The Advanced ScoutWe got some work to do. This is the Advanced Scout with Tom Opferman and Mac Williamson. Pittsburgh Steelers suffering not only the toughest loss of the season, but one of the tougher losses I can remember. In the Mike Tomlin air to the Arizona Cardinals. They fall to seven and five and they welcome another two win team into Akroscher Stadium. Patriots have lost five in a row, Matt, and they are one to eight in their last nine games. They are one and four on the road this season, with a minus fifty two point differential in those games, and they've produced just thirteen points over their past three games. Flip side of that, they've only given up twenty six. Yeah, that's the juxtaposition of this team that we'll get into through this podcast. But I wanted to start with them at the quarterback issues. We know Bailey's appy starting ain't no guarantee finishes the way Belichick's been whipping both of those guys in and out of these games.
So this is just a hunch. I think Mac Jones's day as a Patriot done, or at least his time as Belichick is done. One of the two is not going to be there next year. But to your point, I think Malie Cunningham might be the wild card this week. I mean they've kind of like practiced him with you know, gadgety stuff, wildcat you know, wildcat stuff, et cetera, running stuff. I think he might there might be a package for him in this game. I'm not saying Zapie's gonna get pulled. Their passing game is atrocious.
See Knack Jones isn't even gonna helmet then.
If that's the case, no, I don't think. I don't know if he's even the direct backup anymore. I mean it's hard to get information out of that place.
Yeah, undoubtedly, But what a strange season it's been in New England. Amazingly, they've lost three straight games when allowing ten points or fewer, so the first time that's happened since nineteen thirty eight. Yes, Pittsburgh has yet to lose two games in a row this season. That's going in the Steelers favor. This is a great stat You.
Think you get a wake up call to right, you're not taking anybody lately this week.
Last week the Chargers, who the Patriots lost to six to nothing, they had zero offensive snaps inside New England's twenty yard line, while the Patriots and zero snaps inside the Chargers thirty yard line. The red zones were untouched on touch game, Like if you put paint down in the end zone, you didn't you have to wait to let it the game started.
It was fine, right, unbelievable and I just got a little chuckle out of this too. I mean, like, Chargers going to New England, they're five and a half point favorites on the road. Well, they covered.
Six oh six, a comfortable cover.
Charge never sweated it.
This matchup, of course, carries a lot more serious history than the previous weeks with the Cardinals. I think that might go in Steelers favor of not overlooking it either. It began in nineteen seventy two, with the Steelers winning the first two matchups and five of the first six. Overall, New England leads eighteen to sixteen, including five playoff matchups. Pittsburgh's only postseason win over the Patriots was a seven to six victory in the Divisional round of nineteen ninety seven. That could be the score on Thursday. It could be seven to six.
I can't believe the over under in this game is thirty and a half.
It's like thirty two. I think kept dropping and dropping.
I don't know it could be low enough.
Well, man, I was watching Good Morning Football today and they were talking about it not reaching twenty points, like that was the own over under that Peter Schregar put on it.
I actually did the same thing. I thought twenty should be the.
Number Patriots have won the last two meetings, most recently Week two of last year. During the last eighteen meetings dating back to December of nineteen ninety eight, New England is fourteen and four. Steelers have been to six Super Bowls, winning six. Patriots have been to eleven, also winning six, which is the most of any of the thirty two franchises. Steelers have been eight Super Bowls, not six. Excuse me, we spoke there. Bill Belichick is fifteen to twelve as a head coach against the Steelers, Tomlin three and eight against the Patriots. For people scratching your heads out there, Belichick's fifteen and twelve. How he was coach of the Brownies once a time, and Steers usually beat up on the Browns even when Belichick was there. Let's get into the Patriots offense. First, Matt, I think it's the worst in the league. Twelve points, three points per game. They're not in the bottom for every other that is the worst in league, by the way, but they're not bottom for every other statistic, but they're towards the bottom. Surprise offense, they passed from yards in the Steelers per game, which is surprising to me.
I didn't can't pass that.
Shocking, It is shocking. It was hard for me to believe that when I saw that.
It doesn't pass the eyeball tench no, and.
They have twenty giveaways on the season. It's if you wanted to find an offense more miserable than your own. Pittsburgh, They're coming to town without question.
They run cut to the chase. I mean, this team plays very good defense. We'll get that side of the ball. They run the ball okay, but they're far and away best ball carriers not.
Available for this Semonson right.
And their passing game is much harder to watch than the Steelers. I mean much harder to watch. They have no team speed, they really don't have a quarterback, and the receivers get no separation at all.
This is such a broad question to ask you, and we could probably sit here for hours and discuss it. What happened though, Mac Jones goes ten and seven is his rookie season and they make the playoffs, and he didn't look like he was going to be in the two I and the Hurts range of players. But I thought he was gonna be good. I thought it was gonna be like Kirk Cousins maybe and just be around for ten years and play solid quarterback. He's terrible. Zapi came in last year. He had moments where he shined. He's awful this year. I mean, what's the dealer? Are they just that bad at developing these guys. I know it was Patricia Show with Mac Jones last year, but it's Bill O'Brien now. This guy's has a track record with quarterbacks.
Their offense is worse this year than last with with the real offensive course, right, I mean, it definitely is. I'm with you. After his rookie year, I thought Mac Jones was out of the woods, like this guy is going to be a starting quarterback. I mean, he's not gonna be a top ten guy, but he just.
Bought him out. They'll always be around nine to eight.
Yeah, or maybe he'll go somewhere else and be there are or you know what I mean, he's going to be a starting quarterback and he's far from it. I also kind of feel for Mac Jones because, with all respect to Bill Belichick, who I think is the greatest football coach of all time, Bill the GM has let down Bill the coach for years and years now, but it's getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, small little thing.
Like he lose the deodorant two at number twelve under center. Absolutely true everything.
But even like Jacoby Myers, he was good against the Steelers in Week two last year, as was Nelson Aguilar. They would kill for Jacoby Myers, you know, and he's just an hour average starting receiver. They don't have those guys.
Yeah, those two you mentioned two hundred and five yards on nineteen targets last year and right we gone a game against the Steelers.
Yeah, and they don't have anybody. I mean, Parker and Juju and these guys used to be okay, and they're not anymore.
With the exception of Mac Jones, who of course isn't starting in this game. The only Patriots offensive player to play more than five hundred and seventy five of a possible seven hundred and seventy one snaps is David Andrews. Led by Andrews, the offensive line has had nine different offensive lineman play one hundred and fifty four or more snaps this season. Bailey's appy. He's appeared in five games this year, sixty four passes, completing thirty two two hundred ninety nine yards. He's yet to throw a touchdown pass in twenty twenty three. He's got two picks. Last year, he had a touchdown interception ratio of five to three and completed seventy percent of his passes. Like I said, like he showed some signs last year of looking okay, he's awful.
Now this year he's awful. They don't have a quarterback.
They caught him at the beginning of the year. They didn't even want them.
That's a great point. Yeah, out of that, I mean, he was not on the final roster or the opening day roster.
So we mentioned Agalare and Myers. As far as the receiving game is concerned, Juju and Taekwon Thornton played every snap last week when New England was in eleven personnel Smith Schuster played fifty eight of a possible sixty three snaps, Thornton on the field for fifty one, and DeVante Parker played fifty four. I mean, none of those guys jump out and scare you whatso.
No very little separation.
Like even worse so than like the McBride's in the.
Last week, Arizona's offense is much much more dynamic, talented pedigree. This offense kind of reminds me of Arizona's defense. Yeah, I mean, just straining for starters, you know which, and hey, there's lots of them, so give him some respect. But wow, it's rough. You mentioned eleven personnel. They don't do a lot of it. You know, they're in twelve a lot, they're in thirteen of fair amount. They doill have good receivers.
Trey McBride is a name that still haunts Steelers fans to this day. After three days, three days removed from the especially that ninety nine yard drive, I feel like it was just Trean McBride, Traine McBride, Train McBride, Tree McBride. The good news is you're stepping down as far as quality is concerned. Hunter Henry, he had caught he has caught just fifteen passes four one hundred and thirty seven yards in their past eight games. McBride was on fire leading into that Steelers game. Hunter Henry is the exact.
Opposite hundred percent. And a name people might know is Mike Gasecki. He hardly even right all four, you know, right, So they're just looking for anybody that's a difference maker in the passing game and they're not finding it.
Yeah, they have nine different pass catchers with between one hundred and fifty four and four hundred and ten receiving yards this year.
Receiving leaders ro Rojre Stevenson, who.
Is out in the game. He had nine carries before leaving with an injury last week, and Patriots ran the ball thirty two times against the Charges FO one hundred and forty eight yards. Ezeke Elliott then stepped in. He received forty four snaps, seventeen carries, seventeen routes run, and no other running backs saw action in that game. They're they're going to hand the ball off like thirty five times to Zeke in this game on Thursday night.
They are, and he ain't what he used to be.
He can't handle that anymore, right.
Rushing for more yards than they're throwing for now, which kind of tells you all you need to know.
Elliott averages three point eight yards per carry so far into Patriots uniform. That's thirty fifth of forty five running backs that have at least seventy rushing attempts. And Zappi is contributing just three point two yards per game in the as a rusher category, So.
He's getting play full stuff right.
Finally, on the offense, they converted just four of fourteen third down opportunities against the Chargers. They were one of three on fourth downs as well. I'd say that bodes well map. But we're sitting here last week doing this show and we're talking about the Cardinals can't convert first downs and they're ten for seventeen on Sunday against the Steelers. So hopefully this doesn't happen again with the Patriots.
And third downs aren't a super sticky stat I mean, sometimes it's just a small sample size, like, for example, the Cardinals game Steelers. Cardinals, the Steelers were tremendous against them on first downs and early downs. Yeah, but third year on.
The third and twelve third and Fifteen's that the Cardinals.
Just unti or clutch, whatever you want to call it, So those things aren't always sticky, but it's noteworthy.
Onto the defensive side of the football the identity of this Patriots team. They are eighth in yards per game allowed, They're sixteenth against the pass, they are third against the run, and they have the best EPA against the run in the NFL, so metrics back up them potentially being the best rush defense in the league. They're fifteenth to though, in points per game. They give up twenty one point two points per game. They have eleven takeaways, and they're twenty eighth in sacks, so they are not getting after the quarterback. They allow four point nine yards per play, but they have allowed just four point four yards per play over the last three games. And like we sit in the open, there are total points allowed in the past three games ten ten six.
I think it's a very very good defense that if the offense would give them a little.
Help, or let a little help a little help, right, go from twelve to like seventeen points per game exactly.
Or I mean, I know their sack numbers aren't good, they're not even average, but they never are playing with the lead in pass rush situations, you know, things like that too. So again, the offense drags a lot of things down.
So there's no Matthew Judah this year, and he was the big name on that defense. Who's the big name now? Because you know, I see from your stat peck you've got guys like Dugger, Jabil Preppers, Juwan Bentley. They're on the field all the time. The twenty three different Patriots defenders that have been on the field for over one hundred steps. But those guys are the only ones with more than five hundred and ninety seven defensive snaps out of a possible eight hundred and one. So they're on the field forever. But you know, Jabil Preppers, this guy's been bouncing around the league forever. I mean, Kyle Dugger's okay in my mind, Juwan Bentley's good. Like there's no big star. Yeah, they're playing incredibly as a unit.
So the way this defense was constructed, you know, before the Judon injury, before their first round pick, Gonzalez went out at the corner.
That's right, good point. He was playing well at the earliest parts of the season.
Absolutely that they probably had eighteen guys that were all good quality players, so they want to rotate him in and injuries have hurt that a little bit. There is the star. There isn't a superstar. But boy, I'll take Kyle Dugger and Christian Barmore the defensive tackle any day of the week. And they don't have a lot of bad players either on defense. Right.
The floor isn't that low, right, They just don't have a high ceiling with.
All the versatile typical Belichick deep.
You know, New England held the Chargers to just twenty six total rushing yards last week, with a long run of just seven yards. Austin Eckler's longest run of the day was four yards. Steelers, you know, they still rush for one hundred and thirty yards against the Cardinals last week, So it's like the running game has taken a step backwards. But this is a stiffer test than they faced recently.
Yeah, So Dale Lawley and Rob King and I do a video this week. It was on Tuesday. You can find on Steelers dot com too, and my key on for the Steelers offense was a very low bar to get over. But rush for one hundred yards, I mean that might be on thirty carries. It might be on thirty five, it might be on twenty, but that's I think this running game can do that against anybody.
That's pretty good. Against the team that's third in.
The Yeah, right, rush defense, if you could be between three five I have in four yards of carry, which again are not hard, you know, big heavy, high bars to get over. That should be enough to control the flow of this game.
Patriots held Los Angeles is five for fifteen on third downs in week thirteen. Again, like we were just talking about the Cardinals, you said that can be a sticky stat, but we expected the Steelers to really convert a lot on third downs. In the Cardinals game, they were four for eleven. I think they started like zero for five again in classic fashion, because remember that first drive. They didn't get to third down until they finally had to kick the field goal because they able to convert their first third down of the play. So this is a great defense at getting off the field on third downs as well. Yeah, could be a problem for the Steelers to extend drives stay on the field.
Yeah, And no one thinks there's gonna be a lot of points in this game. I mean everything's going to be a struggle for both these offenses.
Now, it's interesting to find out that PERRYPA only three defenses have faced a better slate of offenses than the New England Patriots this year. So it's not just like, oh, they're Cupcake City and they put up good defensive numbers. They are really good against good offenses.
Yeah, the Bills and my me and you know right, I mean they're they've played some very good offenses.
Now, before we get to the key matchups. We don't talk special teams much on this show, probably an area too, probably my air on Some are important, some aren't. But this week you were mentioning how it is important and how uncharacteristically the Patriots are not very good in that department and that's usually a staple for that team.
Yes, so I don't pretend to ever watch special teams tape. I'm never going to, but I always defer to like pro football focused football siders people like that over the years. And one thing that's always sticky for like the last twenty years or the Ravens and Patriots are always at the top of the league in all special.
Don't even have fire up the computer to research that they're there.
The last two years, the Patriots have been thirty first and thirty second in special teams.
Like, by the way, I'm assuming the Ravens are still at the top.
Yeah, they're always good, but they don't have a kicker. Their kicking problems are awful, their returners are bad. So turnover margin and special teams are usually something you could count on Belichick coach teams, and they're not when they're they're really poor in both those.
I mean their punter and their kicker are both rookies right now.
And the kicker I think is twelve of eighteen Chad Ryland.
Yeah, so, yeah, it's.
Been there, not missing fifty sixties. They're missing consistently on.
The Steelers side of things with special teams. You know, I liked going for it on that fourth and goal against the Cardinals, Matt. Don't get me wrong, don't be a shotgun, but I like the aggressive nature of it. Yes, maybe kick the field goal this week because three nothing really might win you the football game.
It might. I really think that if you told me today on Tuesday, Steelers are gonna score fourteen points this game, like, I'll take it.
It's a win. Probably I'll cover the five and a half six points.
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
Key matchups to keep an eye on. Patriots off center David Andrews VSUS Steelers nose tackle Keanu bent And we talked about Andrews. You know, he's really the stalwart of that Patriots offense if you can have one on that offense.
Yeah, he's a consistent professional center.
And Keanu Benton, though, I mean again, last week put on really good tape and a bad game against the Cardinals. It seems week after week it's more good than bad.
You're noticing from the without question. And I picked this one too because I think this will be a game where there's a lot of heavy personnel on the field. You're not gonna see Dime, You're not gonna see Nickel. With the Steeler linebacker problems, you may want a nose tackle on the field higher percentage of the time than usual.
And finally, Steelers tight end Pat Friarmouth VERSUS Patriots safety Kyle Dugger. Firemuth had a big, big game against the Bengals, pretty quiet, as the whole offense was pretty quiet against the Cardinals. But Dugger is an oversized safety and Belichick uses him in all different ways.
Yeah, I just wanted to highlight Dugger more or less. I mean, he's a great player that isn't a household name. He was an extreme tester at the Combine. He's big or use them all over the field. He's someone to pay attention to. He's a fun player.
Steeers and Patriots Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime eight point fifteen kickoff and that one. Hopefully the Steelers bounce back get to eight wins on the season. From Matt Williamson on Tom Offerman. We'll talk to you next week on the Advanced Scout
