Drive10.2.26Hr1: Browns Reaction

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Good afternoon, Steelers Nation. It's The Drive on the Steelers Audio Network. Wes Shuler and Matt Williamson with you here for the next two hours on this Friday night. And unfortunately, Matt, once again, it feels like Groundhog Day. It is not a Victory Friday. It is another Friday where we're trying to figure out what the heck happened in Cleveland as the Steelers fall to the Browns late last night, 27-24.

Yeah, not pretty. So I'm not making any excuses at all. I thought, to be honest with you, and I'm going to rewatch the game thoroughly, I think it was a pretty even game. I think the better team won. But the Browns tried to give it to you with penalties and stuff, too. I mean, like, it was not a particularly well-played game.

It was Thursday night football.

It was Thursday night yucky football, and it's like that all the time, and I've complained about it since Thursday night football has existed. It's not a Steeler thing for me.

You did say over the offseason when someone asked us if you're NFL commissioner for one day and you can change things, what would you do? Your instant answer was like, I would bag Thursday night football.

It's funny. Tom and I talked about this on the pregame show, and it's like, It might get better when they go to 18 and two buys because you can set people up that they never have to do the short week, no practice. And there were injuries and messiness. And Steelers played well early offense. Opening drive, I thought, was phenomenal. And then they finished the game pretty strong.

And then there was a big stretch in between that was bad. And that's when the Browns played well. And over the course of 60 minutes, I thought it was an equally played game. And the, the better team probably won. Boz were, Boz missed another field goal. Special teams remains to be somewhat of a problem. Um, there's a lot of different things to unpack, but why is it saying I don't make excuses? I watched it on TV. I was not in the building like you guys. It looked like a house of horror. It sounded like a house of horror. It was, it was, you know, this is my fifth, like a terrible place to play. This is, this is my, uh, this is my fifth year traveling with the Steelers.

Yeah. Um, And it was one of the better atmospheres that we've seen. I think the best is probably still that weird Monday, like, late afternoon, early evening, the Mason Rudolph wildcard game up in Buffalo.

In the snowstorm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's Bills Mafia in a playoff game. Playoff game, right, right.

And there's snow everywhere. And, you know, that was probably number one. We've been out to Philly a couple times when they were coming. It was December, and it was nasty.

But it was.

I mean, they.

Like, I.

To get nerdy with people, I had to change some things in our radio rack, like in the system that we travel with.

Because of the crowd noise?

Because of the crowd noise. Really?

Yeah.

And then banging on the metal and.

All that stuff that everyone always forgets about until it's Thursday night in Cleveland, and then all of a sudden it's that.

Annoying sound again. I was asked about this. They were ready to go. They were rocking.

I was asked about it this morning. Why do they always struggle on a short week in Cleveland? I'm like, everyone struggles on a short week, period, on the road. But you got to think about it. And I'm not picking on the Browns fans. I think they're a great fan base. And frankly, you know, they deserve better than they've gotten over the years, their fan base. But they don't host many primetime games. They don't ever have a playoff game. They're usually out of it by December and they hate the Steelers to no end, you know, to no end much more than the Steelers fans disrespect the Browns or whatever.

It's much more of a one way. It's not Steelers Ravens where that's a two way street.

No, they just flat out hate everything black and gold.

Yes.

So you're going to get their best. I'm talking about the fans and the environment. You're going to get the best every time you go there on a Thursday night. And we've seen it then how it plays out on the field.

Matt, you know how like my generation and the generation after me, they've like come up.

Every generation comes up with new terms and new stuff like that. Right.

Like one that I'm sure you've heard a million times is rent free. You know, like if you're if you're talking about like if you if you go on and you tweet about, you know, the Baltimore Ravens and some Ravens fans.

Like all rent free. All you do. We live rent free in your head. All you do is think about us.

Right. That's one of those things that people like my generation and younger like to say is trash talk. Another is we're your Super Bowl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Every time Pitt and WVU play, the two fan bases argue, we're your Super Bowl.

No, you're our Super Bowl. No, we're your Super Bowl.

And I normally think that when someone says, we're your Super Bowl, that you're just seeking comfort, that it's like loser talk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the Steelers are the Browns' Super Bowl.

And there's no question.

That is true.

It's a huge big brother, little brother thing.

But you also know that.

But you know, yeah, that doesn't, I'm not excusing anything.

I don't know if you and i've ever had this conversation before it's one of my biggest pet peeves in sports you know this every time it's a playoff hockey series the uh the coach of the team that won the previous game is always like we got to be ready for the first period to match their intensity they're gonna come out because they're gonna come out flying right and then they lose the game and they go to the media and they go well we couldn't match their intensity in the first period You knew it was coming.

I mean, it doesn't mean you can't do it, but you know it's coming. Don't be shocked by it.

You've walked into that same short week on the road, Hornets nest. It's the Super Bowl in Cleveland.

That's why I brought the first drive. That's why I brought the first drive, too.

You know it's coming.

I mean, you did quiet them.

And you did exactly what you needed to do.

Yeah, you held the ball.

They ran seven plays in the first quarter on offense, Matt.

Wow.

Seven. And two of those were punts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of things. I mean, again, Boz missed a field goal. Steelers got the ball at midfield twice. I think they ran seven total plays off those opportunities. You know, things like that. Address it right now. I mean, on both sides of the ball, man coverage is becoming a real problem. I mean, a real problem. And they're only going to get more of it. It's pretty clear that they're, at least they're wide receivers. I don't want to lump the tight ends and Warren in with the pass catching issues. but nobody's really getting open against man.

You got like 80% man against a team that you knew that's what they do and they do it well. Um, I think I undersold that preview in the game of how difficult their defense was going to be schematically for the Steelers and, you know, Metcalf made some plays and he showed some things and Wilson had probably had his best game. I thought that was kind of encouraging, but Pittman's a total no-show, you know, Bernard's okay, but metcalf's not really a man beater.

I mean you know he's not a ball winner like the past game disappeared for a long stretch of.

Yeah yeah yeah last night and rogers is holding the ball patting it hoping somebody gets open and then you know protection breaks down and he can't get away and um i think it.

And then it's 21 to 10 and you're chasing.

It yeah and then you're chasing it 21 to 7 and you're chasing and then you're going well why aren't we running anymore well now we're in comeback mode because they ran the ball well. I mean, there were some good things. I mean, including Warren in the run game. And we can talk about the O-line. I mean, Max had some issues, but I'm not worried about him one bit.

You know, but one thing that's real apparent to me is Rodgers' inability not to buy time, but inability just to run. You know, like there was, you see a game like this where this, okay, Burrow got the ball out in 2.5 yards. 2.51 seconds, which is ridiculously fast. That's faster than Rogers last year.

I was going to say, that was probably top five. I'm sure that was top five in the league last week.

Yes.

So, and we looked at it like, well, sometimes you got to tip your hat. He's one of the best in the league at it. He's throwing to Chase and Higgins. I doubt these rookie receivers and Watson, who's not wired that way, is going to do it. He's going to be able to pull that game plan off. He got the ball on 2.44. I'm like, it's almost impossible to get pressure. So like, I know people want to blame the front. You're paying all this money, and they've got to get more pressure, blah, blah, blah. It's almost impossible with an NFL lineman in front of you if the ball's coming out under 2.5 on average, which means a lot of them are coming out in like 2.1.

Sure.

But even when they did get pressure, and this is my Rogers complaint, is if you're going to get a lot of man coverage and your quarterback can't scramble for yards consistently... You don't have to be Lamar, but at the end of the day, you got to end up with 35 yards.

Keep them honest. Keep them honest.

Most of them resulting in first downs. Because I always used to use Rodgers.

Third and seven, and I'm going to get you eight.

Yeah.

And Rodgers was so good at that first stretch of his career.

In his prime, I used to use him all the time as an example. I'm like, he's not Michael Vick.

It's kind of like Mahomes does that now. Herbert does that now.

Drake may.

before this season was doing that stuff like that but you don't have to be josh allen or lamar jackson no i mean the defense gives you seven you'll get eight or nine yeah.

Yeah they turn their back on you in man coverage and their protection breaks down and there's a gaping hole in front of you rogers would third and six he'd get seven he'd slide smile give you the finger.

And defensive coordinator right.

Right and he can't do that anymore i mean he still has strengths don't get me wrong but Because D lines are better than O lines, not being able to run, I mean, like get yardage as a runner. I'm not talking about hold the ball behind the line of scrimmage. It's tough, man. I mean, and that's not going to get better.

No, and this is Matt. Stop me if you've heard this before, but even with significant change four games into this season, it's still the same diagnosis for the Steelers offense. And what feels like, You're not multiple. You don't have a bunch of different ways that you can win.

You know you're not you you need.

To run the football you need to stay ahead of the sticks you need to have Aaron hit those occasional plays lean on your defense yeah I you know I understand the Steelers offense just scored 24 points last night and they scored what 30 a few days before that against Cincinnati although was one of those was TJ right against Cincinnati Yeah.

Yes.

So it was really 23 points the offense scored if you take away the.

Pick six. No, that was against the Patriots. No, that was against the Patriots.

Okay.

You're right.

They hardly made any big plays.

I know you were up until two in the morning.

I know you were up until three or four days.

I'm like, wait a second, was that? You're right.

Okay, so 30 and 24 for the Steelers offense.

This defense should be good enough to make that winning football.

This defense should be good enough to make that winning football, absolutely.

And it's one-on-one football. Both games were down to the wire.

But I don't know how often that that's going to be repeatable for this offense.

I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

Like you can't, you got to cash in on the days you get 24, 30 points. You're right.

Exactly right.

And what you have to do is what you alluded to, what you saw on that first, first drive. I mean, 17 plays, 78 yards, nearly 10 minutes off the clock. That is leaning on an opposition defense. That is, I think how this team is built. We talked plenty earlier in the week about how, you know, offensive line and run game has to travel.

Yeah.

It, it needs to be the same in the September sunshine as it is in the December snow and muck and yuck.

And it started that way last night.

But then as soon as that interception on the second, on the second, uh, drive for the Steelers.

They were, it was the turning point.

They were never really able to get it back.

No.

I remember as soon as that happened going, Oh, you know, like it's just the crowd woke back up. You quieted them. You'd weathered the storm. You matched their intensity in the first period, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Um, I was so encouraged because a big thing I've been searching for with the Steelers offense is what's your identity? What are you good at? I had a good conversation with Tom, and you and I have had this conversation many times. They're so big on offense that I thought in the Bengals game they really started to understand that.

And what I mean by that is Friar Muth blocking a linebacker six yards downfield, getting a Haunted Shore and Troy and those guys out in space and pulling– And I love that to the wide side of the field, they've been starting to embrace. I'm going to line up three huge human beings and throw it to one of them and just have this fence of giant people, including Darnell Washington, who wants to get hit with him? You know, like things like that, where they just played big and ran the ball. And then the first series happened. I'm like, yeah, you know, they, they, Learned their lesson. This is who they are now.

This is who we are now.

And then the rest of the game, that's not who they were. Because I think they can be that type of offense. I can't just rely on my receivers to win one-on-one. I mean, I don't have Chase and Higgins. And my quarterback's playing a certain way. You know what I mean?

And from that point, Matt, I mean, it was a Cleveland offense who in the first quarter ran seven plays for 30 yards.

Yes.

To all of a sudden that put up about 200 yards of offense in the second quarter after that interception.

They got really hot, yeah.

And three straight touchdown drives, nearly 200 yards of total offense in the second quarter for Cleveland, and you go interception, you go punt, you go missed field goal, and then you did make the field goal at the end of the half.

And you haven't started making field goals here, by the way.

But you're still, I mean, you're down double digits at the half, Matt, and I don't care. how this Steelers offense plays on a week to week basis. That's just not a recipe for success. Most offenses in the NFL aren't built to come down from double digits. That's another one of those like coach speak things that, that always, you know, I think it's fun. Like you'll hear coaches sometimes say, well, we fell behind and we're just not built to catch.

There's not an NFL offense. It's like, all right, we're down two touchdowns. This is exactly what I want to be.

I got great, great play calls for this.

This is what we're built for. but some are obviously more built for that than others.

Sure, Bengals and New York City.

There's nuance in that conversation.

No one's built to be down two scores, but teams like the Bengals and Buffalo and the Rams are probably a little more equipped to handle it. This offense is not. This is the offense that needs to play with the lead, that needs to lean on the defense, that needs to keep their.

And bludgeon people.

Bludgeon people, keep your defense fresh, and especially take advantage of those opportunities when you get them. The Cleveland offense was able to take advantage of their turnovers, of their short field situations.

And they deserve some credit. Cleveland did some good things, and they're probably a better team than I gave them credit for. Their defense is still quite good and is going to give teams problems. Watson was up and down, but he executed the game plan well. Those two young receivers are dudes.

Yes, they are.

They're going to be a problem for a while.

Yes, they are.

Fannin, Judkins are legit. Their line played better than I expected or better than I was happy with, to be honest. I thought Sears would dominate the trenches, but part of it is because the ball is coming out so fast. The back seven, the defense, is a problem right now. I mean, they're injured, slow, traded, not able to play man or they're not comfortable playing man or the system just doesn't apply man, which everyone's going to be like, well, you just trade your best man corner. And that's not wrong.

I mean, everyone on the planet knows that's what happened. But I think the more I analyze the Porter situation, who, oh, by the way, is healthy again. I guess a plane ride from Pittsburgh to Dallas cures your back.

It must have been one of those. It was one of those nice, like the planes that the Rams flew to Australia. It was one of those nice. They got like beds and massage chairs.

Now he's all better. But anyway, I got the impression when it was all said and done that they were tired of that nonsense and just. And I also think the players were on Porter's side in terms of, we think you deserve the money. And I was on the sidelines, but I bet there was a little bit of frustration, whether they were saying that or not, that we want to play man. You just got rid of our man, my buddy.

Sure.

And like, I mean, I'm sure a lot of those guys were asleep Wednesday night before the news broke and probably Thursday morning notifications on their phone and all that.

Breakfast or whatever.

Yeah.

But my point is it doesn't, if you're not going to be a, a man team, um, it still doesn't make a lot of business sense to pay a man only corner. You know what I mean? Like the timing couldn't be worse, but that doesn't mean it was a good business decision just to give him anything he wants. You know, like that's what I'm getting from every fan and everyone on Twitter. Well, just give him whatever you want, sign him, you know, like you still have to have parameters here. You know what I mean? You can't just give everybody everything they want. If that's, if that style of corner isn't what you're after, I don't know. I'm not trying to defend the organization. I mean, it's just, The back seven is frustrating right now. I think the

safety play is a problem. Injury is now at corner. All of a sudden, that position looks light when it looked really deep when you entered camp. Linebackers were so-so. And your defensive front is such a strength, it's being neutralized because you don't have time to get home. So fortunately, I think Patrick Graham is an incredibly smart fella and a really, really good head coach. He's got 10 days to be like, okay, the cards I thought I was dealt got shuffled again. I've got to figure this thing out.

Maybe get Elliott back, and that's a step in the right direction. Maybe you play Spears Jennings more. He did some good things. He's faster than those other safeties. Maybe Jenkins, when Elliott comes back, isn't a sealer anymore. It doesn't mean you have to sit on your hands and just keep doing the same thing over and over.

No, absolutely not.

Matt, let's get to our first break, and then I want to kind of– a lot that you said there that I think deserves to dig in more with this Steelers defense.

We'll talk about the Steelers offense.

We'll continue to kind of digest everything here in the first hour that happened last night at Huntington Bank Field where, of course, the Browns 27, the Steelers 24.

Now Cleveland is first place in the AFC North.

Yeah, how about that?

Good Lord.

Good for them. I mean, them and the Raiders are the best stories of the year, but I don't know. I don't think either are contender. Don't get me wrong.

No, I don't either.

And yeah, that's good.

Right.

I think I'd feel, I think I would feel a little bit better for that organization if there was somebody different under center, but that's a completely different, that's a completely.

Different, completely different conversation.

But I want to, I want to piggyback off of some of that stuff with the Steelers defense that you just touched on. Let's talk some more about the back seven, those linebackers, that secondary and, and kind of the, the onus to improve here. on this long week ahead of returning home next Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. Plenty of ground to cover. We're just getting started here on this Friday reaction show. Euler and Williamson, it's The Drive, Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.

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Louis, Missouri.

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All the picks. I told you they were building their own line.

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All right, Matt, let's pick up where we left off here.

Yeah, yeah.

Man, I tell you what. Steelers tie. Can I just say Steelers tie that game up at the.

End, right?

Yeah.

Aaron Rodgers from the one-yard line punches it in, and I'm thinking in.

The back of my mind.

That was some good stuff, man.

Right.

I'm like, I think Williamson and I might have dodged a bullet for tomorrow. Because this will surprise absolutely nobody. But, you know, I think it was about 3 a.m. before I got home. I think it was more 3.30 for our guy TV.

Just when the buses leave, right? When they're full, you go.

These weeknight road games suck from just a normalcy standpoint, I'm.

Sure, as everyone can imagine.

You'll be happy about it Sunday.

I'll be very happy this weekend, without a doubt.

But.

And I obviously prefer the Thursday-nighters because all you've got to do is survive Friday.

And then you've got the weekend.

Monday-nighters are the worst because then all week you're trying to catch up on sleep and get your schedule back.

And most of them aren't in Cleveland.

They're in L.A. or Seattle. Matt, we play.

A Monday-nighter in Jacksonville. What time do you think we're going to get home from that one?

It'll probably be 4 a.m.

When I'm walking in through my front door and my girls will wake me up 90 minutes later. But it's obviously a different world when you win versus when you lose. You feel it more when you lose.

I'm like, oh, man. Down the stretch of that game, I'm like— Because.

That's a winnable game.

I'm like, not only am I going to get three hours of sleep and be a miserable jag, Steelers are going to lose.

Matt and I are going to have to talk about this.

Right.

And then Aaron Rodgers ties it up. I'm like, hey, this might go a little bit longer, but it's all right.

Get these guys overtime. I really like our chances.

We might get to have a victory Friday tomorrow and have some fun with it.

And unfortunately, that was not the case.

And I think we did a good job for the majority of that opening segment kind of talking about some of the issues mostly of the offense and what this offense needs to be and how that wasn't the case last night. But what you kind of alluded to there with the defense– I think is spot on the Steelers linebackers.

And I'm talking to off ball linebackers, mostly Patrick queen and Peyton Wilson. I thought they had a really strong start to the season. And even in that week to debacle against new England, I thought played fairly well. Those two, I thought they were two of the only ones on defense that could say.

That they've disappeared lately.

And then, and, and they've started to go the opposite direction and, And the Steelers secondary, as you mentioned at the beginning of the season, when we're out in Latrobe, we're like, look at this depth, look at this quality. And then you lose to Sean Elliott right off the bat. You never get to also as.

The leadership and communication stuff back there.

Absolutely.

You never get to see Joey Porter jr. In a Steelers uniform in stadium this season.

You got a bunch of rookies out there yesterday.

Jamel Dean ends up exiting the game. Brandon Echols is 100%. Jalen Ramsey is 100%. He's playing with a, With a cast on his wrist. And so all of a sudden, what felt like it was going to be a real strength has turned into the opposite and is starting to raise a lot of questions.

It is.

I don't have a lot more to add to it. I think you laid that out well. But like Jenkins and Brisker, you're starting safeties. And I feel like we brushed that off a little bit because a million times I said, strong versus free isn't a thing anymore, guys. You know, you want to be You don't want to give it away that Minka is always in center field.

Who's going to be where they're going to do things at the snap. But the problem is they're both stronger than freer. And what I mean by that is they're slow.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, yeah, right. And I can get away with a slower secondary if the pass rush is getting home and I don't have to cover as long, et cetera, but their athleticism, it's safety is below the line right now. And it looked like, and I can't wait to really, really, really watch it.

Well, can you?

I mean. Like, I think Jenkins might have got benched for Spears Jennings.

Okay.

Who can really, really run. And I know he's a late round rookie, but he's passed every test so far. And I'm not saying he's going to be the answer. He's the next Minka or Troy or anything like that. But I know he's. Got upside, and I know that he can cover a lot of ground, and maybe him and Elliott are out there more than... Maybe you get a wholesale line change at the safety position.

Maybe.

Because, I mean, I feel like we should.

You've got an extra long week now to.

At least try and lay it out. Yeah, let's see him with the ones on Wednesday. And, you know, I'm just throwing things out there. Like things they should at least consider in the long week. It's not a short week that you've got to go to Cleveland and we've got to run it back. I can't be putting new people out there now. We're getting a bus tomorrow.

Right, we're just doing walkthroughs all week basically.

Yeah.

So this should have been brought up way before. Their tackling was horrible. Yeah. And to me, that's like the biggest thing. And Tyler sent us something.

According to NextGenStats, the Steelers allowed 108 yards off of missed tackles last night, the fifth most of any NFL game this season.

So, I mean, that's not opinion. Their tackling was horrible. That's a fact. I mean, it was. And not excusing them, Thursday night games, tackling's worse. It just is. And it will be next Thursday and the following Thursday, no matter who's playing. It just is. And that totally adds up.

And the Browns had their issues, too.

I mean, how about their penalties?

They took, what, 13 or 14 penalties?

Yeah.

A lot of them very costly.

Very costly. So there were things in that game that weren't clean at all, to be honest. You could say that both teams were trying to let the other team win to some degree. You know, like, boy. But, you know, how do you fix it? That's the thing. And the tackling, to me, might have been as problematic as anything there.

And some of that goes back to We know Queen misses a lot of tackles, and he runs well, but he misses his share of tackles. Their safeties, to me, their lack of speed and angles show up when making tackles, too. They're not taking great angles realizing that they're not as fast as Troy. You know what I mean? So that compounds the problem.

Yes, it does.

Because not to mention, I think it's clear they're not going to be a heavy man team. And that's probably part of the plan the day they all got hired. You know, this is the best way to use these dudes. We want, you know, but you got to tackle the catch. You know, like if you're, if the ball is coming out quick and they did this well against Cincinnati. Okay.

Chase catches seven or eight balls. Higgins catch seven, eight balls, but he didn't. make two people miss and take it 70, you drag them down as an eight-yard gain. Sure.

Okay.

I can live with that, but I can't play this style of defense and missing tackles at the linebacker and safety level. I just can't.

And you did a really good job in this regard week one against B.

John Robinson.

Yeah, yeah. He got him.

He had a lot of those six, seven, eight yarders.

Sure.

But you stopped him from having the 28 yarders.

Yeah.

And he made some dudes.

He made some guys miss. He made some plays.

He will Monday night too.

Those guys are on scholarship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that's gone the opposite direction these last couple weeks.

And some of the other ailments on defense, if they'd have been an average tackling team last night, they'd probably win.

Sure.

You know?

Sure.

Then you can look at it and say if Cleveland only takes six or seven penalties instead of 13 or 14- Maybe.

They end up winning by 10 points.

Yeah.

It just, yeah.

And I think again, that's why I think it was a very even game. And you know, I'm a dork with my advanced stats and stuff like that. And I dug into those late last night and this morning and that's on paper.

Yeah.

I mean, people were like, I'm sick of your stats, Matt. You know, it's fine. After when you win, they want to hear all about it. But really almost, if you look at almost every category, it's about the same, you know, yards per play, time of possession, Explosives. Other than sacks, which was a big deal, all of a sudden the Steelers were taking too many sacks.

Big time.

I mean, the stats that I care about were pretty much equal.

Turnovers were even, two apiece. 14 penalties for the Cleveland Browns.

That was a big one that helped the Steelers, for sure.

Unbelievable.

Sack differential was bad. You were minus three. Yep. Some of that was on the quarterback, too. I mean, okay, no one's getting opening man coverage. That doesn't mean you got to eat it. Throw it away.

Get rid of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get rid of it.

And one of which knocked you out of field goal position. I mean, that's a rookie quarterback error. I mean, this guy's the best general out there. You can't take the sack there. That's the one thing you can't do.

No, you absolutely cannot.

Yeah. And, Matt, another thing that kind of reared its ugly head that the Steelers did much better with against Cincinnati, but they had struggled with in the first two games of the season, struggled once again last night, third down efficiency.

Yeah.

Just four of 13. I mean, what is that, like 29%?

Yeah.

That way below the line that ain't gonna that's that ain't gonna win you many games in the nfl now cleveland was four of 10 40 that's still not great but that's at 40 is about average.

If you're if you're complete that's why you don't want to get the third downs if a good day is 40 percent converting then you don't want to get to their.

Down exactly right exactly right and uh 40 is a i don't know if it's a good day but it's an acceptable day for cleveland 4 of 13 though no that's not going to get it done i mean the steelers got five first downs from penalties from the browns that's a gift that's a gift it's different they had 24 first downs on the day five of them were given to handed to.

You and a lot of their penalties i think there's two ways of looking at penalties sometimes it's like Tyreek Hill runs past you and I get burned.

Sure.

So I drag him down.

It's probably smart. Yeah.

Okay. And that's a big penalty.

Like we saw A.J. Terrell do to Roman Wilson in the opener. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Okay. So it's going to be a bad play no matter what. It's either a penalty or it's going to be receiving yardage. Either way, it's bad. Or my right tackle can't block T.J. Watt at all. And I take four holding calls and a false start. These were just gifts from the Browns, though. I mean, it wasn't like you were inducing so many penalties because you were whipping them. Once in a while, like always.

Mm-hmm.

But it wasn't like, man, they're just holding every time because they can't block anybody.

Right.

So you earned them all. They were some gifts in terms of the penalties they gave. The special team stuff. No doubt. The Bosnians make a kick. You can't miss three and four. Another side note. Again, I think Boswell is going to be fine. I mean, his track record is ridiculously good. But the bar for kickers has gone up so fast in this league. that any missed kick is magnified like crazy because these guys make them from everywhere.

And we saw their dude last night.

57-yarder.

His career long, you know? I mean, the rules have changed. Special teams is more important now than it used to be because of kickoff rules, and they're not getting too dorky. Their ability to manipulate the footballs throughout the course of the week. And the kickers are just better. I mean, the average field goal distance that people are trying, I actually have it written down at home. My numbers are off, but the league this year is on pace to kick like 170, 50-plus yarders.

To make or to take?

The league as a whole. And it'll probably calm down a little when it gets colder, blah, blah, blah. Over the last three years, the average number has been like 125. The three years before that, or like the 20 years before that, they didn't even come close to 100. I mean, so it's like doubling what we remember a normal field goal is.

It's like three-point shooting in the NBA.

It's exactly what it is. It's exactly what it is. And everybody makes them.

The baseline of varsity is through the roof now.

Yeah, right. And that's kind of what the league wants. They want more points, and people are starting with better field position.

And this is a total.

shiny silver it's almost too easy i i think it and i think we need to maybe that's something in the off season we can do i think it's way.

Too i think it's way too easy yeah i think.

Kickers decide way too many games now yeah and i know some people will say hey they're paid too they're on the roster too.

Of course but that's not why anybody tunes that's not.

Why anybody tunes in right right i uh One of my hot takes in the past has been, Matt, that I wouldn't mind scrapping field goals and extra points altogether.

You can only punt. That's it.

You've got to go for two every time, or you've got to go for it, or you've got to punt. But I think that's probably way too extreme for the NFL.

Or narrowing the goalposts.

But maybe it's time to narrow the goalposts, or maybe it's time to do something like that. Because you're right.

Nowadays, it seems like 53, 54, 55 yarders are almost assumed as automatic.

Yeah.

Whereas not that long ago, if you were 50% and plus 50 yarders, you were doing an unbelievable job.

So I think I heard this on the side note, and it's a good thing for us to talk about actually next week when we have a little more time. The athletic football show, I think, was where I heard this, that starting field position is going to be one of my new babies. Starting field position differential. I know that's a lot of words.

That makes sense. Start at the 35 versus the 24.

Right.

Is more important now than ever.

So you pick up two first downs, you kick a field goal.

Yeah.

I mean, where are you starting drives? minus where the opponents are starting drives. The Raiders are far and away the best in the league at it. Why are they 3-0? Why are they overachieving? They're starting drives at midfield to get one first down, and it's an easy chip shot field goal by today's standards.

It's huge.

Thus, you better be better on returns. The teams that kick touchbacks, I think, are so dumb. You're going to let them start at the 35? I mean, that's what the league exactly doesn't want. All this hidden yardage, which the Steelers haven't been great in yet this year, is more important than ever because these guys can make field goals from anywhere. And if Boz misses three and four games, not only are you below his standards, which are unbelievably high and I think we'll get back to, but it's below everyone's standards. I mean, it's not like, oh, that's a fluke, now you missed. You have to almost make every one to keep up with the Joneses. It's crazy.

The league's changing very quickly on special teams. And no one talks about that stuff.

Maybe that's something we should dig into and get into some numbers behind that next week.

That's a good call by you.

Why are the Rams 1-2? They're the worst special teams unit in the league. It matters. I'm just saying what it matters.

They're the best special teams in the league.

I was saying this on the show today. Okay, Stafford throws for 400 yards. Boy, the offense is rolling. But if you lose 50 yards on special teams, a yard's a yard either way. I'm just trying to get a yard close.

They don't ask how. They ask how many. Right.

And you're like, boy, how'd they lose after throwing and putting up 500 yards of offense? Well, you lost 100 yards on special teams. You know, like every yard, I'm just trying to get close to the goal line. It doesn't matter how I get there. It doesn't matter if.

I throw it, if I run it, if I return it. Yeah. If it's a penalty.

But we just have to be more conscious of that as analysts. And I'm going to really be into it. Because the league's changing, so we have to adjust what's important.

Does it ever drive you crazy just how fast the night changes? That was a rough one last night, and you're right. That special team stuff, certainly, I think you can draw a direct parallel to what happened.

I'd like to see the Steelers return team, especially with a mid-round pick being out there.

Yes, it has to be better.

And coverage teams.

Teams are seemingly just kicking it to Legion.

I don't see any reason to fear them yet until you put stuff on tape that scares you.

I mean.

No problem kicking it to the Steelers in those scenarios.

You've got to start making some teams pay. You have to.

So here's another side note that has me a little wound up, too. And again, I didn't disapprove of it on cut day. But this roster has four quarterbacks and has a returner that only does that.

Mm-hmm.

In a way, that's two wasted roster spots, if you see what I'm saying, compared to what some teams have that could be a safety in a corner.

Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? Like, who also tackle on special teams and make your special teams better.

Correct.

Because I have two Spears Jennings instead of one. You know what I mean?

Yes.

So their roster construction isn't helping things either because one guy only touches the ball when you kick or punt it to him and hasn't made a huge difference yet. And the other guy is a fourth quarterback who you don't want to see the field on purpose.

He's not even in pads. He's not even.

Right, right, right.

So.

The roster construction and, you know, one more safety would go a long way, you know, that can run or whatever.

Game of inches, right?

The minutiae in professional sports matters so much more than ever before.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to put a microscope on everything and find all.

The little things.

Because everything is under a microscope.

It is.

There's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to hide. Every single inch that you can gain an advantage, all those margins are drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled some more by these teams now. They've all got large coaching staffs and analytic people and coaches for this and coaches for that and coaches for everything. If you give an inch in those regards, Al Pacino, any given Sunday, those inches all around us are going to be the difference.

So I mean this out of all respect to Kevin Colbert, who's a tremendous GM that I've learned a ton from and rightfully was just enshrined.

He might be in Canton one day.

But it just is. I remember Dale, Kevin, and I having a small conversation at the conference. Hey, how you doing, Kevin? Blah, blah, blah. And I don't know what Dale was asking about, but this was a long time ago.

At like a combine or owner's meetings.

Yeah.

It might even been at the facility or whatever, but it was well over 10 years ago and analytics were not big.

It was like right when you were starting in this.

Yeah. I want to say I was kind of just new floating around and, you know, I just gotten done with the SPN or whatever. And Kevin's like, you know what I'm really into now is yards per play, you know, like, and to me, and now that is first line in Matt stats.

I mean, that's analytics 101.

That's kindergarten. You know what I mean? Like, when I was a kid, no one even cared about yards per player. How much are we giving up on yards per play? Kevin was a little bit ahead of the curve at that point in NFL history saying we're going to be more conscious of yards per play. No one ever heard of like yards per route run or yards after contact or anything like that. Like, I don't know. It's just, this thing is happening so fast and you have to keep up. And if you have any weakness at all, you're going to see a lot of man coverage.

Yep.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, there's no hiding like they're.

Gonna run it until you prove you can stop it yeah there is no running there is no hiding there is none of that stuff in any level of sport anymore no but i think a football because you get all week to prepare.

Yeah and as soon as someone gets hurt you're like okay i'm gonna attack that weakness you know.

If you're the pirates in this this this team that you're playing it was really bad against left-handers or something like that you know like You've got to play some other team three times that week before you get to that team, and it's so on the fly, and you can only do so much. But if you're the Browns, you can sit home for days and days, and here's what they do on defense. Here's what they can't stop.

Here's how we're going to be.

We're going to practice it over and over and over for three days straight or whatever. In this case, not three days, but a normal work week.

Again, in the other leagues, they have all that information to them, but they don't have as much time to prepare with it.

Not from game to game.

If you're the, if you're the, if you're.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, you got to play Toronto on Monday and then Detroit on Wednesday.

And then the Lakers on Saturday, we.

Can't stop the pick and roll, but we got no time to fix it. I mean, I don't know anything about the sport, but you know, right.

They got all the time in the world to fix it.

And that's the, if you want one piece of a silver lining today, that's the one that the Steelers now have that rest advantage next week.

Yeah.

They've got the time to fix things.

A guy like Elliot could be back, you know, I mean, it, Rico could be back. I love Jalen Warren, and I love that he's gotten a huge workload two weeks in a row, but he played every snap but two in that game.

Did he really? I've got the snap counts right here in front of me.

That's nuts for a running back, especially on a short week on the road.

Wow, he did 70 of 72 snaps. Holy cow!

I mean, you're playing with fire there. I don't care if it's Bijon or Emmitt Smith or whoever. That's not what running backs are designed to do on a short week on the road after having the biggest workload of their life three days ago.

Let's get to our last break. I don't give a rip. We've got two beefy segments here. We'll have a shorter segment to kind of close down this first hour. Plenty more to dissect and digest here on this Commiseration Friday. Euler Ann Williamson, Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.

And now a word from our sponsor, Bud Light. There's nothing better than a clean Christmas. There's nothing better than the.

Clean, crisp.

Uh, what if we just got out of here and grabbed some Bud Lights? But man, we're on air for four more hours.

I'll figure it out.

Sounds good to me. Anything for the clean, crisp taste of Bud Light.

Stock up now.

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Steelers Nation Radio.

Matt, it is funny. We go to break and we just keep talking.

Yeah, we just kept recording the whole time. It's pure gold.

I guess we do.

We talked a little bit about the offensive line, and man, it looked like they were just going to whip some Browns booty for three hours after that first series.

That was not the case.

And just unfortunate of what seemed like just an incredible tone-setting drive for the offense. You thought the offensive line was going to be able to continue that momentum throughout the night, and they weren't. hey, you and I are still fully on board, and if anybody wants to sell their stock, you and I.

Will buy it.

Oh, yeah.

But our guy, Mad Max, had himself some rookie growing pains last night.

Yeah, I wanted to bring it up a little bit, because we talk about him a lot, almost always in glowing nature, and I couldn't be any higher on him still.

I'll buy the stock if people want to sell it.

I mean, even Warren's a great pass-protecting back. He got ran over once, it mattered, and Rodgers also held the ball longer than I would have liked overall over the course of the night with receivers not getting open. But I feel like a bad analyst, because... I feel like we should have seen Max's troubles coming a week ago for the simple reason of this guy before this game, and I'm defending him because I love him. I'm not even going to hide it. That before this game, he had played one NFL game in his life. He'd never been on the road. He'd never prepared for a short week against a good defense. He had to go in there like, I'm not used to play. I've never played on three days rest. I've never played an NFL road game.

This place is bonkers. I can't hear a thing. And the players I'm trying to block are pretty good.

Yeah.

So like he was set up for failure and he did not have a great game and I'm excited to watch it again, but I'm not worried one bit.

Yeah. He keeps using that word, Tyler.

Excited to watch it again i'm not excited to watch i'm.

Well i'm excited to isolate some something i know i'm excited to isolate the individual offensive lineman again yeah you know like some of that kind of a couple things i'm looking for again.

And that first dude that first series they were just they were bouncers and they were just throwing browns.

Away fryer muth and washington are blocking in space.

Killing people metcalf as well zach fraser's twisting mason graham in half like a pretzel.

10 guys out there well nine a ball carrier and aaron's not blocking anybody or doing a lot of good blocking over the last two games. Stick with that. Be big.

And in the course of everything that happened last night, Matt, and a lot happened, that might be the most surprising thing for me now that we have a little time to breathe and step back. Is that first series for 10 minutes, it looked like that offensive line was about it.

I was like, oh, this is what we're going to see from the rest of creation.

This is it. Here we go.

It looks like the Bengals.

For the next 14 weeks, this offensive line is going to just pulverize people.

Yeah.

They did for the first 10 minutes, and then.

I'm not happy he got hurt, but what they did to Mason Graham.

Zach Frazier twisted him up like a pretzel. Yeah.

They were moving Dexter Lawrence the week before, and that series ended. I'm like, this is the new Steelers. I've seen about five quarters of the line together. This is the new Steelers.

This is finally what we've been waiting for.

And I still think that can be there.

Absolutely.

They ran the ball well all night.

It better be there.

It better be there. But that's what you need to lean into.

Yes.

And frankly, I think some of it I've used the Rodgers-Elway analysis. You're the end-of-career Elway now. Hand it to TD, make a couple throws a game. They can't be the top of the league in pass attempts. There's no way that's ignoring your strengths.

It's a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hour in the books, another hour to go. We've got more from this game. We need to get into some snap counts and some usage stuff. And then obviously in hour number two, we are going to go around the league like we typically do.

Ooh, it's a good slate.

And preview a big week four across the NFL here this weekend. It was funny doing the halftime show last night. Our second segment of the halftime show is always like the out-of-town scoreboard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which there isn't one.

And that's always funny when you play on Thursdays because it's like, uh, this is it.

Week four is ahead of us. Because even if it's a Monday night, you can kind of recap.

At least something happened, right?

The Ravens beat the Cowboys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Bengals lost to the Texans, you know, whatever. But Thursday, it's like, uh, the Braves are beating the Phillies right now? That's what's going on in sports outside of this?

The Bengals are going to host the Jags, but nothing's happened yet. That's kind of what I did. Yeah, I assumed.

Here's what Cincinnati's got. Here's what Baltimore's got. Here's another big game or two to keep an eye on. Hour in the books. Another hour to go. We'll continue to get through this thing together. Euler, Williamson, halfway home here on this Friday. It's The Drive, Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.

And now a word from our sponsor, Bud Light. There's nothing better than the clean, crisp....

There's nothing better than the.

Clean, crisp.

Uh, what if we just got out of here and grabbed some Bud Lights? But man, we're on air for four more hours.

I'll figure it out.

Sounds good to me. Anything for the clean, crisp taste of Bud Light.

Stock up now.

Bud Light.

Louis, Missouri.

I told you they were building their own line. I win the bet.

Get 100% fiber internet with Verizon Fios, because when it comes to your team, it's 100% or nothing. Call 1-833-VERIZON to switch today.

Get that hot dog costume ready.

Bruh.

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