The Advanced ScoutWe got some work to do. This is the Advanced Scout with Tom Opferman and Mac Williamson.
Steelers approved to five and two with a big one over the New York Jets on Sunday Night Football. They welcome the other New York team to town now this week on Monday Night Football, the two and five New York Giants.
Matt is a bad football team coming into town.
I gotta be honest with you, I'm a little surprised they're two and five, Like, how did they find two wins?
Yeah, maybe I'm not as low on them, but.
It's the defense.
The defense, I say, they rushed the passer, and that's my baby. I mean, if you can rush the passer, that's a great place to start. Neighbors and they you know, they got the neighbors as Yeah, they dude, Like, I wouldn't hate being the GM of this team with an early pick in some cap space to go start from here. But man, I mean, anyone that watched that Eagles game, there was a million sacks in the game, most of them against you know, the Giants. But the Giants are scary rushing passer too. But one of their best dudes not named Dexter Lawrence Andrew Thomas got hurt and now it just crumbles everything. Yea, you know they used to leave him alone on the best pass rushers. He's a great left tackle, and now they can't really run the ball. The quarterback's middling to be hind and the line doesn't pass pro up at all.
I like what you're saying though, as far as the nest might be there for something.
A young quarterback, if you you know, show up the line some more.
Get a good running back in there, another receiver to pair with the neighbors.
But yeah, defense aren't that hard to find.
They're not good. GM is going to be able to find them, for sure.
They rush the passer.
I don't really need to do much with the defense. We'll get to all that in a second.
Probably throw a tight end in the mix or something. You know.
We also have to get your take on the Steelers last week, and that's about as good of a debut you could ask for for Russell Wilson.
Yeah, and it's not like pat your back on yourself on the back thing. But I thought Wilson was the best option pretty much from the start, and a lot of the things we.
Saw right away, Matt, I mean, yeah, the first quarter was bad.
The first quarters bad.
Like you and I who were on team Russ and saying this is the right move, We're nervous, so for sure they're like, oh, this doesn't look great.
I'm gonna have to eat some crow on the right.
Like Austin had that drop. And then the next two drives were bad.
But then it was everything we said, Mat confirmed red zone efficiency bangs, four touchdowns on six trips, play action.
Bang like one hundred numbers. It's unbelievable.
Just just looking more professional, looking, smoother of an operation.
No pre snap penalty, crisp, you know, like all the thing they were like the four things I talked about for weeks of you know, a million people ask you who do you prefer. I'm like, I like, justin a lot. He's done good things, but those four areas were lacking, and now their strengths throwing the ball in the end zone.
That's right, Yeah, Matt, you said for since summer, right Rust Wilson throws touchdown passes.
It'll always followed up with I know how dumb.
That sounds, but it's true, Like it just nice rose touchdown passes and he threw two of them in the red zone.
For you, the Steelers haven't had passing touchdowns in.
Three years, and the Pickens ones is a better throw, Like, that's a big time throw. I kind of liked the Jefferson one more, Matt, because that's all pre snap. He knew Van was going to be open right in that flat Yep. He looked to the left and right there and banged.
Yeah, exactly, that's just he just right. I mean, it's even better. But I kind of equated to people like it reminds me of Steelers Colts. Flacco comes in.
Just picks you apart.
I know how to attack this defense. I still have enough to do it. I might not be the guy used to be, but I still have I haven't knuckle curve I didn't used to have, you know, the gritty old stuff. You know.
Well, according to your stat pack, seventy five percent of the teams that start five and two since nineteen ninety make the playoffs. Forty three point five percent of them win their division. Steelers looked like a playoff team to me now, especially with Russell Wilson and looking at the rest of the pack in the AFC, as I.
Say they should grab a wild card.
I think there's five teams that are is close to being a lock, and the AFC as possible, and the Steelers are one.
And I know the Ravens are scary, but yeah, with Russ you are a legitimate threat to them in that ANFC North.
I know you've brought up a couple of times too. Dale brings it up a lot like you're not going to run on the Ravens. If you want to be dudes, you're gonna have to throw the football.
Look at Baker on Sunday night or Monday night football. The only reason the score looked better than it actually was because he started throwing the ball all over the yard in yeah and half and they've had a good first half throwing the ball.
He lost his receivers though, that's.
Too but right, the game looked closer than it was.
Right, But you can throw the ball on the.
You can throw on the Ravens their past defensive sport.
But we're here to talk about the Giants. The series history between these two teams. They haven't met since twenty twenty, they have faced off seventy eight times, though New York leads the series forty four thirty one to three leading back to nineteen thirty three. With that's right, the Pittsburgh Pirates. They lost the first six meetings against New York. In fact, in the first seventeen matchups, Pittsburgh went two fourteen and one.
Against the Giants.
The Steelers are in the midst of a three game winning streak in the series, and in the Super Bowl era, Pittsburgh is seven to four against the Giants, having only played one another eleven times, never in the postseason since nineteen seventy. So if a New York Giant fan comes up to you and he's like, oh, we own you guys. In the series history, forty four wins the thirty one losses, that's fugazi, right, that's all.
Pre Super Bowl era.
When you start to look at the Super Bowl era, it's Pittsburgh seven, Giants four and they don't ever meet whereas they met a ton pre Super Bowl.
Yeah, I mean, another thing I do for that. It's actually my least favorite part is find a memorable game. I didn't know any I mean, as long as these teams have been in the league, I'm sure there's more than what I came up with. But they're you know, I was talking to Dale and I'm some of these other dudes came up with some decent ones, but it's like, no, it's not like Cowboys or Raiders or you know, you got to.
Ben beatn Eli Manning matchup in there.
Yeah, that's actually one was recommended. I'm like, that's the first time they met each other.
The Giants have been outscored by fifty points this year. That's very bad. The Stubers have a point differential of plus sixty that's different from.
The past few years.
Never they're always.
The negative team with a winning record, right, it's so rare. Now they're a top five in the NFL as far as point differential is concerned, second half point differential is plus sixth.
That's one of the most impressive things going.
That's the best in football. Yeah, Kansas City sixty eight.
Minnesota nope, Detroit nope. It's Pittsburgh that has the best point differential in the second half.
So a lot of people, and rightfully so, have been critical of the Steelers. Why don't they start quick enough? That's fair. I mean, there has been struggles an early series on both sides of the ball, especially lately, no doubt, but The other side of the coin is their halftime adjustments must be pretty decent because they are playing their best football late. And I think some of it's just their physicality. They beat up on you and sticking with the run, and I know that's not fun, but it bears fruit in the fourth quarter.
I know that they had a slow start in Russ's first game on Sunday Night Football, but I expect that thing or that offense to be a thing of the past soon.
A scripted Russell Wilson opening drive should bear some fruit.
That's a good call. They know each other better now, play caller. I mean a new center and new coach, new quarterback. And frankly, he was rusty.
Oh absolutely, Honestly, I said this on the standard today. Maybe we should have been talking about that more. Yeah, that he's going to be rusty, like he hasn't played since Christmas last year, Like this is not going to be easy for him. No, Honestly, it's surprising how fast the rust came off. Like, yeah, you maybe expected to point his quarter and then he starts to turn a corner and then you're ready for the next game.
But like second quarter hit and it was.
Like okay, Yeah, I got the moon.
Ball to George and I'm right back on the horse.
And all the quotes from like his teammates were like his mind was there the whole time. You know, he knew he wasn't playing his best, but I'll get it. Don't worry, guys.
You know, let's look at that Giant defense, because that is the best.
He gets a little scary.
Yeah, Pittsburgh offense, they're passing the ball on forty sixty eight percent of their snaps forty four percent of the snaps last week, so that actually went down from their average. The Giants opponents have thrown the ball on fifty six point five percent of their plays. That's just seventeenth highest. There's another stat in here for the New York Giants' opponents are just.
Not holding onto the football against them. They're trying to get the ball out.
Yeah. Five pass rush is very scary.
Five point nine nine yards downfield or less is the average pass attempt that comes against the Giants, because you don't have the time against this pass rush to get receivers deep.
Because Dexhah Lawrence is one of the best players in the league. I mean, he is a nose tackle that never comes off the field. He's not Casey Hampton run stuffer dude. He is an elite pass rusher that also eats up doubles and does all the nose tackle stuff.
He's like Aaron Donald.
Now that Donald has retired, he's kind of taken that back three thirty.
I'm not say he's better than Aaron Donald, but he's huge. Frankly, him and Cam Hayward and Chris Jones are having the best year of any defensive tackles in the league.
Cam rely is having a wonder It really is in that.
Level right now. But that's the thing is not only do they get pressure, he's so close to the quarterback coming off the nose, he gets pressure. Now you know the boss to come out.
Rust likes to roll out a lot though. Yes, does that help a little bit against exter Lawrence.
But their edge guys are good too, even with Thibodeau injured. Jelari's a good player and Burns a real good player.
Yeah, big acquisition this offseason. Brian Burns player in his prime, getting from Carolina who was shipping a lot of pieces off as there.
He's a top ten edge guy.
Yeah, this is a defense that should strike some fear into you. However, they do allow a seventy one percent completion percentage.
So I think it's because it's short.
Because it's all five, that makes sense. So their corners are better than I was trying to lead into there.
Yeah, it's the youngest defense in the league. The front is what there is the best part of it, without question. But I don't see glaring weaknesses either.
How's Deontay Banks doing the Steelers were around Yeah, yeh yeah, maybe twenty three.
He's a good outside corner. It looks like it was a bright future.
I'm so glad I can ask this questions with some serious nature to it.
Now, who is Russ going to pick on?
Because Matt that is something that really shined through as well in his first game when Sauce went out with the injury and you're down to your third straight corner on George, Uh, there's my guy right there. Like good quarterbacks just pick on those weak links. Yeah, we've seen that happen to the Steelers a lot in the past. Now you have that weapon for really the first time since Ben, a guy that can just attack a weakness.
Yeah, and even like when Sauce was in there at sure what he's still went after him. Yeah, he wasn't afraid. Yeah, right, Like I definitely think that it's just a pickings thing. They're going to throw two pickings no matter who's on them. I'm kind of avoiding your question because we're recording this on Tuesday, and I haven't dug into their personnel to the level I do of Steelers' opponents. They're just kind of another team on the top of my head, and I don't know someone that I would say is a glaring weakness. But there also isn't Sauce or Certain or Terrell either. You know.
You say that they are the youngest defense in the NFL. I like having a quarterback that's elite above the.
Neck against the defense like that.
You would think mistakes could be, you know, immaturity.
Stuff could happen, and he could take advantage of it. We talked about the pass rush.
Their four point four sacks per game is the highest in the NFL, and over the past three games they averaged five point three. New York averages six point seven sacks per game on the road.
Which is weird.
Your pass rush is usually better.
Ahl eleven different Giants have a sack this season. The man that we've been talking about, the main man on that defense, Dexter Lawrence, has seven sacks. He had two sacks in Week seven on just eighteen pass rush opportunities, so he's efficient. His eleven point eight percent sack rate was his highest since Week one of twenty twenty. Steelers did only give up one sack on Sunday Night football. But the Giants are sacking opposing quarterbacks on eleven point six percent of their dropbacks. That's not only the best in football, it's one point four percent better than the second place Denver Broncos.
This is the best pass rush shouldn't in the NFL, I.
Think, I tend to think. So.
We're talking about sample size, but an eight game sample size pretty tell the story.
Yeah, And two notes is usually when you talk about numbers like that, it's the Niners are chiefs that are playing with a fourteen point lead and they're just pinning their ears back, you know, and everyone's throw throw, throw, sack, sack, sack. These guys aren't ever winning, you know, I mean like they're not. It's they get after it on a very efficient manner. And yes, the Steelers only allowed one sack. But Wilson was under a lot of pressure, especially early on.
He held onto the ball for two of.
A backup center that has to deal with la.
I know he didn't play bad, but he did okay against well he did he did, I mean, especially as a game went on. There's a couple of plays where Williams looked like you know that the elephant that gets through the look like when they get past them, and like the speed the running back even has the ball terrifying. There was a couple of times where Williams was just like a busted right through but the Steelers were able to get away from him.
There's'll be a couple of on Monday Night thos.
Yes, But last week, Russell Wilson held in the ball for two point five seconds or longer on twenty one of twenty nine pass attempts.
Uh, it's pretty good.
Seventy two percent completion percentage seventy two point excuse me, seventy two percent of his drop backs he held on for two point five or longer. He completed eleven of them for two hundred and four yards. You gotta hold onto the ball to get a lot of yardage. And it's just the name of the game. But that's always what he's done, right.
I would say he's a hold the ball longer guy. But play action also takes longer, you know. They they did a lot of play action their third.
And Lea Smith loves Russell. Wilson loves it.
One of the reasons he was brought here. Folks. They planned this ahead of time, you know, and they threw deep I mean, you're gonna throw deep balls to pickings. It's not gonna come out in two point two.
This is another little minutia thing, but the play action looks so much crisper with rus He's a much better play act.
He sells it so much more than fields.
Sometimes with fields and I it's not trying to pick on right, but this is a fact, like he kind of nonchalantly does.
The plays there.
Yeah, pull it back tight and dip the head and like kind of jog for a half a second to kind of sell it like.
It is a quarterback job to sell it.
The guy who he was playing on Sunday Night Football, ass he has done it better than anybody in his career. He's one of the best at selling that. But Russ does it really to that level. Too, can really get a defense to bite.
So Dale has the exact numbers and I'll incorporate it when I see him next. But the uh, they're third in the league and the usage of play.
Action for the year, it's a massive improvement.
It's a massive improvement. But they were averaging like four point nine yards per play action attempt with fields in just this game.
It was like at twelve, Yeah, I saw Dale tweet that. Yeah, tripled it.
Right now, the Giants have generated the highest sack rate twenty four point four percent of dropbacks that they see on past attempts where the quarterback holds onto the ball for two point five seconds or longer. He's going to get sacked in this game, yes, two three, four times probably, I'm sure of it. But what people seem to very underestimate when it comes to rus says he can shake that off and he's a tough dude, Like he's never.
A fragile player.
Like you never thought of Russell Wilson as a guy that would be out with injury, like he's missed time in his career, but like this dude gets sacked very little time for a guy gets sacked a ton, Like he's the biggest Big Ben kind of guy as far as sack totals in his career, Like he's gonna be up in the all time leader board when he's said done.
He's not big Ben's size, Like, this is a tough dude. He'll be able to take it. He'll handle.
There'll be some second and thirteen's and that kind of stuff too.
And Matt, don't you think some of the ugly throwaways that you saw early that's just him punting on a play like, yeah, I don't need to and that's what you're gonna get out of rest, Like just because he doesn't tuck it and run for five yards like fields, you know, he'll throw a ball away on first and second down to hit you with a fifty yard pass on third nown.
Yeah, he's a big that's a veteran, lived in, Live to fight another day. Aaron Rodgers in his whole career too.
All right now, the ugly side of the New York Giants their offense. Dolphins are the only team averaging fewer points per game than New York. And we all know why the Dolphins are down there because of Toua's injury.
Two it comes back, it'll take like three.
Weeks and I think my Giants or Giants, but they average fourteen points per game. That's point three points fewer than the Steelers are allowing on defense fourteen point four, which is the best in or excuse me, the second best in football behind just the LA Chargers. So you got the second worst offense as far as point output versus the second best defense in the NFL.
Got like that, I think we know who's going to carry the day. Yeah, day night, which sure.
Sting lends back to have more I think about it what you just said. Okay, Russ throws one away in your punt, that's fine, you know. I mean, chances are that they're not going to walk right down the field on you.
No, I think the Giants are going to struggle to get to double digits, double digits in this football game.
Just like a pick six, something ripsacks or something goofy. You know.
The Giants are throwing the ball on fifty nine point eight percent of their offensive snaps. That's the seventh highest rate in the league. Pittsburgh's opponents are throwing at sixty one percent of the time, that's the fifth high rate in the league. That's a bit surprising, but the Steelers rush defense is also elite, So it's kind of like.
And what Giants run the ball poorly?
I'm talking about more like the people in the league still throwing on the Steelers like that's one of the best pass rushers you're gonna have to face.
But I guess you have to do something if you're not going to make.
One dimensional or whatever cliche you want, right, And Daniel Jones runs the ball fair amount too, and they still are a high pass team.
Yeah, Jones has carried the ball forty five times this year. He's their third leading rusher with just one hundred and sixty four yards. Why are they passing the ball so much with Dan Jones?
Because they have nobody.
Losing for one thing, you know. I mean, I'm sure a lot of it's in the fourth quarter, but I also think their run game's been that poor.
I don't want to ask you this to make it out to paint me into thinking the Giants were going to make the playoffs if they made this move, But they should have kept Saque right like that.
That's a probably. But I'm pretty excited about Tyrone Tracy. I mean, he's a rootie that he provides. Yeah, he's a good he was a receiver in college till his last year. But he's given them some juice and Neighbors Neighbors as a guy. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. They have some young players that are kind of exciting.
Just you know, they had nothing on that offense when they let in a Barkley, And I could say that at the time.
Because I didn't know what Neighbors was going to be.
I guess he has kind of presented himself as a good option movie.
For this doesn't sound like much to him, because you know, like instead of bringing back Barkley for twelve or whatever whatever it was, they gave it the Runyon, who's on a terrible guard. They gave it to the right tackle whose name I forget from the Raiders. He's okay too. Like their line was so full, right, Like those two are professional starting linemen. They needed that and probably more so than the back.
So they took the money away from the back and they messed in the guy the path for the back and then.
And it's okay, and then Thomas gets hurt and it's a mess because he was their star.
And you get a guy like Tyrone Tracy in the fifth round h and single.
Parry's not as good as they probably expected.
He should be back there too.
Yeah, yeah, he's okay. I've never been a big fan, but he's okay.
Daniel Jones through for ninety nine yards last week, completing fourteen of twenty one attempts. He and the Giants offense produced just ninety four net yards in nine first downs in the first three quarters.
Hard walk against Philadelphia.
They couldn't walk anybody.
I know.
It was a hard watch. Yeah.
Jones was sacked five times in the first half and eight sacks total for the Philadelphia defense against the New York Giants.
Do you think it's gonna be Jones starting the game? He was, I don't know. For Locke at the end.
Locke came in and completed three passes for six yards, which is unbelievably hard to do.
Right, So I'm not worried either way. Don't get me wrong.
I don't think that this is a Flacko versus Richardson situation. I know that Jones can run some, but it ain't like Richardson.
It ain't like No, it ain't like that.
So but he's a good runner.
And then mainly there ain't a Flacco coming off the bench. Like Drew Locke is a younger quarterback that doesn't have that kind of savviness and experience. So whoever they play is a advantage for the Steelers.
I would assume you're still sticking.
I was just gonna say, I think Jones probably plays at least one more week.
Give it a shot. Yeah, even getting beat up tough week to sing for your supper too. It isday night football.
And as a runner, he lowers his head and is a really physical, take punishment type runner, and he's gonna take punishment.
Oh it's gonna get ugly for him in this game.
Uh No, Giants ball carrier had more than six rushing attempts last week. New York only called three handoffs in the first half of the game, and it got but it got out of hand early to Yah fully just jumped out to that early lead.
If you could do that, look out.
You know that's stable too. He wants to be a past the ball kind of guy. Modern offense. Sometimes these coaches just stick with their scheme and you know, say we'll get better personnel later, and maybe that's what's happening.
Yeah, there's not a lot of answers on this side of the.
Ball should be an easy day for the Steelers defense a dominant.
In the passing game, everything goes to Neighbors and Wondelle Robinson.
So that leads us right into our key matchup, Molik Neighbors versus Joey Porter Junior. Neighbors had been injured for the past couple of weeks, came back last week.
A million targets.
It was very upset after the game last week.
You already started to hear her mouth off a little bit, I think after the game saying, you know, like, yeah, so he's starting to get frustrated despite putting himself on the map by his great player early in his rookie year. Now he goes up against the premier corner who I thought did wonderfully last week, Wilson and Adams.
He had took on both.
The Steelers didn't travel last week, and whoever lined up against Porter was was stuck.
One of his best games.
It was awesome.
Was we said this about definitely before the Dallas game. We said this about him, like he's just a big stage player.
I bet, like when you got into the receivers national television.
All week, I'm sure Tomlins is zero all week.
I'm sure Dad's in his ear.
Yeah, probably probably mentions it from time to time. Neighbors is spectacular though.
It's gonna be a fun test. Yeah, Joey, but you got you got the answer. And that's what I love in a lockdown corner.
And it looks like Jackson should be okay according to Thomas press conference, which is great.
And then the other key matchup is Ryan McCollum versus nose tackle Dexter Lawrence.
They're going to lose that matchup, but just how bad you lose.
Zack Fraser's having a great rookie season. They were gonna lose that matchup with Zack Fraser in there too.
He wins. Lawrence wins that matchup everything.
Every center in the league. He's Humphrey out there. You want to get Jason Kelsey out of retirement and bring him out. He's losing to Dexter Lawrence like.
He's direct competition for t J. Watt for defensive Player of the Year. I mean, that's how good of a football player is.
Team success is probably going to keep him out of that corization, but he's not saying it should but.
Right, right, right, but I mean the nose tackle that ends up with sixteen sacks pretty scary, you know.
That's that's why I made that camp like he kind of took the baton as far as TJ took the baton as far as greatest defensive player on Earth, but that specific position he rose to the top.
Yeah.
One, Donald vacated it last year.
Steers In Giants eight fifteen kickoff at Akrosser Stadium on Monday Night football pre game on the Steelers Audio Network. Get started at six point fifteen. Thanks has always for giving us a listen. From Matt Williamson and Tom Operman, this has been the advanced scout. And we will talk to you in two weeks. Oh right, because we got a buy coming up.
How about that?
And when we talk to you then we will preview the Washington Commanders. Thanks as always for giving us a listen.
