HR1: A Familiar Victory

Published Dec 9, 2024, 9:15 PM
10 victories in the bag for the Pittsburgh Steelers so far this season. Matt and Dale recap yesterday's decisive win for the black and gold against the Browns. Rob King calls in to chat with the guys.

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 Radio.

And welcome to a victory Monday for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I am Dale Lolly, he is the Matt Williamson and the Steelers dispatching the Cleveland Browns yesterday twenty seven to fourteen in a game that really wasn't even that close.

No, not really. I thought they controlled it after the first three or four offensive drives. I thought they were pretty much in control, kind of with the feeling of these guys are going to make mistakes, Let's not make mistakes, you know, And I thought that was the theme to the game. Well, and really you seelorious and fun to talk about them Monday.

But you know, you see that in a lot of games across the league, like just let the other team screw this up.

And the Browns have a pension for doing so. In their quarterback dangerous but he has a real pension for doing so. And their kicker has a real pension for doing so, and you know.

And Kadarius Tony has a real pension for doing so.

Some little dudes, right yea.

Why, there's why he's bounced around to a few different teams. Yeah, point, just going out and taking care of business there.

I thought the to me, that's the story of the game, which isn't super fun to talk about or Wow, this team's a powerhouse, but your jobs beat the Browns and take a two game lead in the division, and the best path of doing that was play close to the best. You don't have pickens and don't screw things up and wait for them to Yeah.

I think the big thing is that he didn't have pickens. Yeah, and you saw the offense take some time to get warmed up to not having pickens. For example, Scotty was talking to Scotty Miller after the game and he's like, I found out like three minutes before they announced the before they announced the inactives, that George wasn't gonna play. They were all under the understanding that George was going to play.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then it's.

The last second he was expecting to be in active.

And he's been an act of the last several games. Yeah yeah, and had caught.

A ball a passed since the Chargers game that was in week two, Week two, you know, and and so all of a sudden, now you're out there and Wilson's throwing them the football like three times on the first two drives. You know, it's like okay.

You know.

So I did another show with Rob King, Who's going to join us next segment, and he was bringing it up, and I thought it was a great point that, frankly, the bottom of the roster guys have been a real story for this team. Yea, in this game as well as really for the whole season. I mean Scronic and Pierre and Miller and all those type of dudes. They chip in and they contribute.

That's why, and I wrote this in my ten Thoughts, that's why it's important to have guys like a Scottie Miller, Yeah, as your five or six number five or six receiver or ben' Skronik. These are guys who have played a lot of football in the league. They've been around for a while.

Offense and special team.

Yeah, and so a guy like Miller he's talking about, he goes, Look, I've been on teams where you know, you just didn't know when you were going to get in there, but you knew when you did get in there that you had to you know, you had to be acquired. Yeah, whereas that if that's a that's if that's a rookie or a first year guy who hasn't been through this stuff. Oh, you get a tendency to mope. Aw man, I'm in active again this week. I've been in active the last five weeks. I'm not even like I'm not going to play.

Yeah yeah, And so.

You just kind of half asset through all your your work that week and then it comes to fruition you're not playing because of that.

Yeah, in pers human nature, you know, I mean maybe on Thursday you go out with your buds when you wouldn't have or something, you.

Know like that, you like it's you know, holiday time, and maybe you know have Yeah, I'll have another piece of pumpkin pie. Right, I'm not playing this week.

Right, or have family in or whatever. You know. Yes, I think that's great. So they're professional, they're professionals, and they're versatile, and they're unselfish, and they'll block and they'll run down on kickoffs and punts and all that kind of stuff too and do the dirty work. And and in a way, I think that's a big portion of ten guys caught the ball last week, eight this week and nine were targeted, and Russ understands, you're out here scraping, and you know I'm gonna get you the football get you.

Yeah right, just a little reward.

And you're often gonna see single coverage too, you know, without pickens of course.

Yeah, so I thought that was a big thing. I thought that I thought the defense played really well. I mean, Cam.

Hayward is is a superstar.

So last week and I like, I read the article you sent it to me. Some a guy on Pro Football Focus wrote that that, you know, nobody's talking about Cam Hayward's potential defensive player of the year, and maybe he should be in that conversation. So then I start looking at his numbers today after he's not out the eight sacks.

Yeah yeah, he.

Leads all defensive tackles with fifty five tackles this season. I didn't know that he's got the eight passes batted down.

His streak came to an end, what six games in a row or something.

He's got eight tackles or no ten tackles for a loss yesterday? Yeah, why not?

I bet the Steelers would vote for him as the Steelers defensive Player of the Year. Yeah, I mean I'm watching. If you beat the number one candidate in the league, ye for it. I mean that's a knock on Wat and what's been awesome too. But Cam's had the best year of any defensive player in the league.

I think, Yeah, I'm watching Chris Jones.

Last thing.

Chris Jones is a great player, Yeah he is. But he's moving all over the line. You know he's doing this, and.

He brings his best on third and eights and things like that too.

Cam's better. You know, you know where he's going to be at every single time, and you still can't block.

Him, and you still can't block him, and it's down and down out dirty work. We had the same conversation one week ago. Bengals had some long runs, not when.

He was not when he was on the field. I may know that when I watched him, like, oh that forty yard run. Oh Cam wasn't on.

The field sideline, Yeah.

That's seventeen years run. Oh they got him when Cam was on the field, like teams are looking now. Oh yeah, and you see it. You see it with Wat too. If there's a series where Wat's not out there, I've seen I've seen teams go to the hurry up, let's sorry, and get to the line of scrimmage before Watt can come trotting in here.

This is that one series that starts with Smith as the left outside guy or whatever.

So that affects the game as well.

Huge, absolutely huge, And the other guys on the defense know it as well. Cam's not in there. They're gonna play. It's different. DJ's not in there. They're gonna play. It's different. I mean, of course. And I don't know if he'll get strong consideration for it or not. But like Hutchinson was running away with the award hurt, Lawrence had a really good year to start the season on a terrible team and then gets hurt, like he's not gonna be in the mix. I can't see Jones being in the mix. We'll get the Garrett. He was invisible yesterday. I mean him and Wat are the I guess the leaders in the clubhouse. So is it a Watt versus Cam conversation. I mean it might be.

It might be in their defense. I mean they're leading the league in takeaways. They added three more yesterday. Uh, they're in the top what five in scoring defense at the top of league interceptions too, Yeah, top of the league intercept. I mean, they just they do a.

Lot of good stuff absolutely, then some of it is beyond the numbers, Like their sack numbers aren't great as a team, but they're such a good pass rush plan defense that sometimes it's not about that, you know what I mean. That's huge and they'll be huge this week against Jalen Hurts.

I really thought that the pass rush, even though they only ended up with the three sacks against Jameis Winston yesterday, I thought they really affected the way he threw the football. He felt the pass rush a lot and threw high and I was I mean, he ended up.

Complete rush things when he did throw or was not comfortable or didn't set his feet because he couldn't. And I give him credit. This is two games in a row that we've seen him two out of three weeks where he avoids the pass rush pretty well and makes plays as an athlete better than any point of his career. I mean the early career. Jamis might have taken seven sacks in that game. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like he's gotten better with that, but he was eight.

Of nineteen in the first half in that game. Yeah, I mean, and they were you know, Salem balls to the stands and just couldn't stand in stuff, right.

Or just throwaways, a lot of throwaways, you know, they just get me out of just happy. I didn't take a sack type of play right, right, it's a zero yard play.

Yeah, they didn't protect the chief all that well yesterday. No, chief didn't get the ball out in time like he was supposed to.

And we were talking right before we hit record too. Even the Browns rushing stats are misleading because a lot of them were in the second half against prevent type stuff. When you're begging them to run.

Please, we're up twenty points here and you're still running the football.

Yeah, we'll give me six every time you want it. You know. So everyone knows a big stack guy, But I thought the stat sheet didn't do the defense true, you know, and maybe even on the offense too, because Steelers ran the ball well early in the game, and then against stack boxes late they.

Took the air out of the ball in the fourth quarter. I mean, Wilson only threw ten passes in the second half of that game. Yeah, two of them were touchdowns, but they threw ten passes in the second half.

But you to be the norm around here. But without the touchdown, yeah right, you know what I mean, Like when he is those were daggers. They were daggers. They were huge plays, right, and they were really good quarterbacking. I can't stress enough. I mean, to me, the biggest theme of the whole shebang was they basically turned it all over six times. Steelers turned it over once and they were and the Browns were terrible and third downs and Steelers knew it now, you know, they knew it from a start. It was really don't screw it up.

The opposite of what happened in Cleveland very much. So you know, if the Steelers turned it over twice on fourth down, missed a field goal, you know he turned it over. Yeah.

Yeah. And Weightman was great in this game too, Yeah, as was always.

The difference in that this was a five point or that one was a five point game. You had a chance to win it. At the end, the Steelers just said, no, we're gonna.

Write and it comes down we're better than you.

Yeah, we're gonna turn this into a blowout.

If this isn't your day, we don't have to have our A plus sharpest game, but we're not gonna shut yourself the foot, you know.

Yeah, you know, And that was the big thing. I mean, I I thought that was.

You know.

I didn't get to ask Wilson this, but it seemed like in some of those situations it was just like, hey, drop back. If it's not just live to fight another day, you throw it away. Absolutely throw it where only your guy can catch it. And if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, we'll punt.

I'm sure tom Win's stressed that all week. Turn the ball over. Yeah, and this guy will probably throw us a couple and their kicker will probably miss one that he shouldn't, and we're the more talented team. And I'm not saying he tells the team that, but deep down he knows that's the path of victory. And it's not Thursday on a short week when all those things were going against you, you know, and you didn't play your you played your worst game of the year. And yeah, you know, so how about don't let Garrett go crazy? And they sure didn't, you know.

Yeah. That was Wilson's the seventy third game in his career where he has thrown at least two touchdown passes saw no interceptions.

The teams he's with are Bunkerston Manning, Yeah, fifty all time doing that, yeah, behind like Brady. Yeah, they're all Hall of famers.

So it's it's Peyton Manning with for fifth. Next up is Brett Farv with seventy four. You wouldn't have thought that about Farv necessarily.

Is it two touchdowns without an interception?

He said, Okay, at least two touchdown passes and no interceptions.

Yeah, then he shows how many touchdowns far through he threw a lot of picks.

Yeah, he threw a lot of picks.

Yeah.

Then you have Breeze with eighty eight, Aaron Rodgers with one o eight, and Tom Brady with one with one twenty two.

Yeah, I bet my home is actually breathing out of the neck too, and come to think of it, but I mean the all time, right, No, it's not. I mean, of course, Brady's the top of that list for longevity. But he just tied Peyton Manning.

Just tied Peyton Manning.

Yeah, pretty good.

Yeah, that's not too bad.

No, not too bad at all. Some of his career stuff I was aware of, But now that he's a Steeler. We've dug into it a lot more. You know, career touchdown, interception ratio and things like that are all time great stuff.

Yeah know right, I mean, in the last couple of weeks here, he's moved up the all time touchdown list. He's moved up the all time yardage list. He's I think he's top fifteen in both of those things. Now, I had somebody ask me today, do you think he's a Hall of Famer. I'm like, well, I thought it was trending the wrong direction there.

But yeah, this is a strong case.

He's showing that maybe it wasn't him, it was the situations that he was in.

I don't know if you planned on talking about I don't think it's worth it. But you know, Bill Barnell wrote a calumn today about teams that could be changing quarterbacks and blah blah blah blah blah, and could I mean I agreed with much of what he wrote, but nothing about the Steelers, because I mean, he's.

Conclusistently wrong about the Steelers.

He's too stats driven and doesn't understand the organization. And you know, his conclusion was, they're gonna have a veteran quarterback that's not currently on the roster. I'm like, I don't think that's the way it's going to go. Yeah, you know, like back to his hall of fame case, like.

Maybe they'll trade for Kirk Cousins.

Really you want to downgrade, if you want to downgrade, I mean right right, And you're trying to get worse older, right and get older right right? Anything more expensive and more expensive. And he's a shell of himself.

Oh, he's awful.

Could get in for nothing.

Yeah, he's thrown. I think it's last four weeks, no touchdown, passes, eight interceptions and.

A bunch of fumbles too. Yeah, it's remarkablen't get out of his own way and the right and his arm looks shot too, I mean because his legs are shot. Yeah, yeah, mean he generates all his power from his lower body and he doesn't know a natural arm thrower anyways. But back to the Steelers. They're in a much better place than the Falcons or Cousins, and Wilson's a much better player and Cousins right now.

Yeah, so they open up a two game lead in the AFC North. It's huge with four to play, and you play the Ravens in one of those games. Yeah, if you even if you let's say you let's say you go to Philadelphia this week and you lose, there'll be a dog there. You'll be a dog. I haven't I even looked to see what it is. If you win in Baltimore next week, it's over.

Yeah. I think if you win in no matter what happens the rest of the year, if you win in Baltimore, it's over.

It's over.

Yeah. And even just beating since he might be enough. Yeah, because Baltimore. I don't know they're going to run the table.

No, I don't. I don't know what they are either.

They get the Chiefs, they got Houston.

You know, looked at some of those you know, the simulation stuff that that are out there, and you know, there's a lot of different paths for the Steelers to win the division that don't That could include if you win this week, could also include even if you lose the next two games, you can still win the division.

Yeah, with the Ravens winning well next two weeks.

Yeah, okay, yeah, because you've got the two game lead.

Yeah, And you were saying this even last week too. Chiefs here on Christmas is not the most daunting task I've ever heard either.

Everybody keeps trying to excuse what the Chiefs are doing here. Well, they're going to hit their you know, they're going to turn it up when the playoffs come around. They're going to do this. They're there's so much better. Maybe they're not. When somebody, yeah, at through thirteen games, when they show you that they're living on the edge every single week, yep, maybe that's who they are. They have gotten lucky a little bit.

Yeah, Now we can't talk out both sides our mouth. I mean Mahomes and Red, Brady, Belichick, Ben and Tom when they win one score game, But that has.

Nothing to do with Denver getting a field goal blocked. There is nothing Raiders snapping the football when they should have snapped it.

They definitely have gotten about.

I texted you last night when when Matthew right, as soon as they got that first down and they saying, oh, the game's over, now they're gonna go and hit the field. I'm like, look, I've seen a lot of Matthew Wright.

Yeah, I'm rooting for him.

I'm rooting for the guy, But I'm like, this is no gimme here, No and then he's on the street for a reason. Right, he bangs it off the off the goalpost and it actually kind of it falls through if if it's an inch to the you know, to the left, it goes the other right, right, right, right.

That's how they're living right now.

Yeah, so they're not an unbeatable juggernaut.

I mean, they just love to see him trying to drop block. The Steelers had rushers.

Yeah, that's going to be a problem.

Oh, that should be a problem. Like I don't want to get too far ahead, or but I think the Eagles have the best set of tackles in the league, and two of the top at their respective positions easily. Well, the Chiefs are the opposite, in the opposite And don't tell me Cam won't be able to do okay against Tuney, you know what I mean, even the great ones on the inside. He'll at least battle them to a draw.

Right, you're not going to dominate that, No, no, no, absolutely. But anyways, let's get to a break. Steelers coming off a twenty seven fourteen win yesterday, care business over this. The Cleveland Browns twenty one consecutive that regular season wins. Here in Pittsburgh against the Browns. They haven't been swept by the Browns since nineteen eighty eight, and that streak will live another year. The Brown's also officially eliminated. Oh, I didn't know that from the players. I was just surprised that I've seen this happen like four or five times now over the years, when the Browns lose a late season game to the Steelers that then fire the coach. Yeah, that happens quite It didn't happen yesterday.

I think he's safe this year.

I guess.

I think he gets one more. But they're in a dark place as a tranchise right now. Yeah.

Absolutely, But let's get to a break. When we return, we'll be talking to Steelers play by play announcer Rob King. We'll do 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 Steelers Nation Radio.

And we are back. I am Dale Lolly. He is the Matt Williamson and we're joined on the Justin Miller Hotline by published author Rob King. How you doing?

King?

Here the steel voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers getting another victory yesterday, twenty seven to fourteen over the Cleveland Browns. They imp proved to five and one at home, of course, three and one in the Division, seven and two in the Conference. Those are all great numbers, Yeah, the kind of numbers that you want to have and improving to. They've now won twenty one consecutive game regular season games at Akroshuer Stadium against the Browns and rob that one. Once the second quarter started, that was pretty much the end of it.

It was thank you for the book plug by the way, the Door in the Stone available on Amazon all the retailers, Yes, Mags, a wonderful gift.

So thank you, Thanks you the guys, thank you for the plug. I appreciate it.

So you know what I really felt like when there was nothing going on, that the Keanu Benton interception kind.

Of changed the game.

Yeah, yeah, I thought so.

I thought it was the clear turning point of the game. And you know, from there on they were in control. But you know, they got some help along the way because the Browns of the Browns, a couple of miss field goals, a.

Couple of interceptions.

You know, you mentioned that. Look, the Browns had a chance to do something they hadn't done in you know, in thirty three years, in that thirty three seasons, not years, because remember they weren't the Cleveland Browns for a little while. Yeah, and that is sweetest season series against the Steers. After they won the first game up in Cleveland.

Couldn't do it.

You mentioned the twenty one game you know, home winning streak during the regular season for the Steelers. You know, the Browns just they couldn't get out of their own way, and the students let them, Steelers let them do a pratfall and they played. You know, Russell Wilson made smart decisions of the ball and there wasn't something there. He threw it away. It looked disjointed, but you know, rather than forcing something down the field on the third and six and you know, fans groaning and where you know, where's the rhythm on the offense, just throw it away. We'll find a way. We're the better team. And they found a way, and they were the better team.

So I've yet to watch you all twenty two, but you had a different vantage point than me. I watched from TV like most of our listeners, What did you think the absence of pickings meant, I mean more man coverage, you know, less rolling coverages, a certain direction, stack in the box. And do you think the Steelers took a minute or two to a just.

I think that.

I think that all those things were part of it. And I think Cleveland and other teams dare this, yearers to run this yeatherers. It feels to me, Matt, and you have the statistics on this, it feels to me that they see.

A lot of heavy boxes.

Now, I am, as I mentioned you guys before, I watched the game differently.

Now it's it's up to me to watch.

The ball, it's up to Wolf to watch kind of what else is going on around.

So my guess is I thought, as well it felt that way.

Yeah, yeah, it felt that way.

And then and I think other teams have done that.

And it also felt like.

Guys weren't open because I felt like Russell Wilson had enough time to get back, take a look and then okay maybe one two, and then okay, nobody's open now right, I got to get rid of the ball.

So and he was a lot more willing to run yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, without seeing like you said, you know, a different replay of at a different angle of it. My guess is that that was happening because guys weren't open. If you know, felt okay, there's you know, you take your snap, you look boom boom, and now you're throwing the ball away.

There's usually not time for boom boom boom. You know, you have a chance to take a couple.

Of looks and then you know, get out of there running the ball or throw the ball away and understand that you know you're the you are the better team, and you will find a way to win this game.

And the piggyback off that though, I think he realized, Okay, my guys aren't swanning Stallworth and Pickens. I mean they're struggling to get open against good secondary. But as the game goes on, they're still single covered. Whether it's Scotty Miller or Mike Williams or whoever, I'm gonna throw them open now. I'm gonna give him a chance one on one. Trust my guys.

Yeah, yeah, he made some good throws. I mean, you know, when you are you know, and I think Scotty Miller, you know, look, he played a couple of games and and just made really good contributions catching the ball. You know, suddenly now he's a gunner and he's a holder in in Indianapolis.

You know, just a nice football player.

To have on your team and and be available when you need to press him into service. But I don't think the prototypical guy that you're running up the sideline with and throwing him an over the shoulder.

Face replacement, guys don't.

Don't.

Necessarily you want to live right.

When you're throwing it over the shoulder throw, you want that shoulder to be a little higher off the ground.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that which is not to say that Scotty Miller didn't didn't do some really valuable things for that team. He did, But yes, I think Pickens was missed. And guys, you know, we know this like you you know, when when you have to take a look at the Bengals for example, right, you have to guard uh Jamar Chase. Okay, that's a problem, and it's a bigger problem because you also have t Higgins, which then becomes a bigger problem because you have Chase Brown out of the backfield and then Jessecki and most teams run out of personnel to cover guys that are that good, So you're gonna get mismatches somewhere else. Well, when you have a fine secondary like the Browns do and you don't have to roll your coverage one way or the other, that that's an advantage for a team like that. So, you know, I think there's you know, Pickens is out there, you want to go one on one, Well, that's that's.

At your peril, you know. So.

And you know, I think the team's guarding the Bengals right of defending the Bengals. They have to worry about Jamar Chase. But man, oh man, you worry about him too much. Now you got Higgins. So I think that and everybody has their everybody has their role.

In their place that they fit in best on a team.

Just because a guy isn't a number one doesn't mean he's not a good football player. There aren't a lot of ones walking around on the planet. There are on a number a lot of franchise quarterbacks running around on the planet. So that's no slight to anybody. It's just that's just kind of the way things are.

One thing that I thought was a positive out of all that yesterday rob is that they were able to get Mike Williams involved a little bit more, and you know, people have been I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about that. You know, when are they going to start throwing a ball of Mike Williams. I'm like, it's been four games, let's not you know, he's not like he's not out there, because that was one thing. Why isn't Mike Williams out there? Well, he played seventy snaps in four games, and he barely played the first game that he's with the team, so you know, he was playing about twenty snaps a game. But now they were able to incorporate him a little bit in a game type setting where you know, now maybe he and Wilson are starting to get on the same page a little bit, and maybe you start to see that happening down the stretch, best things might be ahead.

Yeah, I think that's entirely possible. You know again, that's that's a necessity thing. I remember talking to you know, I was having a conversation once with Jamie Dixon about, hey, do you guys, you know you lost a player, but now this gives other guys a chance to play. You think this could be better for you down the stretch. Well, if it was gonna be better for us down the stretch, we'd be doing it without the guy, wouldn't. We wouldn't need him to get hurt to be able to make that move. They're coaching out there too, So I do think though that sometimes, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, and you got to get guys out there and hopefully that will in fact pay off for all parties and make them again more difficult to defend. You know, if you feel like, look, this is our advantage, this is where.

We can go.

Yes, you've got George Pickens, but look, you know, Calvin Austin has been making plays for this team. Fireman has been making place, you know, in a little bit more modest fashion. Washington has been making place for the team. I mean he's not you know, hasn't gotten into the end zone a ton, But I mean you're finding they'll they'll find the mismatches. And if you can find another guy that can potentially supply a mismatch for you, even if that guy is you know, uh, the third man down on the list, that's okay because those guys can have big games for you too. So you know, because you know, listen, you have two really good corners. Well maybe that nickel guy isn't so good, or maybe that fourth you know, maybe that dime package guy that you're bringing in, maybe that's your mismatch. And the deeper you are, the more capability you have of exploiting whatever mismatch is presented to you.

And I also think, like, okay, for future opponents. If you're gonna roll coverage, you're gonna roll the safety over top of George Pickens, which most teams are gonna do. You your second cornerback who's one on one with Mike Williams on the other side, he'd better have some pretty good size.

To him, say, better be a five to nine dude.

Yeah, he's gonna get he's gonna get dunked on.

That's right, That's right, you know.

And then okay, so now maybe that happens, and now maybe another team, Hey, listen, their best dying packages with the safety and you know, we're gonna we're gonna put that safety over.

By Calvin Austin. Good luck man, you know.

Uh So, you know, like I said that, the deeper, the deeper that you go with your talent, the more capabilities you have of exploiting the other team. And and so I think that, you know, maybe Mike Williams, you know, coming forward and having a game like that will give them another guy on their roster that will eventually and it may not, it might not be every week, And I think that this is gonna be.

And we thought this going in without another you know, hey, we're got they got to get somebody else for pickings.

And you know the rumors where they were trying to write a UK and other guys that they were trying to pick up. So this is nobody's blindsided by this. But if you have a quarterback who can read defenses like Russell Wilson, who knows what to exploit like a guy like Russell Wilson does, and you have enough variety that's somewhere in there, you can and you know what, this week, it might be that slow nickel against that slow safety against Calvin Austin. Next week it might be that shorter nickel against Mike Williams. You know, you have enough variety, enough and enough depth I think on this team to be able to find something outside of George Pickens hopefully every game that you can take advantage of.

So two guys that I don't think get discussed enough that we already know are good players. They're not bottom of the roster guys or foundational offensive weapons. Are Jalen Warren and Pat Fryermuth. And I really feel like over this last month, two, three weeks, whatever, both these guys have kind of leveled up at the right time. I mean, they look better than ever. I think Friarmuth and Wilson are starting to really gel. His snaps are going up, and frankly, I thought Warren was their best offensive player on the field lay yesterday Wilson aside, you know.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. I didn't look at it in that context, but I think you're right. And Jalen Warren, I think we all really think Jalen Warren is a terrific football player.

And then he got hurt.

He was dealing with injuries and he's, you know, to using Mike Tomlin phrase, you know, trying to jump on a moving train, and you know, is he is he fully you know, he comes back and then he gets hurt again and now he's out for a while, and so it is just natural that it's gonna take him some time to get up to speed. And I think we are seeing more and more lately the jail And Warren that we saw last year, where he's breaking tackles and just hard to bring down. You know, yeah, explosive, and you know, I like the fact that, you know, one thing I like about both Nagi and Jalen Warren, you know, and I think Jalen's a little more explosive. But you know, neither guy shows the least bit of interest in being tackled, you know what I mean. They will fight you right down to the ground, and I love that. And every once in a while, Jalen Warren, you know, I've never seen a guy, rarely seen a guy that can get three inches off the ground like Jalen Warren not go down, you know, all of a sudden that arm comes out and he's bopping himself along and picking up another four or five yards or or getting himself back up right again so we can run. So yeah, he's he's a guy. And again you talk about different mismatches. I mean, would it surprise me somewhere in the next few weeks or in the playoffs if you looked up and all of a sudden he had one hundred and you know, fifty yards of total offense in a game. That wouldn't surprise me. Because he can get out in the perimeter. In the passing game, he could he can break a big run for you. That's why I sted like maybe he could be the weapon and Pat Fryermouth finding the end zone more and more regularly. You know, he's a guy that that teams have to account for. So again, I think there's there are a wide variety of good football players that the Steelers, Arthur Smith, Mike Tomlin, Russell Wilson have at their disposal to be able to utilize in a way. And like I said, I don't I don't think outside of Pickings, you know, I think it's gonna be a different hero every week kind of thing. But I do think there's enough variety there that that there can be a different hero in addition to Pickens every week.

Well, we've seen that on defense in a lot of different ways. I mean, you look at yesterday, Deshaun Elliott has thirteen tackles in that game. It looked like there were two of them out there. And while he was doing that, Patrick Queen still had ten tackles in that game. I mean, you got two guys combined for twenty three tackles, you know, just all over the field. They both had a pass defense as well, kind of limiting what Najoku could do. He got thirteen hit, thirteen targets and I think it was seven catches for forty two yards.

Yeah.

Yeah, one of them a fifteen yard touchdown push off.

Yeah that that he basically shoved it out of the ground.

I'm still you know, if Mike Williams, if what Mike Williams did was pass interference in what Nadjoku did was certainly pass appearance.

But I mean then you look at what Cam Hayward did yesterday. He was a monster again yesterday. TJ Watt with that, I thought he kind of set the tone for the game with that tackle for a loss on the on the first play from like, okay, we only had one tackle for a loss for the first time around. Here's one right out of the gate down. Yeah, pinned them back and basically got you know, put the Steelers in field goal range to starter drive. You know, high Smith comes back and gets a sack, hits it, hits a quarterback a couple of times. I mean, it was just a solid defensive effort all the way around once again, and you held that Browns offense which had you know, ran up and down the field against Denver in Denver last Sunday against Monday Night, I should say, against a really good Denver defense that I have a lot of respect for, and you hold that that offense under three hundred yards and fourteen points.

You know, you're talking about a defense filled with great and really good players. I mean, Cam Hayward is a great player having a great season. I mean, you know, again the talk of the offseason, you know, what can this guy? What does he still have left? And he's getting older and listen, those are and I understand it up probably upset Cam and probably gave him a little bit of extra edge this year. They're understandable questions. You know, father time's always going to catch up with a guy. Maybe it's catching up with Aaron Rodgers in New York. Maybe that we're seeing the beginning of an end. You see the beginning of the end of every great player who stays around. So Cam Hayward and I'm sure Cam Hereward's like listen, man, I was hurt last year. That's why my numbers weren't there, and Cams right, that's why his numbers weren't there. There's nothing like a motivated great player. And Cam Hayward, I think was a motivated great player. And in my opinion, you know, we're talking about this earlier with Matt Dale, but you know, listen, somebody was telling me that the odds on favorites for defensive Player of the Year were t J. Watt and Miles Garrett in some order. Well, Cam Hayward might be muscling his way into that conversation a couple more weeks like that. He we look up and he has a couple of big games on a big stage, and we might be you know, he's he is PFF's highest rated interior defensive linement, so I think that he is.

He's just having a fabulous season. T J.

Watt is such a great player, Alex Higsmith is so good. Countum Benton is so good. Queen is elevating his game to that status that we knew he was, and it took him a couple weeks to acclimate.

That's natural.

And then you have guys like that, you know we knew were pretty good. I always really like Deshaun Elliott's game. Well, now that I'm seeing him every every game, I'm like, my goodness, he's even better than I thought he was. And I didn't know a lot about Dante Jackson and wow, I mean he's turned out to be a really good player too. So it's just it's a defense again that that added so much in the offseason, so much speed in the middle of the field that was lacking a little bit in past years. And yeah, the defense, you know, rose to the challenge and did what they needed to do to come out with a win. And I'm looking forward to them. You know, they're gonna get some big challenges coming up and I I can't wait.

I just think it's going to be fun to see.

Absolutely. We'll start that on Sunday. Three games and eleven days there for you, Rob, So, I hope you have the vocal I hope you have the vocal cords all warmed up.

Yeah, get out the lemon pineapples. I told pineapples are good for your throat. Oh okay, I'll be I'll be running high on citrus.

There you go, oll King here, we'll see you later this week. We appreciate you dropping by. That is Rob King published author check out the book The Door in the in the Stone, right, Yes, yes, the Door in the Stone. You can find that on Amazon. He's Matt Williams. Yes, there you go. He's Matt Williamson. I am Dale Lolly. You're listening to the Drive here on the Steelers Audio Network.

Matt.

Now, 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 cast in Steelers Nation Radio.

And we are back. I am Dale Lolly. He is the Matt Williamson and this is the Drive on the Steelers Audio Network. And of course you can hear the Drive every Monday through Friday from four to six pm right here on these very airwaves. You can also download the Steelers Mobile app and listen to the show on there, or you can watch the show or listen to it on YouTube as well. As Tyler Vittmeyer gets that up in pretty good fashion every day after the show. Yeah, leave us comments on there. We appreciate all that stuff. So, Matt, we're gonna play a little game here, and I want you to name the AFC team. I'm not going to tell you, I'm just gonna give you their points four and points against.

I tell you.

Okay, So Team A has scored two hundred and seventy seven points and allowed two hundred and seven. Team B has scored three hundred and eighty three points and allowed three hundred and eighteen.

I was going to say the Bengals, but they're for a Team B, but they're not that close. They are closer to zero. This isn't easy.

Team Team A is the Chargers. Two hundred and seventy seven points scored. That adds up two hundred and seven allowed, which is the best in pretty low right. Yeah, yeah, they're both very low, but it's a good gap. Team B is the Ravens. They have almost the same gap. The Ravens are plus sixty five. The Chargers are plus seventy.

For the season, and now they've all had their buys.

And they're both eight and five. Okay, So Team A this time around has scored three hundred and eight points and allowed to eighty eight. Okay. Team B has scored three twenty three and allowed two thirty.

Eight thirty eight. That one's probably the Steelers.

That one's the Steelers at plus eighty five.

Do you have the one Denver? Nah, they wouldn't have scored that much Chiefs Probably that is Houston. Oh okay, how about the Chiefs gaps on.

The Chiefs are only plus twenty.

Wow, that's surprising.

I'm sorry. The Texans are only plus the Texans are plus twenty. All right, Team A three hundred and eight points scored two hundred and fifty two points allowed. Team that's the Chiefs. That's the Chiefs. Team B three hundred and ninety seven points scored two hundred and sixty eight allowed. Buffalo, that's Buffalo.

Yeah.

I think they're number one, and they're number one point differential in at least the AFC.

Detroit might be one.

Detroit is number one. Yeah, Philly three and the final team in the AFC playoff race right now or was in it? You have Denver at three hundred and five points scored two hundred and thirty four All.

Yeah, I mean that's the allowed's good. Yeah, they've had a couple of bad games here and there.

But the reason I was looking at that, if you look at this from that perspective, the Steelers might have the most complete team in the league.

I agree.

In the at least in the AFC in terms of offensive scoring and defensive scoring.

I mean, if you want to put turnover differential and special teams and penalties that are team wide things, they might be number one in the league. Like Detroit's defense, isn't.

It's leaking a little bit?

Yeah, I mean it's good on paper so far and it's told not but it would worry me going into the into the playoffs. Philly doesn't have a lot of weaknesses.

Either, although the passing game is getting so.

This is bonkers too. Mike Sando writes to the Athletic Now, buddy of ours, and he did what's a big concern of all the top teams, and he had a hard time coming up with the Eagles one. Although we're gonna talk more Eagles, they're passing game and some stuff that Carolina did to them and Hurts in general would have me a little concerned.

But how about this.

This is absolutely nuts to me about the Eagles. The Eagles are scoring one point three offensive points in the first quarter of games this year. That ranks seven hundred and ninety second out of seven hundred and ninety six offenses since two thousand.

Wow.

I mean, like that's unbelievable. I mean, I didn't realize that they were that slow as starters.

On all I'm watching yesterday's game. I'm obviously I'm at the Steelers game that the Eagles are playing Carolina. But I have Saquon Barkley on my fantasy team, and I start, I'm looking at this thing. I'm going, why does Saquon only have two carries in the first quarter?

Yeah, Like, and all they do is run the ball. All they do is run the ba Yeah. I mean they're the only team that runs the ball higher percentage than the Steelers. Yeah, it's been even higher lately. It's crazy because they're hiding hurts a little bit.

Yeah, but I look at it.

But I agree that the Steelers are one of the teams with the least weaknesses if you.

Look at what they've done since Wilson has been at averaging twenty eight points a game with Wilson at quarterback, that's fifth best in the league in recent years. Yeah, yeah, right, But the defense is still one of the top in the league in terms of scoring defense.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're not giving they're not giving up a bunch of points.

And you just did we were just talking about point differential, I wonder if we just sorted point differential from the day Wilson took over. I bet they're right there with Detroit and pretty damn good Bills, and they're not. They're far off for the year either. I mean, they're like fifth or six best in the league.

But you look at that Bill's Yeah, that Bill's team scores more points than the Steelers, but they allow more points in the Steelers.

They're they're where the Chiefs are kind of the opposite Chiefs are.

The Chiefs aren't scoring a lot of points right now.

They're starting to lick points up though. Yeah, but they don't win by wide margin, no, I mean.

They've given up two hundred and fifty two. Really, if you look at the AFC, the team that's the closest to the Steelers in terms of not allowing a bunch of points and being okay on offense above average is Denver.

Yeah, their offense has been surprisingly good. I don't know if it's sustainable through a playoff run, but it's been pretty good. Yeah, I mean the defense is one of the better ones in the league.

You know, Baltimore is given up over three hundred points they're high on both, then they're high on both low. Yeah, the Chargers are on the low end.

Of it, right right.

You know, Denver Pit's are pretty high on both ends. Yeah, Denver and Pittsburgh kind of in the middle. Pittsburgh a little bit better offensively and a little bit better. Well, Denver's a little bit better. No. Waituh, they're basically even defensively.

Just a side to it. I'm just curious. Does any AFC team, non playoff team have a positive plus minus Molds or Miami? I know Cincinnati is like right at zero.

Yeah, Cincinnati's minus five. That's actually the closest.

Ok.

Yeah, so still have a game to go yea tonight.

But Miami is still minus twenty eight, are they still Yeah, indian you'd be closed. Indianapolis is minus thirty one.

Wow. Okay, so only the playoff teams have a positive point different Yeah, seven out of sixteen.

And that's you know, some a bunch of these other teams are you know, the Jets are mine. The Jets are minus forty three, three and ten and minus forty nine.

Yeah.

They just find way salute since he fits that mold too. Yeah, they find way eye.

On both ends. I mean they score a ton, andy allow it tone, But I mean the fact that you have such a bad record and you're hovering around zero is not great. Not great.

No, And if you look at the Eagles, the Eagles are elect broken. By the way Eagles are eleven and two, it's very close to Pittsburgh. They've scored three forty two, they've allowed to thirty four. Okay, so they've scored a little bit more and they've allowed basically the same.

They also shortened games a lot by running so much too, like the Steelers, you know what I mean, if you're a high pass team, there's more variants, there's more plays run. You know, that adds up. Their defense in particular lately has been really strong. Wasn't great yesterday. I mean Carolinas did some good stuff in that game.

They could have won that game. Holds onto that Paul. They lose that game.

Bryce Young was the best quarterback in that game. Yeah, I mean it doesn't say that, you know, Hurts is junk, but they're having some issues.

But if the Steelers win that, if they have a path to victory on Sunday, it's stopping Saquon Barkley and not allowing Hurts to run.

That's what I was going to say. I was gonna kind of say it for later in the week. But I'm not saying that the Panthers created this blueprint. They don't have any good defensive players, but they played Hurts really smart, like he had an extremely high time to throw. It was like three point five. Oh yeah, you can sit there all day long. I don't think they blitzed very much. They dedicated himself to stop in Saquon and okay, you're out side receivers are really scary, but we just want you in the pocket because you don't do good things late and downs, you know. Yeah, so this Seriers are way better equipped to do that than the Panthers.

Yeah, their guys will actually get home if you give them three and a half seconds.

Exactly right. I mean you might have a three man rush that gets home after a while or for you know, yeah, without question, or at least disturb them.

Yeah.

I just thought that was interesting with the point differentials and the kind of the if you start looking at the grand scheme.

Of things in the AFC, it's like, leave enough games to go off of it. And everybody said their teams are who they are at this point, Yeah, pretty much.

You know people keep talking about the Chiefs, Well they're getting by, and you know they're going to turn it on in the playoffs, and maybe this is who they are.

I think this is who they are. I mean, like a team like the Niners might turn it on, probably too little, too late. The Miamis started to turn it on.

Until they get to a cold weather game this weekend.

And it might be the end of the road here, but at least they're showing their true colors.

Now.

That doesn't mean you can get in, yeah, but Steelers are a good team.

They are, they absolutely are.

So let's get to a break. That's going to do it for hour number one of 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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