HR1: Riding Solo

Published Jan 17, 2025, 12:15 AM
Dale hosts a solo show today as he takes a deep dive into TJ Watt's season and what he had to say during his media availability on Monday and Rob King joins for a large chunk of the first half of the show as the two discuss a handful of Steeler related topics.

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 welcome to the Drive. I am Dale Lolly. Matt Williamson not here today is taking care of some personal business, but he will be back tomorrow. So we got the jam Peck's Show today for you. And I wanted to start off with TJ Watt today and Watt spoke to the media earlier this week, and I just wanted to say this about Watt. People. I've seen this out there that Watt had a disappointing season or people thinking that he didn't do his part this year. Finished with sixty one tackles, eleven and a half sacks, led to league with six forced fumbles, had nineteen tackles for the lost twenty seven quarterback hits and two fumble recoveries. For most people, that is are rear year. And I understand what has raised the bar for on expectations for what we expect out of him. But understand this. They started counting the sack as an official statistic in nineteen eighty two. In Watt's Wat's eleven and a half sacks this season that would have led the Steelers in sacks in twenty six of those seasons since nineteen eighty two, only seven players in team history have had more sacks in a season than what what had in twenty twenty four seven. So a little perspective here, folks. So I wanted to let you guys know that, and let's play back what TJ Watt had to say earlier this week when when he spoke to the media, TJ.

What needs to change you guys to worry if you want to be I don't know.

We need to win football game, so in you A find ways to stop the run and play effective defense and.

Go from there.

But I don't have all the answers as we sit here right now as to what needs to change.

TEA doesn't feel like Groundhog Bay a little bit for you, specifically, just.

Because it's tough.

We get sit here same times last year, the same time as I've been in this scrum and same questions, and I have the same answers.

Uh.

Obviously, I'm very frustrated with how things ended. And that's not just with the last game. That's with the last month of football, and it's it's a collection of things, and it starts with myself and I need to play better. We need to play better. It's there's not one thing that needs to be fixed here. There's there's a lot of things, but it starts internally with myself and need to play better in bigger moments, and it'll be a long offseason to have to sit with that.

As a team.

Do you feel like you guys are closer to where you want to be at this point than you were a year ago. I don't know.

I mean I I definitely have a lost confidence in this group.

I feel like we have the pieces.

It's what I said a week ago going into the game doesn't change just because of the loss. I still have a lot of belief in the people in this building because I see the work that's behind the scenes, and we have a lot of capable men here. We have capable schemes and everything, and it just comes down to executing on Saturdays and Sundays when we play. And that's been the part that's been very frustrating, because I feel like we've put together some good weeks of practice and preparation and had tough conversations and they haven't translated into victories and the results that we want, and like Mike t always says, it's a results based business and if you're not getting the results, then you're not doing the right thing and things need to change.

I know you had a strip sack and a fangals game that got called back to the other than that, and why do you think you weren't as productive as the last thirty four games.

I just need to find ways to make more plays. Obviously, teams are playing certain ways and helps and stuff like that and getting the ball out quick, and you need to be more open to moving around more and trying to affect games as much as possible. You guys know, I want to affect the game more than anybody, But I don't want to selfishly take another guys, go to a different spot and when I feel like I could have a better rush on the left side, and definitely feel like schematically, it's been a tough year for how the offensive scheme things to try to get me out of the game, and it's gonna be a big breakdown for me to try to find ways to make plays. I'm not making excuse for myself at all. I want to make plays. I need to find ways to continue to win off of chips and slides and things of that nature. And I'm gonna work tirelessly this offseason and get that sorted out.

You mentioned, you know, potentially moving around more is staying on the left side to this point as much as you have been mainly your preference, and are you open to maybe softening on that?

Yeah, I mean I move around from time to time, but yeah, I primarily left.

I prefer the left.

But at this point in my career, I want to I want to be an impact player. I don't want to be schemed out of games. I want to be able to deliver the football and good field positions or take the football away.

And it wasn't a good enough year for myself when it comes to.

That, If given the opportunity, do you want to You've given the opportunity, do you want to extend your contract here this offseason?

I want to be you guys know that I don't want to leave this place, especially in this I want to be part of the solution. I've put so much into it here. I've seen uh so many guys. I mean, I want to help Cam Heyward get to where we need to get.

I want to be a part of the solution. I don't want to leave this place.

I love the people here and that goes beyond just the coaches. It's it's it's the fan base, it's the people, the community, and we owe it to them to get it right. And I want to be part of the solution, not not leave here and go somewhere else. That's not my intention at all. The last weekend before the season, you're hopeer think that might get done earlier.

I haven't thought about it yet.

Did you were used to moving around?

You talked about you know, you talked about you guys did that at times in the middle part of the season. You guys did do that more like against the Giants. What kind of push back against it happened? Kind of growing throughout the season.

Oh, Alex got healthy.

And part of it is Alex is a great rusher on the right side, and at times he can be a better rusher than me at the right than I can be at the right, and I don't want to take away his natural rushings thing side for me to go to the right and not be as effective where I can be on the left and him on the right. If that makes sense. And it's just things where if I move around to help move the chip or create some indecision on where the chip goes, then I have to be more willing and.

Able to do that, and I will.

This defense has been together the four pieces for a while. You've had similar results against high end, elite quarterbacks. Do you feel like in an offensive league, you know you guys can still win with your foiler being dedicated.

So much to defense.

Yeah.

I mean, I think you saw on the the with the Texans game, at least for the little bit that I watched, that the defenses can still win at this level. And obviously you need to be able to score points, but it comes down to taking the ball away and creating turnovers and holding offenses the limited amount of rushing and helping have a true field position tug of.

War, and we haven't had that. We've allowed these long.

Fourteen play drives continuously throughout uh a game.

UH. And that's unacceptable, spending.

Way too much time on the football field and not enough time on the bench. And I feel like you can still win defensively. Obviously, it's always gonna come down to no team effort, but there's no denying the product that we put out isn't accessible TJ.

Why does Mike t remain the the guy that seem like go'll leave this spend.

I mean Hard Knocks doesn't even show I haven't watched it, but I I know they don't show what this guy means to this place from a personal level, from a team level. Uh, we need to perform better. And I'm not saying we need to play better for him. We need to play better for it. I need to play better for everybody. This city deserves it, this this team deserves it. The guys in this locker room, we deserve it. We're working hard. We just need to get it right. And I say that every year. I think it's more and more frustrating as the years go by, but tough conversations need to be had. Can't keep doing the same thing expect different results. And that started with myself. So going into the off season with a lot of questions, but I also know there'll be a lot of answers here in the next couple weeks.

Did you health coupled as it emotionally?

Knowing that these situations can't affect change in the locker room in this group probably won't look the same, and sometimes the.

Group never looks the same, and that's a tough, tough thing about this business. Made a lot of new friends, a lot of great relationships this year, a lot of guys that have came in first year Pittsburgh students where the rookies are free agent ads and put their hand in the pile and brought a lot to this collective.

But it's never going to be the same.

And that's the tough part about it.

But we have to continue to move on over.

Bit and that's the bottom line.

You know.

I hear a lot of this stuff that was TJ. Watt earlier this week with the assembled media, including myself there. And one of the things that I constantly hear about the steel well, they don't know. They don't do anything different. Yeah they do. They've done things differently over the last few years. They've done things again. This was my thirty third season covering the Steelers this year, and I've done that from all different angles. And to say that the Steelers do things now the way that they did things twenty years ago is not correct at all. They traded a first round draft pick for a player currently playing in the league. That was Mika Fitzpatrick in twenty nineteen. They've made moves in the recent drafts to trade up and get guys. Now you can say, maybe they didn't get the right guys and at one hundred percent, you know, you trade up to get Devin Bush and it didn't work out. You know, you've made some deals like that. But that was something that they didn't normally do. TJ. Watt talking about free agents coming in, that was never a big thing. You know, it used to be when when free agency opened and you covered the Steelers, you didn't need to pay any attention the first couple of weeks other than watching to see who was leaving. Now it's changed. They've been proactive in free agency, so things have changed here. They've been proactive trying to make the right moves here. Now you again, you can say, did they go out and get the right guys? Okay, that's you can. You can argue that all day long. But they've been proactive and making moves to try to better their position, to try to better their lot. And to me, the suggestion that they trade TJ. Watt, I mean, come on, people, what are we talking about here? And you heard TJ. Wat just you know his answer to that, he wants to be here. He wants to be part of the solution. You're talking about a guy, a player who has of your top five six, your top six SAX seasons in team history, he has four of them. That's you can't you can't get rid of that. That guy is the face of your franchise. When you see there was there was a a thing that the the NFL put out prior to the weekends last weekend's AFC Wildcard NFC Wildcard games of all the different players, the best players on each of the teams uh going into the playoffs, and every other player on that graphic that they put out was a quarterback except for one. DJ Watt was on that graphic. He's the face of your franchise. You don't trade the face of your Franchise's don't And I understand people are. He's frustrated. Everybody who does this is frustrated. You want better results, you don't want to see the same. The results have been the same, but the way that the path to get there has not. They've tried different things to get better. But until you as Matt and I talked about all week long prior to this until you have the quarterback situation right, and the quarterback situation and your offense and right and your defense right, you're gonna be You're gonna be spinning your wheels a little bit. But you got to try. And it's not like they're not trying. Again. This was a ten and three team at one point. And I just think that they wore down at the end of the season for whatever reason, whether it was the three games and eleven days against high level competition, whether it was just hey, that was what was gonna happen. They were gonna wear down regardless of who they played or or where they played them. I don't know, because that's not what happened. I just know what did happen. I was there, I saw what was happening, and they wore down. People say that's an excuse. It's not an excuse if it's based in fact. And this is based in fact, you know. And so you don't trade away TJ. Watt, you don't blow things up and try. Let's just tank and try to and try to get you know, the best quarterback available. There's no guarantee if you tank that you're going to get the number one overall pick. You might not even get the fifth overall pick or the eighth overall pick by quote unquote tanking. And then once you do tank and you get rid of guys like TJ. Watt. Heard it in past trade trade Cam Heyward away. You want to talk about losing locker room culture, That's where you lose locker room culture by trading away foundational players. And so you can't do that. You have to you have to keep moving along with what you've got. You just have to keep building with what you've got. Blowing it up or trading away TJ. Watt or doing things like that, that's shortsighted in my opinion. I think again, this is a guy who wants to be part of the solution. He's not part of the problem. He's never been part of the problem. And so you build around that guy. You continue to build around that guy, and you try to get guys like TJ. Watt and Cam Hayward where they should where they should be at, and that's in the final eight, that's in the final four, that's in the super Bowl. We're gonna take a break here on the drive. I am Dale Lolly. Matt Williamson not here today. He is off doing some personal stuff, but I'm going to be joined by Rob King, the Voice of the Steelers in the next segment. You'll hear that right after this.

This 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.

Rating and welcome back. I'm Dale Lolly and I'm joined on the Justin Miller Hotline by the voice of the Steelers, Rob King. How you doing, Kinger, I'm doing well.

How you doing? Dale?

I am hanging in there. You know, the weather has not been kind to us here in the last couple of weeks, and well neither was the end of the season for the Steelers. And you know, I understand a lot of people's frustrations with all that. And you know, those of us who are in and around this are, you know, equally frustrated. But it's part of the process.

It is, you know, and I'm trying to I think a lot of people are disseminate the information we got at the end of the season and figure out what happened. How do you go from ten to three and averaging you know, under Russell Wilson's first seven games over twenty eight points per game. I mean, you got to go back to the Ben Roethlisberger era for that kind of offensive production. And the defense to its part to what happened over the last five games. Some of that is the quality competition, to be sure, but I think a lot of it was for some reason. This team is going into a funk, and I'm sure you know they were self examining and while it was going on, and they continue to self examine as we speak, but it's hard for me to figure out. I still scratched my head a little bit about how those two things could have happened, because I truly believe it's more of the ten and three football team than it is the other way around it. People don't want to hear this after the team lost in the first round and lost their last five games, including that playoff game, But I think it's an improved team over what we've seen over the last couple of years. I do it just for whatever reason, it played its worst football at the worst time of the season.

Yeah, I'm with you on that, King, and you know, I understand the recency bias of what just happened, but this team did a lot of good stuff over the course of the season. And to your point, you played of the team, the final eight teams, the eight teams that are standing right now, you played them four times in those five games, and three of those were on the road. Three of the four games that you played those four you know, the four games were on the road. And I don't know that that. People are looking at that and going, well, yeah, and they said, well, you're just making excuses, and I just did a segment. I'm like, these aren't excuses if they're based in reality. It's not an excuse. It's you ask for people ask all the time, well can you analyze this? Can you analyze that? And then when you do analyze it, well, that's an excuse. No, it's not an excuse if it's based in reality. And that's the reality of the situation. We talked about it when the schedule came out, that this was going to be a rough stretch. It turned out to be a rough stretch. And now we're all ready to blow things up because it was a rough stretch.

Yeah, I think, and I agree with what you're saying, and it is a rough stretch. And I thought going into the rough stretch that they were going to come out of it better. You know, if that record had been one and three or two and two, going in with a ten and three football team.

You know, I wouldn't have been shocked.

I was very surprised at ZH to four, and I think there were moments in each game in which, you know, the team had a chance to rise up. You know, Cincinnati, you know what happens if you go down the field and kick a field goal there at the end of the game. Do you go into the off season or into the postseason feeling a lot better about yourself?

Well, yeah, you may have gone to Houston and one you.

Know, right, that's right, that's right, And I think there was there. It became it became a bit of an avalanche to me. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this years, maybe the.

Team doesn't feel that way. You know.

I went back Dale, you know, you and I were talking before the game in Baltimore. I went back and watched that loss in Baltimore from a couple of weeks before and thought, man, I mean the Steelers were right there.

They had every opportunity to win that game.

You know, there it's seventeen seventeen, and then uh, Russell Wilson throws a pick six you know you take, so you're down seven, you take the ensuing kickoff, you march it into Ravens territory and then it's a sack and a penalty and then you don't score it. It falls apart and they wound up, you know, getting some momentum moving forward. But you know, you could say that there are opportunities in the Philadelphia game, but it just seemed like, for whatever reason, after watching that game in Baltimore, I thought, you know what, this is gonna be typical Steelers Ravens.

This is gonna be a three point game.

And I talked to Ravens people who thought the same thing going to the game. This is gonna be This is gonna be a three point Steelers raven game. So I just think that something happened. I don't Maybe you know, when when things aren't going your way, and again, maybe this has something to do with it, and maybe it doesn't. Sometimes you just need something to go your way. You need a bounce. The Steelers got no bounces. Again, I'm not making excuses because they also didn't make their own laws that crazy. I mean, there were times right in Philadelphia. Hey, you're exhausted. Your defense is exhausted. I get it, But boy, if you could have stopped one of those third down conversions, giving your offense one more opportunity to maybe get back in it, totally excuse this as Hey, this was bad luck, and this was quality of competition, because I think the Steelers are quality football team.

I just think that it's.

A bunch of little things, and one of those little things is I just think, you know, I was looking at that that Ravens game again to playoff loss, and thought, okay, third and three. The defense that appeared to call for high Smith on the very first series of downs for the for the Ravens to crash down and tackle the dive back.

I think he was stopped.

Justice Hill would have been stopped playside, and I think that if Lamar had not kept it, that might have been a three and out.

Maybe that would have given the team a little left.

I don't know, I'm just I'm just saying it felt like when it started to go downhill, they're just and that happens the team sometimes. It just they just couldn't find a way to reverse it. So I do think that, you know, I look at the overall roster. I think they've had two very good offseasons in a row. I think they've had a lot of quality pieces, and I think that they need.

To continue to do that.

And you know their talk is going to be about a franchise quarterback. I mean, look who's left in the playoffs. Just look at the AFC. Just look at the quarterbacks were left. You're trying to get to that point, and is that guy in the roster?

It looked like it. It looked like maybe not, you know, necessarily Russell Wilson in his prime.

But you know that team average twenty eight points a game in Russell's first seven starts.

And what happened, had wins against had wins against teams that are still standing in the playoffs. They beat Washington in Washington, they beat the Ravens. We can't just throw that all away and say that didn't happen just because of the way you didn't like the way the season ended. Those things happened. Those are part of the story as well.

Yeah it is, and it's what makes the end of the season a bit mystifying to me. I don't know what happened, I don't know why it happened the way it did, you know, uh, and there were I think there were.

Reasons along the way. You had injuries.

But you think about just even Baltimore, Right, you lost in Baltimore in a game you were right in it. You never you didn't have George Pickens, you didn't have Deshaun Elliott, Dante Jackson went out in that game. You were missing some key players. Well, they were all back for the playoffs. I did not see what we saw Saturday night in Baltimore. You know, maybe I should have seen it coming. The line was ten. I thought the line was absolutely wrong. I guess I should have seen it coming because that's what happened. But I gotta tell you, Yale, I just didn't see that coming.

I didn't think it was going to go that way.

No, nor did I. You know, I thought it would be as as you said, a typical Steelers Ravens games. I've seen every single one of them in person over the years, and so that's, you know, that's what I expected the raven If you watch Hard Knocks, that's what the Ravens expected. They expected, and you know, you heard John Harbaugh even you know, hey, this is a good football team that we're playing here, we got to be ready to go. This is you know, this is the Pittsburgh Steelers, and for whatever reason that didn't play out. Now you could look at that and say, hey, Lamar Jackson and and Derrick Henry they were just that much better.

Uh.

They they were on top of their game. They were ready to go, and and they were the better players. And I understand that they were on that particular night, you know, but to your point, you know, things just didn't go right. You know, if you if you look at you break down each one of those games down the stretch. To your point, I mean, if George Pickens doesn't have the worst game of his career against Cincinnati Bengals, they win that football game, right, he dropped that thirty eight yard pass down the sideline that would have put them at least in field goal range in third quarter. That's a pass he catches ninety nine times out of one hundred. The defensive back didn't bring the.

First multi the first multi drop game of his career. Yeah, I mean, he is a sure handed guy, George Pickens. You know, I know he's become a bit of a lightning rod. But we saw in Baltimore that passed down the sideline. He can do things that other guys just they can't even dream of doing, you know, I mean he made that look easy. That played down the sideline was he slowed slightly, caught the ball and made two guys basically collide. I mean, you know, but you're right, I mean there were moments. There were moments Dale in every game. And who knows whether if you to stem the tide, if you'd have beaten Cincinnati, would you had a different feeling.

Going into that game?

And I have to think that, you know, these are human beings, and the emotion I think probably played part of it, that feeling that it's rolling downhill in there and it's hard to stop that. I don't know, I'm just again, I'm surmising maybe the team would scoff at that analysis, but it felt like that was at least part of it to me.

Yeah, there was reports out there that there was a sense of relief in that locker room they after they lost that game, and I'm like, I don't know what locker room that report came out. It wasn't the locker room I was in, and it certainly wasn't the you know, the plane ride home or those guys were not happy about that. That was a long bus ride back out to the airport. Nobody in that locker room was happy with how the the last month of the season went.

I can't believe anybody would ever say that. I can't believe any player would say I'm relieved to go home and exit the playoffs in the first round.

They're just not wired that way. They're not built that way.

And then you know, the other thing is I made the comment earlier about the team being closer, and you know, you look at this offseason, for example, and you add you know, Peyton Wilson to the lineback and corps, you add Patrick Queen, you add to Shaun Elliott at the safety position. I mean, these guys are are guys that are coming back and joining a team in our bet. Our buddy Matt Williamson says that the front five for the Steelers is the best defensive line in football considered.

He's not the only one that says if you look at Pro Football Focus that they're the number one ranked front front in the league.

Right, and then look at the linebackers and Patrick Queen getting more comfortable.

You look at the offensive line.

Look, the offensive line had a lot of injuries, but you know, hopefully they'll be healthy coming back. At Faltano Fatana is going to be starting at right tackle. People can't forget that. And he missed the season, and so look, and other teams have injuries, and the Bengals were decimated by injuries. But the Bengals also didn't make the playoffs, so you know, the students had their injuries back. I'm just looking at next year coming back, and I think there, you know, Darnell Washington proved that he can be a nice complimentary piece and a big blocking piece in that offense. And Calvin Austin can be a player. You probably need to add another receiver. You have all five offensive alignemen under contract for the for the upcoming season. You would expect that young group to take a step forward. You got a couple of decisions to make the quarterback position. It's a very rich running back draft. Can you add a player there? So I think this years have filled a lot of holes in the last couple of years. Now, ultimately, do you need a young star quarterback to make a deep run in the playoffs?

Maybe you do. I don't know, but I do know, and maybe maybe you know.

Year two of a Russell Wilson and that offense is going to be better, or maybe they really like the way that that you know, the number two quarterback fields came along sort of behind the scenes after he got six game starting with a four and two record. I think there's a lot of reasons to be uh, to be bullish about this roster and the direction it's heading in.

It's just hard to feel that way.

And if you told me, if you told me at ten and three, I would have said they're gonna win a round to the playoffs, and in that second round when they face the Mahomes or an Allen as inevitably gonna happen, it's gonna be a heck of a ball game. And the fact that they didn't get there, you know, does that mean we re evaluate our analysis from earlier.

Does it mean we're wrong?

I mean that's what the next few months are gonna are going to tell us what the team thinks about that. And it's what makes the off season so fascinating, even if it gets here too soon.

It's kind of like, you know that to choose your path books, you know, maybe you should do one of those Rob, you could choose your path and and and go that way. Uh, for those of you that don't know, Rob is a published author, get that.

And his path goes through his path goes through the door in the go.

But the Steelers to me, they chose their path last offseason that they were going to take here. And you know, to your point, short of acquiring a a a young franchise quarterback, a young proven fan you know a guy, or getting one in the draft, you know the road to doing that. I mean, there are only so many ways to do it, and most of them involve luck and where you draft at and they're not going to be high enough to get one of the guys. And this isn't a great draft for those guys anyways, you know, So if you do get one, it's going to be you know, do you take one in the second or third round and he turns into something that happens. I understand that Russell Wilson was. It was a third round draft pick. You know, it happens, but you can't count on it, you know, you can't. You can't, So you have to you have to make a decision now, and it's probably you know that decision is probably staying on the same path that you're on now and continuing to take bites out of the apple and try to get better and try to make your team better around whatever player it is you decide to go with.

Yeah, and I think it is bites out of the apple.

You're right, And I do think that, you know, do you get such a strong identity in a certain way that you know, like, look, man.

The Ravens.

I know, I know the Ravens can throw the ball, but the way the random all the other night, that was unstoppable, right, I.

Mean, can you get to that point? I don't know.

The stewers tried to uh, you know, the yards per carry wasn't what you'd want it to be, but the they kept they kept nailing away at it, and they had a solid running attack.

It is going to be interesting to see where they go.

And to your point, I mean, you know, uh, the only you know obviously, I do a lot of baseball stuff too, and teams draft pitching. The Pirates drafted a lot of pitching over the years. You've got to have it, you know, you're not winning without it.

That's the ball in his hands every play.

Yeah, I mean Paul Skins. Look, Paul Skins is pretty obvious. But you know, you go out and you pay over slot, and you go out and get above a chandler, you know, without having to use that very.

Top pick and he pans out and it's great.

Well, there's also for every bubb a Chandler, there's probably eight or nine guys you drafted didn't pan out right, who got hurt or never made it above a ball.

And so you know, but in football, yeah.

Mark Pell, that's right, Markpell should say.

Yeah, Markepell.

Yeah, So for football you have to be so judicious for that because you only get seven rounds of picks. You know, you don't get twenty picks he used to be forty picks or fifty picks.

In baseball you only get seven rounds.

And so you know, if you use a third rounder on a guy and he doesn't pan out, and that third rounder could have been, uh, you know, Mason McCormick or Peyton Wilson or guy even got later than that this year, that's that's a tough one to swallow if you're not right on that, and yet you can't win without it.

So I mean, you know, think about you know, you just look at the look.

At the history of Steelers football from from the Chuckle years on right even with Chuck Nole, it wasn't until he put Terry bradsch Off firmly in the driver's seat that they won their first Super Bowl, and they won three more Super Bowls, and then he started to fade and he started to get injuries and they didn't win any more Super Bowls until they were able to pick was it twelfth?

They got Ben Robins in a quarterback rich draft?

What's that eleventh?

Eleventh? Yeah, yeah, eleventh.

Uh So you get a rare bad year that coincides with a quarterback rich draft and you happen to get, you know, a Hall of Famer eleventh overall. So that's and then you win, you know, you win a couple more Super Bowls. That's that's kind of the way the NFL goes. You have to have much like you have to have pitching in baseball, you have to have quarterback play. But you can also you can win in baseball without having the best pitching staff. You have to be really good everywhere else, and that pitching better still be pretty good. And I think the Steers could get pretty good quarterback play out of what they have and then, like you said, keep taking whites out of the apple again. I still really feel like, and this is tough to say, I understand that tough to hear. I do think they've gotten closer over the last couple of offseasons just by you know, some of the guys that I named some of the draft. I think they've had two very good drafts, and I think they've had productive forays into free agency.

And I think they're going to do that again.

They've got a lot of cap space, and you know, teams don't let franchise quarterbacks out of their building very often. You're probably not going to get a franchise quarterback in free agency, so you have to find other ways to go about it.

Yeah, and there are other ways to do that. I mean, if you look at Detroit, you look at Philadelphia, don't think anybody would look at Jared Goff or Jalen Hurts and say, yeah, they're they're up there with Lamar Jackson and they're up there with with Josh Allen. Now, some of the stats may be up there with some of those guys because they've built the team around those players, and you know, they're not. They're not, you know, in the top five or six or seven eight quarterbacks in the league. But you can win with those guys if you have a solid roster.

That's right.

And I and I think, and I think going back to that ten and three start and going back to those first seven games with Russell Wilson, you know you could, I think you'd you'd put him in that same conversation, Hey, here's a guy that can He's won, he's won a Super Bowl.

There's only six guys I think in football they can say that.

Yeah, one of them was Joe fla.

Starting quarterback, right and one of them, Joe Flacco, is not starting anymore.

It is a rare feat to be.

Able to do that and to be able to accomplish that, and Russell Wilson was able to do that.

And again.

By in no way, shape or form my saying, well, if the Steelers lost the last four games of the playoff game because of Russell Wilson, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying we saw evidence over seven games that the offense could be a lot more than it's been since Ben Roethlisberger.

Had his elbow surgery.

You know, I mean, it's an offense that was capable of more, and I think again, they're going to add more pieces, and then they're going to have to figure out what happened over those last four weeks, because like I said before, I didn't see it coming and I still don't know why it happened. And I think this year there's I didn't think that there was really anything fluky about this year. There's ten and three start, but I do think that that oh to four finished surprised me, especially the way it happened.

Yeah, I'm with you. Our guest is Rob King, of course the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. King are knowing that how do you proceed with this team? I'm the I'm of the thought that if you're gonna add an explosive playmaker to this offense, I think you go to the veteran route in that because I don't know that. I mean for every wide receiver, young wide receiver that goes out there in their first year and lights it up, I can name two that that don't. And so this is a team that needs an immediate jump start here as another offensive playmaker, I think you go the free agent route and get one yeah.

I think it'll be. It'll be very interesting.

And I'm sure they're doing their you know, draft simulations and who's going to be there and what positions. I mean, it's supposed to be a very good cornerback draft, a very good running back draft. What do you perceive as your biggest needs? And you know, one of the things that the series have always done a great job of, and going back to Kevin Colberg, is at least putting you know, plausible solutions in place with the notion that you can replace those guys if you find.

A better guy in the draft.

Right, yeah, draft him.

And now all of a sudden you got good depth, right right, taking a position of weakness and made it a position of strength because you have a plausible starter behind a high draft pick. So you know, again, it'll be interesting to see, uh you know, do you uh do you go all.

In on defense? Do you say, hey, we're pretty close.

To being a dominant defense And you know, again, these are conversations that, you know, are do they feel limited schematically?

They say, well, you know a lot was made of.

Well they didn't blitz very much and they played you know, kind of an umbrella type of of you know, keep it underneath you kind of coverage.

And that's why the sack totals were down.

Well, do you need a player or two to unleash that defense and and maximize your talent? There is that the way you're going to go what's available in free agency, you know, beyond the top perceive too. If they're too pricey, if they're out of your price range and they move on, you know, maybe you're gonna need to get that now. Maybe you pivot and you get a you know, a corner, or you get a running back or something like that.

So I mean, I think the positions, you know, is defensive line of luxury right now?

Or do you see a guy and you think, wow, this is a can't miss player. Uh, you know, And I think that's one of the things that traditionally dale and this is a part of a larger conversation. Perhaps the teams have always done a great job of finding great players. So you know, for years, nobody put a lot of emphasis on the center position. So just really you can go out and get pouncy. Everybody wants to tackle. So guess what, you draft a castro right, and those great players will make other players around and better. Great players everywhere in the roster have a trickle down effect. Excuse me, it may not be in the traditional way. Hey, let's get that left tackle to lock down the outside linebacker. Okay, Well, what if we get a guard that can decimate the other team's tackle and we can help that out that offense tackle.

Excuse me, another way to go about it.

But great players always make a team better, and so I think that that's something they've always done a great job at and I think they'll continue to do a great to do a great job with that. Maybe it's not quite as traditional as you think. Hey, we're going to fill a hole in a traditional fashion. Maybe they go about it in a slightly different way.

Yeah, absolutely, King here. Well, i've held you long enough here. I've held you so long you're losing your voice. I can't have you do that. I mean, you're the voice of the Steelers. But I appreciate your time here, and you'd be safe out there, my friend, and well enjoy shoveling snow.

Yes, thank you, FDL. I appreciate it. I'm on my way, my friend. Thanks, we'll talk to you soon.

Our guest has been Rob King, the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm Dale Lolly. No Matt Williamson today, he is out and about, but I will be back finish up hour number one 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 in Steelers Nation Radio.

And we are back. I'm Dale Lolly. He is well not here today. How about that? Matt Williamson not here today and I'm flying solo here today. So Arthur Smith in the last two days has completed the interviews for the head coaching jobs in Chicago and then today also with the New York Jets. The Steelers offensive coordinator is again looked upon favorably in the NFL and NFL circles. So you know, we'll see if how that all shakes out. But that's that's one of the things that happens here at the end of seasons, guys. Interview elsewhere, you know, Mike Tomlan sitting down with Omar Kahn and Art Ernie the second this week and they're discussing potential coaching changes and those kinds of things. But that all takes place, you know, over the next couple of weeks here, I know people were asking, Hey, what are you gonna when are you gonna start talking about the coaching staff, And to be quite frank and I thought Matt has made good points about this over the years. Understanding exactly what an assistant coach does. Everybody gets to see the tangible results of the offensive coordinator, of the defensive coordinator, and the special teams coordinator, because those are the overall units, and you can judge j ok based on how those units do to some degree, how those those coaches are performing. But in terms of you know, understanding, well, how's the secondary coach performing, or how is the you know, linebackers coach performing or the tight ends coach, you'd just be guessing because unless you're in those meetings, unless you're in the building and understanding and seeing how those guys interact with their group and develop the game plan and things like that, you just don't know. You just don't, So I I really don't like to appine much on on those kind of things. The Steelers also had a director Player personnel or pro personnel. Sheldon White has interviewed for the GM job in with the Raiders, I should say and That would be interesting because you know, if the Raiders were to hire Sheldon White, the Steeler would get a third round compensatory pick back in return for that. So that's one to keep an eye on here. And Sheldon's a good guy does does a good job of evaluating the professional talent and has been a GM in a past with the with the Detroit Lions as an interim, and you know, maybe he gets that opportunity again here and if he does good for him, it also would happen to be good for the Steelers. One other thing that I wanted to touch on here before we get done with our number one. I read a headline last night on ESPN when the Ravens re signed Deontay Johnson and they're hoping to get a comp pick back for him. On what planet would that be? Because for the Ravens to get a compensatory pick in return for Deontay Johnson for losing Deontay Johnson at the end of this season, Deontay Johnson would have to get a pretty sizable free agent deal. The dude's been on four different teams in the last ten months and he's now on his fifth team if you want to count the Ravens twice, five teams in ten months that he has been a part of. I'm here to tell you right now, Deontay Johnson is not going to get a deal that's going to warrant a compensatory pick. That would mean that the Ravens signed absolutely nobody in the offseason, or Deontay Johnson went out for his new team, whoever that might be, whatever team is desperate enough to sign him, and goes out and catches eighty passes for twelve hundred yards or something like that, he has a monster year and outplays his contract. That's the only way that the Ravens will get any kind of compensatory pick for Johnson, and that would mean they didn't sign anybody in free agency, and that's not realistic. Deontay Johnson's probably looking a get, you know, if he's fortunate, a four million dollar deal or something in that range, maybe five tops in free agency next year. And that's if he's fortunate. He's been through four different teams in the last ten months. He quit on the Ravens a month ago, which is why they released them. They told him to stay away from the facility. They were so angry with him. They cut him, and that's the only reason that they sign him back. They had nothing to lose by doing that. He's not going to play for them. He can't play for them by league rules until after the He's not even a member of the Ravens right now. They picked up the contract and said, Okay, we're going to pay you and hope we get a compensatory pickback. Hope does not mean you're going to get a compensatory pickback. It just means there's a possibility, but it doesn't mean that they're going to get one. So people need to understand that as well. The Ravens are not playing chess with this. They're hoping and they know the situation. They dealt with it before. They're the ones that told him to stay away from the facility and then cut him a week later. You know, so I understand that, Oh, look look at what the Ravens did. It probably won't work out for them. Let's just say that anyways, that's going to do it for our number one of the drive here on the Steelers Audio Network. I'll 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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