sure. But or even to be bad this last year, I like the chances of someone out of Williams May, Jayden Daniels, you know, Panix, et cetera, maybe be in the next one in that group, you know, But so much of it's just lock, you know what I mean?

Yeah, tanking just a tank, and well we're gonna tank and go get a quarterback. We better have a pretty damn good idea, ay of what who that quarterback is going to be. And tanking it doesn't guarantee you of anything.

It can be a disease, right, I mean, and ruin the walls you know that you painted so pretty, you know.

And it also becomes a situation, Okay, we won three games, somebody else won two, yeah, or.

We lost with the one. We can't control what every what everybody else is doing. Too. There's some miserable teams out there.

Look at how many times the number one overall pick in the draft this year changed hands? What about four times in the last month of the season. Yeah, yeah, because there was a lot of bad out there.

Right, I mean it looked like Carolina was on pace to not win a game all year. Well then their quarterback played okay, and they're not even close to having the first pick, you know. Like the Saints are a good example to me, Like they've maxed out their credit cards, they've went to that a team like that, I would quote Tank, you know, Cameron Jordan, Tyron Mathow, Davis Carr. Thank you for your service, Kamara, But we just need draft picks and maybe we'll even start Spencer Rattler next year and end up with Arch Banning or whatever, you know what I mean, maybe you know, but man.

That's a dangerous slope too, you know. But there's no guarantee again him, there's no That's the thing.

You could be the worst team in the league and not the first your number.

If you're number two, yeah, somebody else can still trade ahead of you and take that quarterback, or the team that's there take the quarterback.

You're guaranteed a nothing, nothing. It's a brutal world.

Now there are some examples. You know, Alan and Mahomes weren't the first.

Pick in the draft, or was Jackson? Right right?

You know, So it doesn't mean it bothers me a little bit. Steelers are stuck in purgatory. There's no chance to ever get their next guy.

I'm like, well, Lamar went thirty first. The Chiefs moved up six spots to get my home six. They went up from twenty seven, but twenty seven.

I was thinking they were like the Bills. I think the Bills was more like a They moved up for Allan too. Yeah, I know, Case was a playoff team.

Yeah, you know.

They weren't a powerhouse, but they were a playoff team. There's one you love. It doesn't look like this draft's that one to do it. I mean, but this is a conversation probably from a year from now. You know, the only one other avenues to get that guy.

The only guy who intrigues me in this draft, and this is we're well, plenty of time to talk about this, But the only guy who intrigues me about what he might be in this draft is Jaylen Milroll.

Because he could be that, because he could be he.

Could be that next guy in that Lamar Jaden Daniels type guy. Yeah, which is what But again, that's what That's what Indianapolis was trying to get when they went out and trade it up to get Richardson.

And he hasn't been that.

No, there's no guarantee, no guarantee, but I definitely think and it won't be this year probably, well maybe it is Milroe.

Who knows that.

You and I I think the duration we do there or at least the next couple of years talking drafts, Steelers or not. And I felt this way for a couple of years. I'm Dave Kingman at the plate. I mean, I don't I don't need a single. I don't need a double. I am swinging as hard as I can. And if I strike out six times in a row on the Richardson's of the world that don't make it, and I get.

One Allen, I win.

That's why I'm never gonna kill the Steelers for taking Kenny Pickett at twenty at twenty at twenty, you didn't trade up to go get him. You didn't, you didn't make a move, You didn't mortgage your future to go to use a picked to take a quarterback in the first round, and you got out of it new year, and you got out of it quickly enough that Okay, we're gonna pivot and go.

So you didn't.

You didn't try to four years down the line, we're gonna keep trying to make this work. No, right, Right, that's going to be the situation Indianapolis finds itself in. For example, just using them as example, like are they going to run it back again with Richardson next year?

Probably one more year. He completed forty seven percent of his passes this year, right, but he actually regressed. But that was Josh Allen his rookie year.

I understand, you know what I mean. Alan didn't regress.

No, that's the thing, right, I guess that was year two for Richardson. But Allen was a bad player in his rookie year.

He was he was not the guy that he is now. But they put pieces around him. Right, That's the other thing that you have to have in place, is pieces. But I like your Milrow thought like if he has a high metachlorane count, yes he could be a Jedi. You know, he's good and maybe it doesn't work, but he's got you know, he has the trait passes the eye test of the traits that you're looking for.

Right, that he could be a special player that's almost impossible to defend. There's a couple of them walking the planet right now, unfortunately too of them on the division.

Right, And you know, can justin Fields be that? I thought so when he came out in the draft. Yeah, I thought he might be that kind of player. I loved him, loved him. He hasn't proven to be but he hasn't proven to be that in terms of books.

But it's there's some schafters written.

Yeah, now maybe you have a better idea that. Okay, you know he's he's sat and he's learned behind. Say what you want about Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson's a pro, right, he he handled him.

That's why I wanted to make the change and I condone that, right.

And he's been that guy who can be to steal from your analogy there, he can be your obi wan kenobi yah to adjustin Field's you know, young paddle.

Maybe he can't be Vader, yeah, but he could be a real solid Jedi for you. Yeah, right, all.

Right, So that's gonna be the question that the Steelers have to ask themselves this offseason is Okay, do we try to run this back with both guys? Do we try to just pick? We have to pick one or the other, you know, and then which which one is it?

And again, I don't love going fishing in this quarter. I'm not fit.

I'm not I'm not throwing them both back and trying over again. I'm not doing that.

You mean, go fish on both of them. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not going.

Okay, We're just gonna try somebody else, Like we're gonna what trade for Derek Carr? Yeah, that doesn't That doesn't appeal to me at all. I mean, I'm Jameis Winston.

No, you can get Kirk Cousins for the Russell Wilson deal, but that doesn't excite me at all, not at all. Right now, the only one that I have a little bit of interest in is if you said the Vikings will give you McCarthy for your first round pick.

See, I don't know that he has special he doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't do that for me. He's at least his books. He might be Mac. He might be Mac Jones.

I didn't love him coming out. Yeah, problem, he might be mac Jones. He was a good player with a lot of talent around him.

Now, maybe if you told me, and this is an April conversation because I don't know enough now, but if you said you get Fields for thirteen million and mill Row in the first round, well those are two legit bites of the apple that one of them might be special. But we might be talking about Milroe by then, as like the first pick in the draft.

I mean, you just don't know, right, I.

Mean, now, yeah, he's an interesting player now, but we might be laughing that he laughed.

All of a sudden.

He's available at ten, as Mahomes was.

Right.

Now, we can talk, but you don't know how that's going to work. So you better have a plan in place going into the draft. That can't be your only right avenue to get a quarterback.

You just can first or second. You know, you don't have that power.

Yeah, so you're going to have to The Steelers are going to have to make a decision about how they want to proceed moving forward.

Before the draft.

Oh well before the draft that happens in March, you know, the Marching March is free agency.

Yeah, yeah, it's happening now, and it's obviously a critical component. But something that's going to be fun is you laid it out well in texta to I mean, we'll talk about it for months now. They have a lot of cap space, they have a lot of options.

But easily create more.

You can easily create more. I mean there's a lot of stuff they can do now. We can fight all day long. Can you still go into Kansas City in the AFC Championship Game next year the year after with Wilson or whomever in a really good roster around him and even get that far.

I don't know.

I mean, I don't know if you can ever beat Superman. I mean the league is really structured that way right now. Brady was that guy for a long time with different superpowers, but those guys rule the world. I mean, it had to be like going against Jordan.

No fun, Yeah, no fun at all. Let's get through another break. He is the Matt Williamson. I am Dale, Lolly. You're listening to the Drive. You're on the Steelers audio network, Matt, and I'll be back with more right after this.

At least he's the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the Black and Gold Steelers Nation Radio.

And we are back on Dale Lolly.

He is the Matt Williamson and Matt they were mulling over some quarterback stuff there in the previous segment, and I went back and looked because a lot of people like to have revisionist history on stuff, and so other Steelers should have done something to do better than you know, bend the last couple of years. Now, I will say in twenty eighteen, leading up to the draft, yeah, I mocked Lamar Jackson to the Steelers and got crushed for it.

No, you're crushed for it.

I'm an idiot. He'll never be a good quarterback. He's says he's that, he's.

A running back, he's a receiver. Yeah, blah blah. And they visited with Lamar. From I understand, they did right.

They liked him, they visited with him. You know they didn't take him. Yeah, and now, wow, why didn't they take Lamar? Well, when I'm again, when I brought that up in that season a week before the draft, my next to last mock draft, I got crushed for it.

Sure, crushed. So and I get at that point.

You had Roethlisberger coming off of one of his best seasons, he hadn't had any elbow issues, didn't know that he was thirty five years old, right right, he was thirty You're trying to win, right, So I get it in that regard, it didn't make a lot of sense.

I saw both sides of the argument.

Yeah, there's no question, and it's easy to say in twenty twenty five, you should have done that.

You know, we also saw how Roethlisberger kind of treated Mason Rudolph, who they did take, was not super kind to him because he saw him as a threat. Would he have treated Lamar Jackson in the first round the same way?

So freaking loosely, right right? Absolutely?

And I'm sure you've gotten so many comments in the last forty eight hours or whatever, but I've gotten things like how could the Steelers not in Baker Mayfield. I'm like, well, he wasn't that player. Then he's gotten better, you know what I mean. Like, So, these are some of the guys. These are some of the free agents who were available this year. Over the last few years.

Oh, okay, twenty twenty two, the best guy available was Derek Carr. Twenty twenty three, Gino Smith was available, was good sort of, but he resigned with the Seahawks for three years and one hundred and five million. Where you've got to pay Gino Smith one hundred and five million dollars over three years or one hundred and ten because maybe he likes it in Seattle, right, I say you have to outbid them. I mean, if you remember the player at that time, he was not you know, I mean he's a borderline Pro Bowl fifth seventh best player in the NFC, you know, good that position. Jimmy Garoppolo in twenty twenty three got sixty seven and a half million dollars over three years to leave the San Francisco forty nine ers for the Raiders.

Yeah, Jimmy Garoppolo was in his base, out of the league. I know he's in the league, but barely. Yeah.

Then you had Sam Donald and Baker Mayfield who were both available, but both were coming off of miserable nothing right it, had done nothing in their career.

Yeah, that's like signing Daniel Jones this year.

Yeah, that would be the same the same thing, and somebody's probably gonna do that. Looking at this one and he might hit. Well, it work for Sam Donald and Baker Mayfield.

I think that's a path a lot of teams are going to take because there's not a lot of other options. Where can I get the next Baker and Donald? Yeah, and I don't know you can. I mean, it doesn't like it's not like this happens every year.

We've seen this.

You know, you could say the same thing about Well, Gino Smith, he reclaimed his career. He was Okay, that's three guys out of one hundred quarterbacks who've been drafted over the last ten years.

And frankly, if the Steelers would have walked into Baltimore with Donald, Gino or Baker yesterday or Saturday, it might have been the same result. Yeah, it doesn't ensure that you're going to beat the superheroes.

Right, this year, your choices were cousins. He got a lot.

He got way overpaid Mayfield, if you remember, re signed with Tampa before he hit free agency. He got one hundred million dollars over three years.

Yeah, which is a great deal for them. I mean that that's a win for the box.

So then your pivot in that situation for the Steelers was what they did.

Yeah, they got and the prices they paid were ridiculously great. Yeah, there's an asterisk in a good way for the Steelers. I mean because the quarterback room costs nothing, right, you know, I mean that's part of the equation.

But don't just tell me that, oh, they should have they should have had done this, or they should have done that.

You gotta give me names.

Give me somebody who was legitimately on the market where they could have legitimately drafted in those years.

There's not much. There's not much.

The Kenny Pickett draft was the Kenny Pickett draft. Yeah, he was the best quarterback in the draft. And don't give me Brock Purty. Brock Purty was the last flipping guy drafted that year for a reason, right, the forty nine Ers didn't know that that was going to be the case, or they A wouldn't have traded up for Trey Lance and b would have taken him well before that.

And he's a systems quarterback.

And I'm not sure you're scoring any more points or of anything you can result with b Rock Party.

And no Rock Party goes into Baltimore yesterday or Saturday with the Steelers roster and gets his head handed to him.

Oh yeah, no question. There aren't many answers. I mean, there just aren't. Now a conversation that is much more geared towards the off season. I know it's the off season today, but it's reaction Monday. So how do you best compete without one of them?

We're going to talk about that in the second hour. Yeah, okay, but that's what you have to figure out this offseason because what you're doing isn't working. You've lost to those three quarterbacks the last three times you've been in the playoffs, all on their field, different right, all in their stadiums, And that's a part of it. You've got to win enough game so that you don't have to go to those places. At some point, you're gonna have to unless you're your ultimate goal. Yeah yeah, unless unless you somehow, you know, get the number one overall seed. At some points you're gonna have to beat one of those guys in the postseason. And so how do you best do that?

And I remember, even like Tannehill, Vrabel, Arthur Smith got the number one seed with Derrick Henry and they played their style and didn't bear that much root in the playoffs.

You know, they won a game.

Good team, they had number one seed and handed to Henry and they had a good defense. And still Mahomes is lumin out there. Yeah, Jackie Ripperds still a looming around the corner, you know.

So there are ways I think that you can do this and give yourself a better chance, give yourself a chance. We'll talk about that now. Our number two, he is the Matt Williamson. I am Dale, Lolly. You're listening to the drive here on the Steelers Audio Network, Matt and now will be back with our number two right after this

SNR Drive with Matt & Dale (Pittsburgh Steelers)

Dale Lolley and Matt Williamson tackle the days topics regarding the Pittsburgh Steelers each aftern 
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