Speaker 1: At least, he's the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt
Speaker 1: Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the
Speaker 1: Black and Gold Steelers Nation Radio.
Speaker 2: And Welcome to the Drive.
Speaker 3: I am Dale LOLLI he is the Matt Williamson and
Speaker 3: Matt game didn't go exactly like we thought it would
Speaker 3: on Saturday.
Speaker 2: No, it went pretty terribly, pretty terribly just kind of.
Speaker 3: It was the Ravens who came out and kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, we talked about it last week. Is that
Speaker 3: Spider Man meme? You know, I know what you're gonna do,
Speaker 3: and you look like me, and I look like all
Speaker 3: that stuff. And Lamar Jackson hadn't run the ball that
Speaker 3: much against the Steelers, No, and he came in and
Speaker 3: ran the ball I think five consecutive plays on the
Speaker 3: opening drive of that game. That wasn't five plays for
Speaker 3: big yardage, right, but it was five consecutive plays to
Speaker 3: convert first downs. And it just continued from there and
Speaker 3: the Steelers couldn't stop it. They couldn't stop Derrick Henry
Speaker 3: and they lost twenty eight fourteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the Jackson runs became pretty obvious. I mean,
Speaker 4: your edge guy, whether it's Wad or high Smith. It
Speaker 4: seemed like mostly they were going more.
Speaker 2: To Watt side whatever.
Speaker 4: What isn't interested in Lamar at all? Yeah, mean he
Speaker 4: is crashing down the line of scrimmage pair that.
Speaker 2: Was that was a defensive plan. Usually he's doing.
Speaker 3: It's where the Steelers zagged instead of Right, Okay, TJ,
Speaker 3: you got the running back in these situations. Right, it
Speaker 3: used to be TJ you got You've got Lamar in
Speaker 3: these situations.
Speaker 4: I think Lamar's eyes opened this big and said, if
Speaker 4: that's if they're going, if I'm gonna watch DJ run
Speaker 4: right across my face and I've got a handful of
Speaker 4: yards to make anyone on the planet miss, I'm doing
Speaker 4: that over and over and over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And frankly, the Steelers din't play with a lot of energy,
Speaker 4: and they were the weaker team. They were obviously the
Speaker 4: weaker team, especially in the first half against what I
Speaker 4: think is an awesome offense. And I think, frankly, I
Speaker 4: think the Ravens might win Super Bowl. But when that
Speaker 4: when Lamar became very aware of how the Steelers were
Speaker 4: playing it, it makes it really tough.
Speaker 3: And and there's an's there's more to that. And then
Speaker 3: when they didn't play it that way. They just handed
Speaker 3: it to Henry.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly. I mean they not that they guessed right,
Speaker 4: but they were always right. And you know, if you're
Speaker 4: gonna play it that way, where I'm just using Wad
Speaker 4: an example, he didn't do anything wrong, but he comes
Speaker 4: crashing down the line of scrimmage, Well, Queen or your
Speaker 4: phil guy has to scrape over, knowing that, and they
Speaker 4: were always slow to it.
Speaker 3: Well, we found out today Ian Rapaport reporting that Patrick
Speaker 3: Queen had to get four bags of IV fluids up
Speaker 3: step slow in that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, flat footed, worn out. Yeah, I mean he.
Speaker 3: Looked I saw him after the game, and he looked
Speaker 3: like he's exhausted. And I had no idea that is
Speaker 3: the case at that time. And now it kind of
Speaker 3: adds up, It really adds up. I mean because there
Speaker 3: were a handful of plays. I'm not saying he's dogging it,
Speaker 3: but he barely moved, you know, like it was a
Speaker 3: couple of steps here and there.
Speaker 2: I mean, like they're playing with nothing in the tank.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so the Steelers, you know, right, the Steelers
Speaker 3: lose twenty eight fourteen. That was a defensive side of things.
Speaker 3: Offensively there just wasn't. I didn't see the fight offensively
Speaker 3: in the first half either. Guys weren't breaking tackles. Guys
Speaker 3: weren't right fighting for first downs. I texted you every
Speaker 3: time yesterday when I saw that in those games.
Speaker 4: When a tight end would run over defensive back, tight
Speaker 4: end ward run a quarterback quite a few times, quarterback
Speaker 4: would run over a defensive back.
Speaker 2: Ye running back would run it just constant.
Speaker 3: Yesterday I had I had to have texted you five
Speaker 3: or six times, like, look at that, look at that right,
Speaker 3: and it didn't happen the Steelers.
Speaker 2: It's playoff football.
Speaker 4: You're big and bruising in Flick Payne. I mean, Henry
Speaker 4: did Tamiica, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like this is what it's
Speaker 2: all about. It this one.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's the thing I mean. You know, when
Speaker 3: you look at this Ravens offense coming into this game.
Speaker 3: We talked about it last week.
Speaker 2: You had to know.
Speaker 3: You had to know that they were going to lean
Speaker 3: on Henry sure if you let them do it. They
Speaker 3: didn't have the receivers, they didn't have no and why
Speaker 3: the Steelers didn't have Joey Porter Junior travel with Bateman
Speaker 3: is beyond me is.
Speaker 4: Beyond me, and frankly, to take a step further, this
Speaker 4: added up. I didn't know it until actually reading it today.
Speaker 4: The Ravens were an eleven eleven percent of the time,
Speaker 4: I mean an ungodly low number, like the lowest number
Speaker 4: in the last five years of any playoff team.
Speaker 2: Now we saw that coming.
Speaker 4: They don't have good receivers and the best guys out
Speaker 4: and they got a bunch of big dudes. They had
Speaker 4: a sixth offensive lineman on the field twenty two percent
Speaker 4: of the time, and that's not even counting Ricard as
Speaker 4: a sixth offensive lineman, who's really a seventh offensive lineman.
Speaker 4: And the Steelers still played nickel a lot over fifty
Speaker 4: percent of the snaps. For a nickel you could be
Speaker 4: the best schemed up team in the league. You just
Speaker 4: got little people playing against big people.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. So, I mean, I understand being concerned.
Speaker 3: You have to have enough people in the field that
Speaker 3: can run with Lamar Jackson, I get that right, And
Speaker 3: that's what the Chargers did to them in Jackson's first
Speaker 3: playoff game, is they went with seven defensive best a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of Darwin James out there right right, just flooding the
Speaker 4: middle of the field and being fast.
Speaker 3: The problem becomes Henry. Those guys having attack on Henry.
Speaker 4: Right now, Henry has done I saw this today too,
Speaker 4: that this December and beyond in his career is by
Speaker 4: far the best of any back in NFL history. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's remarkably good. Every playoff game he's in, he's a hammer.
Speaker 4: He's over one hundred and fifty yards repeatedly, the most
Speaker 4: in history. And the four of them, Yeah, and Terrell
Speaker 4: Davis is the only one that's even like close to him,
Speaker 4: and they're not the same, you know, I mean, and
Speaker 4: he does this to everybody. He gets stronger. Defenses just
Speaker 4: get weaker throughout the course of the year. Attrition they get.
Speaker 4: It's harder to tackle big people in the cold. And
Speaker 4: so much of his yards were after first contact in
Speaker 4: this game that he's a pretty remarkable specimen. And I
Speaker 4: whan you match him with Lamar, I mean, the thunder
Speaker 4: and lightning that they provide is rare in NFL history,
Speaker 4: And that.
Speaker 2: You knew that you played against. Right that being.
Speaker 3: Said, I thought the backbreaker, you down fourteen to nothing
Speaker 3: late in a half. First of all, you had to
Speaker 3: play the pickings down the sideline that would have made it.
Speaker 3: You would have had to boll to seven down fourteen
Speaker 3: to nothing at that point, I could pick.
Speaker 2: It's credit. He played a whale game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I thought Humphreys sold the pass interference call and.
Speaker 2: Probably call more often than not, was my thought. But
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 3: Borderline, border line, But okay, he pushed off a little bit.
Speaker 3: But show me a receiver that doesn't down the field
Speaker 3: that Humphrey did a great job of selling it.
Speaker 2: It happened. It is what it is.
Speaker 3: The Ravens go to the length of the field, but they
Speaker 3: used all their timeouts. They get the ball with eleven
Speaker 3: seconds left. Yeah, at the five, the Steelers have Lamar
Speaker 3: Jackson himed in in the pocket. They've got hands on him.
Speaker 3: I think Herbig had him. Yeah, and he escapes and
Speaker 3: throws a touchdown pass with two seconds left in the
Speaker 3: first half, and now it's twenty one nothing.
Speaker 2: His time to throw on that play was like six
Speaker 2: point three seconds or so. Hardball talked about it after
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 3: He's like, because they had no timeouts left right right,
Speaker 3: If he's tackled in the field to play, that's it.
Speaker 2: It's fourteen to nothing.
Speaker 3: At the half and you feel the Steelers are going
Speaker 3: all right, we just got badly out played in the
Speaker 3: first half.
Speaker 2: But it's only two scores. As we saw in the
Speaker 2: Houston League game, he.
Speaker 4: Can't do is take a sack. Yeah, and they're beating
Speaker 4: blockers left it right, but making him get a sack.
Speaker 3: Nobody got him on the ground superhero, And to me,
Speaker 3: that was just such a bad breaker because you had
Speaker 3: what you want. You had the pass rush on him,
Speaker 3: even if he's for six seconds, if he scrambles in
Speaker 3: that situation, there were guys waiting there. He was probably
Speaker 3: going to get tackled short of the goal line. And
Speaker 3: he flips the ball out to the flat and Hill
Speaker 3: goes in from He's one of the only people on
Speaker 3: the plane that they can make that play. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you just have to tip. I mean the other
Speaker 3: guys get paid too. Yeah, And I thought the guys
Speaker 3: are really good. There were some plays that Jackson made
Speaker 3: that I thought, well, there's only about two guys on
Speaker 3: the face of the earth that can make that particular play.
Speaker 3: The other one was the killer. They get the sack
Speaker 3: for for some reason, the Steelers make it twenty eight
Speaker 3: to fourteen they're showing some life, showing some life back
Speaker 3: in the game.
Speaker 2: There's water. They're back in the football game. But they
Speaker 2: come out.
Speaker 3: They get a sack on the Ravens. Don't even have
Speaker 3: Henry on the field to open that nextar. They didn't
Speaker 3: put him on the field that entire possession and they
Speaker 3: go three and out. I'm sorry. They get the sack.
Speaker 3: The Steelers get the sack on first down. This is
Speaker 3: the open third quarter. I'm getting to be in the half, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: They get the sack on first down. It's it's now
Speaker 3: second and twenty one, and they roll Jackson out to
Speaker 3: his right. They had for card just completely. He just
Speaker 3: all right, let wat come in and then just sealed
Speaker 3: him off to the inside because they knew they were
Speaker 3: rolling to the right.
Speaker 2: He cut. He runs all the way across the field.
Speaker 3: Nobody opened, nobody opened, nobody open, and then throws back
Speaker 3: to the middle of the field. I think it was
Speaker 3: Agilar that caught that one for a twenty two yard game.
Speaker 3: He caught it short of the sticks and goes out.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was Tylan Wallace, either one, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: He threw about a sixteen yard pass and he ends
Speaker 3: up getting just enough he gets twenty one yards on
Speaker 3: that or twenty two yards to convert the first down.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, their.
Speaker 3: Guys are just getting past the line of the line
Speaker 3: to gain and the Steelers guys didn't all day long.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and I'm not gonna call him out. Well, fire
Speaker 4: Muth was the perfect example of that. You know, like,
Speaker 4: it's a little guy in front of you. Run him
Speaker 4: over two instances.
Speaker 2: In the first half where and he dropped the first
Speaker 2: play of the game, the first actually the first two
Speaker 2: series that the Steelers had the ball.
Speaker 3: Now, the first one was it was fourth and long
Speaker 3: and he caught it and he had to get i
Speaker 3: think seven or eight yards and he came up two
Speaker 3: yards short. He got gang tackled in that one, but
Speaker 3: you got it. The second one, he catches the ball
Speaker 3: in the flat. It's it's third and two. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: all he has to do is get past one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty pounds of Darius Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you're a tight end. You're two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty pounds.
Speaker 3: That guy's five ft nine and one hundred and eighty pounds,
Speaker 3: and you let him get you on the ground.
Speaker 2: Short of sticks and play, you have to have. You
Speaker 2: got to have it, and you you know.
Speaker 4: Everything gets magnified, especially physicality in the playoffs, especially Raven Steelers,
Speaker 4: you know, and you got to be the hammer there.
Speaker 4: You can't, you can't come up short. And there's too
Speaker 4: many of those instances on both sides of the ball,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean there's.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 4: It's just this is a really good football team, a
Speaker 4: really physical football team. But I would have liked to
Speaker 4: see more fight.
Speaker 3: Not that they laid down, it's just they they went
Speaker 3: backwards way too often, you know, the powerfeld the other way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they had no running game, no running game. They gained
Speaker 3: twenty nine yards on eleven carries.
Speaker 2: Twenty nine yards or two hundred ninety nine. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: won't see a bigger difference in that.
Speaker 3: And honestly, I mean, if you look at what Russell
Speaker 3: Wilson did in this game, he was twenty of twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Four of those twenty nine were.
Speaker 2: Throwing or throw aways. Yeah, I saw that in your article.
Speaker 3: He had twenty He was twenty of twenty five when
Speaker 3: he was actually given time to throw, and he got
Speaker 3: the ball down the field when they attacked, and I
Speaker 3: didn't think they attacked enough early.
Speaker 4: I don't either. And again, there's so much Monday morning
Speaker 4: quarterbacking involved. But I bet if Tomlin or Arthur Smith
Speaker 4: or whatever, we're sitting here and said, let's do it again.
Speaker 4: You know what you know now, I think you put
Speaker 4: the ball in Russ's hands more.
Speaker 2: That's what you brought him here for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And frankly, I thought Pickings leading up to the game.
Speaker 4: I said many times the series have any chance, Picking
Speaker 4: needs to be one of the best players on the field,
Speaker 4: and I thought he was. And I actually made some
Speaker 4: notes in the third quarter. I'm like, I might throw
Speaker 4: it to the Pickens every time and just see what happens. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, like, I know the Austin play was desperation,
Speaker 4: but watching it on TV, he threw into triple coverage
Speaker 4: to a really small receiver in the end zone. Frankly,
Speaker 4: he didn't have much choice. But you could hardly even
Speaker 4: see Austin because there was so much purple around him,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like, you got one dude
Speaker 4: that's a supreme playmaker that was playing well. I almost
Speaker 4: felt at that point just give him the ball every
Speaker 4: time and see what happens, because he's an immensely.
Speaker 3: Time I mean the Ravens knew that as well, and
Speaker 3: of course he was getting doubled all the time, all
Speaker 3: the time, yeah, all the time, you know. But again
Speaker 3: they had chunk pass plays. You know the play that
Speaker 3: Austin made it's on third and three or third and
Speaker 3: ten from the three on their first touchdown drive was like,
Speaker 3: that's a big time catch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a big time.
Speaker 3: Throw over the middle where everybody says Russell Wilson can't throw.
Speaker 3: I mean, he stuck that into a tight spot for
Speaker 3: a big game. He then comes out hits Mike Williams
Speaker 3: down the sideline. These were on third, third and long
Speaker 3: plays too, right, right, and then his Van Jefferson for
Speaker 3: the touchdown on third and long for a thirty yard
Speaker 3: touchdown pass I think.
Speaker 4: You cited in your article, but he had five or
Speaker 4: six between like twenty five and thirty five yard catchers,
Speaker 4: I mean, chrunk plays.
Speaker 3: All we heard the Ravens have fixed their their their
Speaker 3: issues with their.
Speaker 2: With the deep ball.
Speaker 3: Well, that would suggest that maybe they didn't. Teams just
Speaker 3: weren't trying it, and you know, you don't know until
Speaker 3: you know. I would have tried that earlier.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And again they weren't on the field a whole
Speaker 4: heck of a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's obviously you have to convert some of
Speaker 2: those first downs.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of frankly, over the last five games,
Speaker 4: a lot of our Monday morning quarterback or why I
Speaker 4: would have done this more on offense. I've done that
Speaker 4: more on offense. But then it's like, wow, but they
Speaker 4: only ran ten plays in the free.
Speaker 3: I mean, you got to run to stay on the field,
Speaker 3: got to stay on the field. Guy's got to fight
Speaker 3: for first downs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was talking with Wolf and Rob
Speaker 4: we do Air to Night Monday Night about you know,
Speaker 4: the time of possession thing. It seems like every Monday
Speaker 4: we've been talking about time of possession, you know, in
Speaker 4: the post game shows with those two. And in these
Speaker 4: five games, there's been three hundred minutes of football and
Speaker 4: the Steelers have had the football for like one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty one of those three hundred minutes. But to me,
Speaker 4: that's the symptom. That's not the disease. You go to
Speaker 4: the doctor saying, Doc, time possessions all messed up. My
Speaker 4: arm hurts, you know, my my chest hurts. Whatever, And
Speaker 4: Doc does all the tests and says well, these are
Speaker 4: your problems. Well they're the problems are on both sides
Speaker 4: of the ball, you know, like you've got to get
Speaker 4: that time possession back and run more plays. But it's
Speaker 4: not just because you haven't run the ball well enough
Speaker 4: or you're giving up too much on the run. It's
Speaker 4: all the above, you know, and it just leads to
Speaker 4: bad time possession, which is we know, just snowballs and
Speaker 4: gets bigger and bigger and bigger down the hill.
Speaker 3: I got some stats. I look some things up today.
Speaker 3: I had some thoughts as I was watching all the
Speaker 3: games take place here over the weekend. Yeah, this will
Speaker 3: be without the Monday night game, playoff game that will
Speaker 3: finish off the wild card weekend. But I gets some
Speaker 3: stats that I want to dig into that speak to
Speaker 3: what you just talked about there, and we'll do that
Speaker 3: when we return. He is the Matt Williamson. I am
Speaker 3: Dale Lolly. You're listening to the Drive. You're on the
Speaker 3: Steelers Audio Network. Matt and I will be back with
Speaker 3: more right after this.
Speaker 1: At least is the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt
Speaker 1: Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the
Speaker 1: Black and Gold cast in Steelers Nation.
Speaker 2: Radio, and we are back. I'm Dale Lolli.
Speaker 3: He is the Matt Williamson and Matt during the game
Speaker 3: yesterday or during the after the AFC.
Speaker 2: Game and all the FC game for yeah, yeah, we're completing.
Speaker 3: I tweeted out and I just did this for comparisons purposes,
Speaker 3: And people thought, oh, you're making an excuse for the Steelers. No,
Speaker 3: I wasn't at all. If you read my ten thoughts
Speaker 3: after the game, pretty blunt. They get their butts. But
Speaker 3: I said the AFC games were not competitive. Oh and
Speaker 3: here's how non competitive.
Speaker 2: They were the Steelers.
Speaker 3: The Steelers game was the closest of the TREA and
Speaker 3: the Steelers, and the Steelers scored the most points and
Speaker 3: gave up the fewest points of the AFC team.
Speaker 2: It was bad. And so I would say that the
Speaker 2: Steelers is bad.
Speaker 4: Their first half might have been the worst of any
Speaker 4: of the you know, but at least at one point,
Speaker 4: semi late in the game, it was still a game.
Speaker 4: I mean, Denver Buffalo wasn't at that point, you know,
Speaker 4: deep into the third quarter, you at least had your
Speaker 4: head above water. But you're right, it was three very
Speaker 4: lopsided games, but go go, So.
Speaker 3: Maybe look up today, just the first round of the playoffs,
Speaker 3: not excluding tonight's game. Though far we've seen only one
Speaker 3: lower seeded team win that Washington was right against Tampa,
Speaker 3: not that you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, They're not a powerhouse, right all right.
Speaker 3: So Houston had four hundred and twenty nine yards of offense. Okay,
Speaker 3: remember they did nothing in the first quarter of that game.
Speaker 2: No, and they had three turnovers in that game too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they turned the ball over three times. They averaged
Speaker 3: they ran seventy plays. Houston did Houston to fifty four
Speaker 3: for LA Baltimore had four hundred and sixty four yards
Speaker 3: of offense. They ran seventy two plays compared to forty
Speaker 3: five for the Steelers. Buffalo had four hundred and seventy
Speaker 3: one yards of offense they ran they had seventy two plays.
Speaker 3: Denver had forty two.
Speaker 2: Wow. So these are like thirty play discrepancies. Thirty plays.
Speaker 3: Now, Philadelphia green Bay was a little bit differently different
Speaker 3: because Philly.
Speaker 2: Was just both those defenses played well. Yeah, and green
Speaker 2: Bay turned the ball over four times.
Speaker 3: Philadelphia had none, right, right, you know, you lose the
Speaker 3: turnover battle four nothing, you're going to lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Philly never really did much through the air.
Speaker 3: To Washington last night. Now, mind you, Washington only had
Speaker 3: eighty two rushing yards in that.
Speaker 2: Game, including Jane Daniels.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, they ran sixty nine plays. Tampa ran forty four.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: So and obviously time possession is going to reflect on this,
Speaker 4: and that's how we ended last segment.
Speaker 2: Time of possession.
Speaker 3: Houston had the ball for thirty four to twenty five,
Speaker 3: Baltimore had it thirty nine to thirty three.
Speaker 2: Buffalo had it for.
Speaker 3: Forty one minutes and forty three almost forty two minutes.
Speaker 3: Denver didn't even have They had eighteen minutes and seventeen
Speaker 3: seconds in time of possession.
Speaker 2: Denver scored on the first drive, and they scored on
Speaker 2: the first drive. I won a big back for that. Wow.
Speaker 3: Philly won the time of possession thirty minutes and thirty
Speaker 3: three seconds. Even though they got out gained in the game.
Speaker 3: They controlled the game. Washington had it for thirty five.
Speaker 4: Right, they controlled the game, Yeah, Philly. I mean the
Speaker 4: numbers might not reflect it, but they controlled the game.
Speaker 2: Washington had it for thirty five to twenty six. Wow.
Speaker 4: I mean it's massively important, and I think the later
Speaker 4: and later you get in the season, it becomes more
Speaker 4: and more important. And there was a time when the
Speaker 4: Steelers were ten to three, they were number one in
Speaker 4: time of possession. I mean they're capable of being that
Speaker 4: team as well. Now you gonna do it against the
Speaker 4: top tier teams. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 3: The average is for the first five playoff games. These
Speaker 3: are the averages, and there's some outliers, and this is
Speaker 3: still the average. The average winning team held the ball
Speaker 3: for thirty seven minutes. The average winning team had four
Speaker 3: hundred point eight yards of total offense. The losing team
Speaker 3: had two seventy point two. The average winning team average
Speaker 3: five point nine yards per play, the losers had five
Speaker 3: point five. The average winning team had to ran sixty
Speaker 3: eight plays, the average losing team forty nine.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. You can't ask anything. I don't care.
Speaker 3: Denver's defense is good, Green Bay's defense is good. But
Speaker 3: you can't continually ask your defense to go out there.
Speaker 3: You have to be able to perform offensively over the
Speaker 3: course of the game.
Speaker 2: You just have to.
Speaker 4: That's again. During this five game losing streak, got a
Speaker 4: three hundred minutes. They've been on the field for like
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty two Steelers. It's it's a losing
Speaker 4: proposition all day long, every you know, times a thousand.
Speaker 3: Of the teams that lost yesterday in Saturday, Tampa averaged
Speaker 3: six point five yards per play. Okay, if you look
Speaker 3: at it, Washington averaged five point one. The Steelers averaged
Speaker 3: six point two yards per play.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they had some chunks, like Baltimore was at
Speaker 2: six point four.
Speaker 3: It's not like they were totally, but Baltimore was able
Speaker 3: to continue lead more of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they could because.
Speaker 3: They were able to get those first downs, right, you know,
Speaker 3: some of the other ones they're not. You know, Houston
Speaker 3: was at six point one yards per play. La was
Speaker 3: at four point eight.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Buffalo had a big jem too. I mean
Speaker 2: they won by a million.
Speaker 3: Again, Philly won that game because they turned They turned
Speaker 3: Green Bay over four times on the opening kickoff.
Speaker 2: That's just a killer that was. I thought there was
Speaker 2: gonna be a blowout from that point.
Speaker 3: But the winning teams turned the ball over three times,
Speaker 3: the losers turned it over nine, and all three of
Speaker 3: the turnovers for the winning teams were by Houston. I
Speaker 3: say Houston had a bunch early. Yeah, Okay, early None
Speaker 3: of the other winning teams turned the ball over. So
Speaker 3: when you talk about turnovers mattering.
Speaker 4: True year after year, decade after decade, right especially, I'll
Speaker 4: say this all week. Everything gets magnified in the playoffs.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you think it's a trend in the
Speaker 4: regular season, multiply times one thousand in the playoffs because
Speaker 4: everything's you can't get away with. He turned the ball
Speaker 4: over a couple times against the Raiders. You know, the
Speaker 4: Chiefs can do that. You know the can do that.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, but you can't do that against the
Speaker 4: Bills and Ravens and Texans, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's gonna get multi it's going to so.
Speaker 3: I mean the Steelers in Denver didn't turn the ball over,
Speaker 3: right in those games. They just didn't have the football.
Speaker 2: Didn't know football, and didn't produce first downs.
Speaker 3: And didn't produce enough first down right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: The opponent from doing the same, just plays.
Speaker 3: Run, plays run. I think the Ravens in the first
Speaker 3: half of that game were seven of eight on third downs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were. They were miraculous because you have Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and okay, it's third and two, Well, we need
Speaker 3: two yards, lamar go get us two yards.
Speaker 4: Or even just eagle push push or saw a lot
Speaker 4: of tight ends taking snaps and getting that one yard,
Speaker 4: you know, the things like that.
Speaker 2: Just keep the chains moving. Make them play at least
Speaker 2: three more plays. You know, that's another minute and a
Speaker 2: half or whatever. It's your defense is standing on you
Speaker 2: a long time in the middle of January.
Speaker 3: I am now the belief that playing defense, particularly in
Speaker 3: the playoffs, is all about playing less.
Speaker 2: De However, you have to get there. You have to
Speaker 2: play less defense. Yeah, I have to.
Speaker 3: So your offense has to be one that moves the change.
Speaker 4: And especially in the playoffs from a defensive standpoint, because
Speaker 4: there's Mahomes and there's Allen and maybe Stroud's not at
Speaker 4: that level, but all the quarterbacks are good. Like you're
Speaker 4: not going to run into too many Rudolphs in the
Speaker 4: play I mean, there aren't many that those guys. If
Speaker 4: you're on the field, they're going to figure you out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know, even at that, like I mentioned and
Speaker 3: I got my things, my play is confused. The Steelers
Speaker 3: cut the score to twenty eight fourteen in late in
Speaker 3: the third quarter, so they're in the game. It's twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: they get they're alive.
Speaker 2: They're alive.
Speaker 3: The Ravens come out and call they don't have Henry
Speaker 3: on the field and call three consecutive passing plays even
Speaker 3: know they're running, well, they're running the ball well now
Speaker 3: Lamar scrambled for six yards on one of them, but
Speaker 3: it was a pass play.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's always that trump card too,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, what are they doing here?
Speaker 3: This is and so they end up punting and the
Speaker 3: Steelers get the ball back at like the I think
Speaker 3: it was around their own forty and I'm like, they
Speaker 3: just made this a ball game by doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's almost like you have Shack and it's me
Speaker 4: guarding Shack and he's just dunking on my head.
Speaker 2: And then you decide to check up.
Speaker 3: Four threason right right, right right, like give it to
Speaker 3: the big guy, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that to me is, you know, Okay, the
Speaker 3: Steelers found a way to get off the field, get
Speaker 3: your offense back on the field.
Speaker 2: Steelers.
Speaker 3: I think they give up a sack on on that
Speaker 3: one on second down, yeah that you know, they got
Speaker 3: a first down, then give up the second down sack
Speaker 3: and put him you know too far and they had
Speaker 3: to end up having to punt the ball back again.
Speaker 2: Yea, it's just.
Speaker 3: You have to the offense and defense have to work
Speaker 3: hand in hand. I mean, really, it's a team game.
Speaker 4: It's eleven guys on the field and they have to
Speaker 4: compliment one another, and you can't be super heavy one
Speaker 4: way or the other. Not that either unit was great
Speaker 4: for the Steelers, but you're right. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: during this five game losing streak against playoff caliber teams,
Speaker 4: you really see it. You know, like there were games
Speaker 4: or the offense played pretty well in that game, or
Speaker 4: defense played really well in that game, but it wasn't
Speaker 4: a total team effort, and you end up losing time
Speaker 4: possession over and over and over and again. That's it's
Speaker 4: a symptom. You know, how do I fix my time
Speaker 4: of possession? Well, your right guard blocks better, and your
Speaker 4: nose tackles stouter, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But in the end, that needs fixed. I mean, to
Speaker 2: beat the good teams, yeah, no, there's no doubt. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I just look at you know, the some of
Speaker 3: the you know, especially in the AFC, the quarterbacks still
Speaker 3: standing mahomes.
Speaker 4: That's a good yeah, so this is disheartening, but the
Speaker 4: Steelers got eliminated by Lamar, by Allen, and by Mahomes
Speaker 4: the last three years, and frankly, that's probably going to
Speaker 4: keep up because they're unbelievably good.
Speaker 3: The only teams that have beaten those guys are each
Speaker 3: other for the most part.
Speaker 4: And I'll throw Burrow in there too, because I think
Speaker 4: he's the only quarterback on the planet that's as good
Speaker 4: as those three. There's four elite quarterbacks. And I was
Speaker 4: joking on a different show, it's almost like having Bo
Speaker 4: Jackson and Techo Ball like the most It's such a
Speaker 4: quarterback driven league. It's such an advantage over everyone you
Speaker 4: play when you have a superhero at that position, and
Speaker 4: defenses can't they get figured out? And they I mean,
Speaker 4: these four are are historic type quarterbacks all at once,
Speaker 4: all in the freaking AFC, two of them in the division.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to figure out a new way of
Speaker 4: playing football to compete with those guys in the playoffs. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, they're they're remarkably good. And along those lines,
Speaker 4: just in the AFC. With respect to Houston's win, I
Speaker 4: bet it plays out like this that there's three big
Speaker 4: dogs in the AFC. Two of them wipe the floor
Speaker 4: with Denver and beat the Steelers pretty bad. Houston might
Speaker 4: go on to change my mind. I just think they
Speaker 4: played it. They just didn't play.
Speaker 3: They played a team that turned it over four times.
Speaker 4: If Houston would have played Baltimore or Buffalo, we'd be
Speaker 4: talking about them too. I mean, they just happened to
Speaker 4: not play one of the powerhouse.
Speaker 3: Well, and we talked about the you know, the Steelers'
Speaker 3: best path to victory was to play Houston in the
Speaker 3: first of the playoffs.
Speaker 4: And I would have picked them to win that game.
Speaker 4: I mean, I might pick them a win if they
Speaker 4: played today.
Speaker 3: I thought that they would give the Ravens more of
Speaker 3: a game.
Speaker 2: Obviously, of course, you know, right right right, we thought
Speaker 2: that would be a close game. But I do think
Speaker 2: when we look back at the history of the AFC.
Speaker 4: In the twenty twenty four season, we're gonna say there's
Speaker 4: three powerhouses, and Kansas City's gonna mop the floor with Houston,
Speaker 4: and fortunately for them, they're gonna have to play one
Speaker 4: of them. Baltimore and Buffalo are gonna have to play
Speaker 4: two of them to get to the super Bowl. And
Speaker 4: that's the difference of seeding, and those three teams are
Speaker 4: really really good led by elite quarterbacks, and elite's a
Speaker 4: big work.
Speaker 2: I think they're really really good because of the quarterback.
Speaker 3: To me too, I mean, I think if you took
Speaker 3: any of those quarterbacks and put them with this Steelers roster, it.
Speaker 4: Might be I see in the league. Yeah, one hundred
Speaker 4: percent believe that. And I like the Steelers roster. I
Speaker 4: like the Steelers makeup, but I might rather be the
Speaker 4: Bengals just because it's so hard to find that guy
Speaker 4: I might give. I was talking to my my buddy
Speaker 4: Peacock talking about the Niners. He's like, I might trade
Speaker 4: I might not. He's gone on a rant with the Niners.
Speaker 3: He's like, I don't think I want to play play
Speaker 3: or pay party. I want to trade Bosa all these
Speaker 3: dudes and maybe get the next stud quarterback because that's
Speaker 3: kind of like the only way to win it all
Speaker 3: in this league. The problem is there's there's not that
Speaker 3: stud quarterback in this draft this year. If you can't
Speaker 3: be it's not that that's how I countered.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's great to be bad the year Burrow
Speaker 2: Herbert to Hurtz.
Speaker 4: Love comes out, and maybe only one of them turns
Speaker 4: out to be elite, but at least you have a crack.
Speaker 2: It's great to be the year river has been Eli
Speaker 2: comes out, you know, be bad the right year. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not just tank tank tank tank tank. Now maybe
Speaker 2: next year it's great. This year doesn't look like it,
Speaker 2: you know, that's for sure. But or even to be
Speaker 2: bad this last year, I like the chances of someone
Speaker 2: out of Williams May, Jayden Daniels, you know, Panix, et cetera,
Speaker 2: maybe be in the next one in that group, you know,
Speaker 2: But so much of it's just lock, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, tanking just a tank, and well we're gonna tank
Speaker 3: and go get a quarterback. We better have a pretty
Speaker 3: damn good idea, ay of what who that quarterback is
Speaker 3: going to be. And tanking it doesn't guarantee you of anything.
Speaker 4: It can be a disease, right, I mean, and ruin
Speaker 4: the walls you know that you painted so pretty, you know.
Speaker 3: And it also becomes a situation, Okay, we won three games,
Speaker 3: somebody else won two, yeah, or.
Speaker 2: We lost with the one. We can't control what every
Speaker 2: what everybody else is doing. Too. There's some miserable teams
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 3: Look at how many times the number one overall pick
Speaker 3: in the draft this year changed hands? What about four
Speaker 3: times in the last month of the season. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: because there was a lot of bad out there.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean it looked like Carolina was on pace
Speaker 4: to not win a game all year. Well then their
Speaker 4: quarterback played okay, and they're not even close to having
Speaker 4: the first pick, you know. Like the Saints are a
Speaker 4: good example to me, Like they've maxed out their credit cards,
Speaker 4: they've went to that a team like that, I would
Speaker 4: quote Tank, you know, Cameron Jordan, Tyron Mathow, Davis Carr.
Speaker 4: Thank you for your service, Kamara, But we just need
Speaker 4: draft picks and maybe we'll even start Spencer Rattler next
Speaker 4: year and end up with Arch Banning or whatever, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, maybe you know, but man.
Speaker 3: That's a dangerous slope too, you know. But there's no
Speaker 3: guarantee again him, there's no That's the thing.
Speaker 2: You could be the worst team in the league and
Speaker 2: not the first your number.
Speaker 3: If you're number two, yeah, somebody else can still trade
Speaker 3: ahead of you and take that quarterback, or the team
Speaker 3: that's there take the quarterback.
Speaker 2: You're guaranteed a nothing, nothing. It's a brutal world.
Speaker 4: Now there are some examples. You know, Alan and Mahomes
Speaker 4: weren't the first.
Speaker 2: Pick in the draft, or was Jackson? Right right?
Speaker 4: You know, So it doesn't mean it bothers me a
Speaker 4: little bit. Steelers are stuck in purgatory. There's no chance
Speaker 4: to ever get their next guy.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, Lamar went thirty first. The Chiefs moved
Speaker 2: up six spots to get my home six. They went
Speaker 2: up from twenty seven, but twenty seven.
Speaker 3: I was thinking they were like the Bills. I think
Speaker 3: the Bills was more like a They moved up for
Speaker 3: Allan too. Yeah, I know, Case was a playoff team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: They weren't a powerhouse, but they were a playoff team.
Speaker 4: There's one you love. It doesn't look like this draft's
Speaker 4: that one to do it. I mean, but this is
Speaker 4: a conversation probably from a year from now. You know,
Speaker 4: the only one other avenues to get that guy.
Speaker 3: The only guy who intrigues me in this draft, and
Speaker 3: this is we're well, plenty of time to talk about this,
Speaker 3: But the only guy who intrigues me about what he
Speaker 3: might be in this draft is Jaylen Milroll.
Speaker 2: Because he could be that, because he could be he.
Speaker 3: Could be that next guy in that Lamar Jaden Daniels
Speaker 3: type guy. Yeah, which is what But again, that's what
Speaker 3: That's what Indianapolis was trying to get when they went
Speaker 3: out and trade it up to get Richardson.
Speaker 2: And he hasn't been that.
Speaker 3: No, there's no guarantee, no guarantee, but I definitely think
Speaker 3: and it won't be this year probably, well maybe it
Speaker 3: is Milroe.
Speaker 2: Who knows that.
Speaker 4: You and I I think the duration we do there
Speaker 4: or at least the next couple of years talking drafts,
Speaker 4: Steelers or not. And I felt this way for a
Speaker 4: couple of years. I'm Dave Kingman at the plate. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't I don't need a single. I don't need
Speaker 4: a double. I am swinging as hard as I can.
Speaker 4: And if I strike out six times in a row
Speaker 4: on the Richardson's of the world that don't make it,
Speaker 4: and I get.
Speaker 2: One Allen, I win.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm never gonna kill the Steelers for taking
Speaker 3: Kenny Pickett at twenty at twenty at twenty, you didn't
Speaker 3: trade up to go get him. You didn't, you didn't
Speaker 3: make a move, You didn't mortgage your future to go
Speaker 3: to use a picked to take a quarterback in the
Speaker 3: first round, and you got out of it new year,
Speaker 3: and you got out of it quickly enough that Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna pivot and go.
Speaker 2: So you didn't.
Speaker 3: You didn't try to four years down the line, we're
Speaker 3: gonna keep trying to make this work. No, right, Right,
Speaker 3: that's going to be the situation Indianapolis finds itself in.
Speaker 3: For example, just using them as example, like are they
Speaker 3: going to run it back again with Richardson next year?
Speaker 2: Probably one more year. He completed forty seven percent of
Speaker 2: his passes this year, right, but he actually regressed. But
Speaker 2: that was Josh Allen his rookie year.
Speaker 3: I understand, you know what I mean. Alan didn't regress.
Speaker 4: No, that's the thing, right, I guess that was year
Speaker 4: two for Richardson. But Allen was a bad player in
Speaker 4: his rookie year.
Speaker 3: He was he was not the guy that he is now.
Speaker 3: But they put pieces around him. Right, That's the other
Speaker 3: thing that you have to have in place, is pieces.
Speaker 3: But I like your Milrow thought like if he has
Speaker 3: a high metachlorane count, yes he could be a Jedi.
Speaker 3: You know, he's good and maybe it doesn't work, but
Speaker 3: he's got you know, he has the trait passes the
Speaker 3: eye test of the traits that you're looking for.
Speaker 4: Right, that he could be a special player that's almost
Speaker 4: impossible to defend. There's a couple of them walking the
Speaker 4: planet right now, unfortunately too of them on the division.
Speaker 3: Right, And you know, can justin Fields be that? I
Speaker 3: thought so when he came out in the draft. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I thought he might be that kind of player. I
Speaker 3: loved him, loved him. He hasn't proven to be but
Speaker 3: he hasn't proven to be that in terms of books.
Speaker 2: But it's there's some schafters written.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now maybe you have a better idea that. Okay,
Speaker 3: you know he's he's sat and he's learned behind. Say
Speaker 3: what you want about Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson's a pro, right,
Speaker 3: he he handled him.
Speaker 2: That's why I wanted to make the change and I
Speaker 2: condone that, right.
Speaker 3: And he's been that guy who can be to steal
Speaker 3: from your analogy there, he can be your obi wan
Speaker 3: kenobi yah to adjustin Field's you know, young paddle.
Speaker 2: Maybe he can't be Vader, yeah, but he could be
Speaker 2: a real solid Jedi for you. Yeah, right, all.
Speaker 3: Right, So that's gonna be the question that the Steelers
Speaker 3: have to ask themselves this offseason is Okay, do we
Speaker 3: try to run this back with both guys? Do we
Speaker 3: try to just pick? We have to pick one or
Speaker 3: the other, you know, and then which which one is it?
Speaker 2: And again, I don't love going fishing in this quarter.
Speaker 2: I'm not fit.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not throwing them both back and trying
Speaker 3: over again. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2: You mean, go fish on both of them. I'm not. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not going.
Speaker 3: Okay, We're just gonna try somebody else, Like we're gonna
Speaker 3: what trade for Derek Carr? Yeah, that doesn't That doesn't
Speaker 3: appeal to me at all. I mean, I'm Jameis Winston.
Speaker 4: No, you can get Kirk Cousins for the Russell Wilson deal,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't excite me at all, not at all.
Speaker 4: Right now, the only one that I have a little
Speaker 4: bit of interest in is if you said the Vikings
Speaker 4: will give you McCarthy for your first round pick.
Speaker 2: See, I don't know that he has special he doesn't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he doesn't do that for me. He's at least his books.
Speaker 2: He might be Mac. He might be Mac Jones.
Speaker 3: I didn't love him coming out. Yeah, problem, he might
Speaker 3: be mac Jones. He was a good player with a
Speaker 3: lot of talent around him.
Speaker 4: Now, maybe if you told me, and this is an
Speaker 4: April conversation because I don't know enough now, but if
Speaker 4: you said you get Fields for thirteen million and mill
Speaker 4: Row in the first round, well those are two legit
Speaker 4: bites of the apple that one of them might be special.
Speaker 4: But we might be talking about Milroe by then, as
Speaker 4: like the first pick in the draft.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just don't know, right, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, now, yeah, he's an interesting player now, but we
Speaker 4: might be laughing that he laughed.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden.
Speaker 3: He's available at ten, as Mahomes was.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Now, we can talk, but you don't know how that's
Speaker 3: going to work. So you better have a plan in
Speaker 3: place going into the draft. That can't be your only
Speaker 3: right avenue to get a quarterback.
Speaker 2: You just can first or second. You know, you don't
Speaker 2: have that power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're going to have to The Steelers are
Speaker 3: going to have to make a decision about how they
Speaker 3: want to proceed moving forward.
Speaker 2: Before the draft.
Speaker 3: Oh well before the draft that happens in March, you know,
Speaker 3: the Marching March is free agency.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's happening now, and it's obviously a critical component.
Speaker 4: But something that's going to be fun is you laid
Speaker 4: it out well in texta to I mean, we'll talk
Speaker 4: about it for months now. They have a lot of
Speaker 4: cap space, they have a lot of options.
Speaker 2: But easily create more.
Speaker 4: You can easily create more. I mean there's a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff they can do now. We can fight all
Speaker 4: day long. Can you still go into Kansas City in
Speaker 4: the AFC Championship Game next year the year after with
Speaker 4: Wilson or whomever in a really good roster around him
Speaker 4: and even get that far.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if you can ever beat Superman.
Speaker 4: I mean the league is really structured that way right now.
Speaker 4: Brady was that guy for a long time with different superpowers,
Speaker 4: but those guys rule the world. I mean, it had
Speaker 4: to be like going against Jordan.
Speaker 3: No fun, Yeah, no fun at all. Let's get through
Speaker 3: another break. He is the Matt Williamson. I am Dale, Lolly.
Speaker 3: You're listening to the Drive. You're on the Steelers audio network, Matt,
Speaker 3: and I'll be back with more right after this.
Speaker 1: At least he's the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt
Speaker 1: Williamson on your twenty four to seven Home of the
Speaker 1: Black and Gold Steelers Nation Radio.
Speaker 2: And we are back on Dale Lolly.
Speaker 3: He is the Matt Williamson and Matt they were mulling
Speaker 3: over some quarterback stuff there in the previous segment, and
Speaker 3: I went back and looked because a lot of people
Speaker 3: like to have revisionist history on stuff, and so other
Speaker 3: Steelers should have done something to do better than you know,
Speaker 3: bend the last couple of years. Now, I will say
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, leading up to the draft, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mocked Lamar Jackson to the Steelers and got crushed for it.
Speaker 2: No, you're crushed for it.
Speaker 3: I'm an idiot. He'll never be a good quarterback. He's
Speaker 3: says he's that, he's.
Speaker 2: A running back, he's a receiver. Yeah, blah blah. And
Speaker 2: they visited with Lamar. From I understand, they did right.
Speaker 3: They liked him, they visited with him. You know they
Speaker 3: didn't take him. Yeah, and now, wow, why didn't they
Speaker 3: take Lamar? Well, when I'm again, when I brought that
Speaker 3: up in that season a week before the draft, my
Speaker 3: next to last mock draft, I got crushed for it.
Speaker 2: Sure, crushed. So and I get at that point.
Speaker 3: You had Roethlisberger coming off of one of his best seasons,
Speaker 3: he hadn't had any elbow issues, didn't know that he
Speaker 3: was thirty five years old, right right, he was thirty
Speaker 3: You're trying to win, right, So I get it in
Speaker 3: that regard, it didn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: I saw both sides of the argument.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no question, and it's easy to say in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, you should have done that.
Speaker 3: You know, we also saw how Roethlisberger kind of treated
Speaker 3: Mason Rudolph, who they did take, was not super kind
Speaker 3: to him because he saw him as a threat. Would
Speaker 3: he have treated Lamar Jackson in the first round the
Speaker 3: same way?
Speaker 2: So freaking loosely, right right? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: And I'm sure you've gotten so many comments in the
Speaker 4: last forty eight hours or whatever, but I've gotten things
Speaker 4: like how could the Steelers not in Baker Mayfield. I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: he wasn't that player. Then he's gotten better, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. Like, So, these are some of the guys.
Speaker 4: These are some of the free agents who were available
Speaker 4: this year. Over the last few years.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, twenty twenty two, the best guy available was
Speaker 3: Derek Carr. Twenty twenty three, Gino Smith was available, was
Speaker 3: good sort of, but he resigned with the Seahawks for
Speaker 3: three years and one hundred and five million. Where you've
Speaker 3: got to pay Gino Smith one hundred and five million
Speaker 3: dollars over three years or one hundred and ten because
Speaker 3: maybe he likes it in Seattle, right, I say you
Speaker 3: have to outbid them. I mean, if you remember the
Speaker 3: player at that time, he was not you know, I
Speaker 3: mean he's a borderline Pro Bowl fifth seventh best player
Speaker 3: in the NFC, you know, good that position. Jimmy Garoppolo
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three got sixty seven and a half
Speaker 3: million dollars over three years to leave the San Francisco
Speaker 3: forty nine ers for the Raiders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jimmy Garoppolo was in his base, out of the league.
Speaker 2: I know he's in the league, but barely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then you had Sam Donald and Baker Mayfield who were
Speaker 3: both available, but both were coming off of miserable nothing
Speaker 3: right it, had done nothing in their career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like signing Daniel Jones this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be the same the same thing, and
Speaker 3: somebody's probably gonna do that. Looking at this one and
Speaker 3: he might hit. Well, it work for Sam Donald and
Speaker 3: Baker Mayfield.
Speaker 4: I think that's a path a lot of teams are
Speaker 4: going to take because there's not a lot of other options.
Speaker 4: Where can I get the next Baker and Donald? Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I don't know you can. I mean, it doesn't
Speaker 4: like it's not like this happens every year.
Speaker 2: We've seen this.
Speaker 3: You know, you could say the same thing about Well,
Speaker 3: Gino Smith, he reclaimed his career. He was Okay, that's
Speaker 3: three guys out of one hundred quarterbacks who've been drafted
Speaker 3: over the last ten years.
Speaker 4: And frankly, if the Steelers would have walked into Baltimore
Speaker 4: with Donald, Gino or Baker yesterday or Saturday, it might
Speaker 4: have been the same result. Yeah, it doesn't ensure that
Speaker 4: you're going to beat the superheroes.
Speaker 2: Right, this year, your choices were cousins. He got a lot.
Speaker 3: He got way overpaid Mayfield, if you remember, re signed
Speaker 3: with Tampa before he hit free agency. He got one
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars over three years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is a great deal for them. I mean
Speaker 4: that that's a win for the box.
Speaker 3: So then your pivot in that situation for the Steelers
Speaker 3: was what they did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they got and the prices they paid were ridiculously great. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's an asterisk in a good way for the Steelers.
Speaker 4: I mean because the quarterback room costs nothing, right, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean that's part of the equation.
Speaker 3: But don't just tell me that, oh, they should have
Speaker 3: they should have had done this, or they should have
Speaker 3: done that.
Speaker 2: You gotta give me names.
Speaker 3: Give me somebody who was legitimately on the market where
Speaker 3: they could have legitimately drafted in those years.
Speaker 2: There's not much. There's not much.
Speaker 3: The Kenny Pickett draft was the Kenny Pickett draft. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he was the best quarterback in the draft. And don't
Speaker 3: give me Brock Purty. Brock Purty was the last flipping
Speaker 3: guy drafted that year for a reason, right, the forty
Speaker 3: nine Ers didn't know that that was going to be
Speaker 3: the case, or they A wouldn't have traded up for
Speaker 3: Trey Lance and b would have taken him well before that.
Speaker 2: And he's a systems quarterback.
Speaker 4: And I'm not sure you're scoring any more points or
Speaker 4: of anything you can result with b Rock Party.
Speaker 3: And no Rock Party goes into Baltimore yesterday or Saturday
Speaker 3: with the Steelers roster and gets his head handed to him.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no question. There aren't many answers. I mean,
Speaker 4: there just aren't. Now a conversation that is much more
Speaker 4: geared towards the off season. I know it's the off
Speaker 4: season today, but it's reaction Monday. So how do you
Speaker 4: best compete without one of them?
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about that in the second hour. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: but that's what you have to figure out this offseason
Speaker 3: because what you're doing isn't working. You've lost to those
Speaker 3: three quarterbacks the last three times you've been in the playoffs,
Speaker 3: all on their field, different right, all in their stadiums,
Speaker 3: And that's a part of it. You've got to win
Speaker 3: enough game so that you don't have to go to
Speaker 3: those places. At some point, you're gonna have to unless
Speaker 3: you're your ultimate goal. Yeah yeah, unless unless you somehow,
Speaker 3: you know, get the number one overall seed. At some
Speaker 3: points you're gonna have to beat one of those guys
Speaker 3: in the postseason. And so how do you best do that?
Speaker 4: And I remember, even like Tannehill, Vrabel, Arthur Smith got
Speaker 4: the number one seed with Derrick Henry and they played
Speaker 4: their style and didn't bear that much root in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: You know, they won a game.
Speaker 4: Good team, they had number one seed and handed to
Speaker 4: Henry and they had a good defense. And still Mahomes
Speaker 4: is lumin out there. Yeah, Jackie Ripperds still a looming
Speaker 4: around the corner, you know.
Speaker 3: So there are ways I think that you can do
Speaker 3: this and give yourself a better chance, give yourself a chance.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that now. Our number two, he is
Speaker 3: the Matt Williamson. I am Dale, Lolly. You're listening to
Speaker 3: the drive here on the Steelers Audio Network, Matt and
Speaker 3: now will be back with our number two right after
Speaker 3: this