Drive9.23.26Halicke: Chris Halicke on Steelers Latest

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Steelers Nation Radio. Good evening, Steeler Nation. How we doing? Well, that's good. Us too. It is hour number two of the drive here on this Wednesday. And to the phone lines, we go to the south side to talk to our buddy Chris Halleck of DK Pittsburgh Sports. If you are rocking and rolling with us throughout the regular season, Chris is one of our favorites. Chris is one of our regulars. Thanks, buddy, for taking the time here on a busy day, busy week.

And I guess there's no sense in burying the lead What's the latest on Joey Porter Jr.? What'd you see today? What are we thinking? What's his status?

Yeah, with Joey, he was on the practice field today during the portion of practice that was open to the media. He was on the field. I saw him taking part in individual drills. Still haven't had a chance to hear from him. He didn't talk to any members of the media after practice, so Kind of hard to say right now what he's going to do, his availability. I would, based off of knowing the fact that the back issue has flared up, that he was probably a limited participant today.

We'll see when the injury report comes out, but I think tomorrow's practice is probably the big one for him because the way the practice has gone the first two weeks of the season is Thursday has been the padded practice, and so that seems to be the more important day of, hey, if a player can get on the field, be a full participant for the padded practice, that's probably a good indication.

So if he can be limited today, kind of ramp some things up, and then I know Stuart's fans are tired of hearing that phrase, but if he can ramp up today, get back on the field tomorrow in pads, and then be a full participant then, then you're looking at the possibility of him returning to the field.

But it's safe to say he wasn't just on a bike or off to the side or any of those type of things. Like he was doing football things.

Yeah. I mean, he was, he was in the, in the stretch period during time. And then I, and you know, the media only gets to look at the, uh, the individual individual was taking part in. Yeah. He was taking part in the individual drills. So I mean, correct. Okay.

Yeah.

And then that's, that's what you, that's what you want to see, you know, at least from a guy who's, probably going to be a limited participant practice but if he's a full participant then hey that's that's great but you know at least he's he's back out there and uh at least at least in you know participating in in a limited fashion but maybe.

Even a full we'll see chris uh are you expecting any good news for michael pitman jr this weekend listen i'm sure we'll ask you a little bit about the offense here as we roll along um and i think they've got a lot of issues certainly but getting that guy back on sunday would be a good step in the right direction.

Yeah, it definitely would. Uh, he was also on the practice field today with, uh, with his team. Uh, he was, uh, Mike McCarthy said it before practice that he was going to get, you know, he was going to work today. Didn't don't know exactly again, how much, uh, he's, uh, how much work he was able to do in practice, but, uh, just returning to the field, you know, especially after, you know, being limited last Wednesday and then not practicing Thursday or Friday.

So his return to the practice field is definitely encouraging. Um, you know, we'll see again, you know, see what happens Thursday with him being a veteran player. There might be a little bit of a longer leash when it comes to, okay, maybe he doesn't have to be a full participant on Thursday. You know, we'll see, you know, like for example, we saw Troy Faltano in week one or week two. I can't remember which week it was, but he, he went from being like a did not practice Wednesday to limited Thursday to full participant Friday. And then ended up playing. So, you know, I think Pittman returning to the practice field is definitely encouraging. You know, we'll see what happens for the rest of the week. But they'll definitely welcome him

back with open arms, that's for sure.

My last injury question is concerning Rico Dowdle. And if he can't go, we mentioned yesterday on the show, maybe Lou Nichols gets that call. I can't imagine Heidenreich or Homer being a guy that you want to give 30% of the backfield touches to.

At this point. it's a, it's a potential, you know, that's a potential guy that you should look at getting and getting a call up now with Rico. He was, he did, he was not participating in anything that I saw during the window of practice open to the media. He was actually in a walking boot on his left, his left foot, you know, during, I actually, you know, got a chance to see him and he was in the walking boot, but, Um, you know, we'll, we'll see how that plays out, but that's not an encouraging sign to start the week. So, uh, you know, we'll see what happens Thursday or Friday, if he's able to get on the field at all, again, being a veteran player, having played in McCarthy system before, and maybe there's a

little bit of a longer leash there, but, um, that's certainly not what you want to see when the, when the practice week is beginning. But yeah, when you're looking at potential replacements, you know, somebody who can take some touches away from Jalen Warren to make sure you're not overworking him. Yeah, I think Lou Nichols is a guy you could possibly look at. I think, you know, as long as you feel maybe if Pittman does return and you don't feel like you need to play Ben Skoranek a whole bunch at actual wide receiver on offense and you can have him be more of your special teams guy, then maybe you don't feel the need to call up Travis Homer. Maybe you can call up Lou Nichols to actually take some touches out of the backfield.

Chris Halleck with us here on the Steelers Audio Network. Chris, I'm sure this will come as no surprise to you, but the last couple days Matt and I have been talking about the offense plenty and a lot of that conversation circling around the offensive line, particularly the right side of that offensive line. Could we see some changes this weekend against Cincinnati?

I it's, it's hard to say right now, because before practice, Mike McCarthy was talking about the, like the importance of continuity and how, you know, when you're, when you're essentially, when you essentially have two competitions going on, on the offensive line, and you're trying to mix a whole bunch of combinations together as they did during training camp. They're like, you're trying to figure out who's worthy of playing, but then that affects the continuity of the offensive line as well.

That being said, in practice today, and again, this is during individual drills, so this wasn't during team drills or anything, so it's hard to say what the actual plan is, but during individual drills, they had them working in groups of two, in pairs, and they had Brock Hoffman and Maxi Honach were working together And then they had Spencer Anderson and Dylan cook working together. So what I would think based off of that, if there, if there are changes that are made, I don't think it's just one change.

I don't think you just cook off the field, put Maxi on a chore on there and put them with Spencer Anderson. I think it's a change. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're pretty much changing lines there. You're going to, to Brock Hoffman at right guard and Maxi on a chore right tackle. So, It could be that. And, you know, Brock Hoffman is this, this actually, this is a, you know, kind of something I didn't really consider until today. Brock Hoffman, you know, obviously he has experience working under Mike McCarthy, but he also has multiple years of experience of facing Dexter Lawrence twice a year. So this might, if you are going to make a change, this might be the week to do it because you're at least putting a

guy out there who has faced that man across the line of scrimmage for a Bengals defense that is doing very, very good right now, that is not feeling the need to load the box and is doing a phenomenal job of stopping the run, mainly because Dexter Lawrence is just a freak in the inside. So at least you have a guy who's been in there and faced him Um, but that would also probably mean Maxi Honitore would be starting next to him. Again, if I, if I think that the line combinations are as important to, um, to Mike McCarthy, as he says it is, I think that's what it's going to be. It's not going to be, Hey, we're going to take one guy off, put another guy on.

It's probably going to be keeping a pair of guys over on the right side. Okay.

That's really good observations, especially the Lawrence background. And he obviously is not the, uh, the typical challenge on even an NFL Sunday. I'm curious, you know, I feel like even just to isolate on the Patriot game, I don't think anyone's happy with how the offensive line as a whole has played, but when you isolate each individual player, particularly the past protection stuff, Anderson, I thought was the only one that had a particularly bad game. I mean, none of them were, Munoz or Fanica, don't get me wrong, but they had a lot of blitz pickup issues. They had some scheme stuff that I didn't think worked in their favor. Anderson was losing pretty consistently, but just in protection,

I don't know if the other four were as horrific as our listeners tend to think.

I would agree with you on that. I think out of the five, Spencer Anderson was definitely the worst in pass protection. He did not have a good game. The one where they, you know, obviously the sack fumble for the touchdown, you know, Spencer Anderson got pushed pretty much back in Rogers' lap, and Rogers, you know, tried to escape and make something happen, and, you know, obviously the defender, you know, Barmore was able to get his hammer. the ball. Yeah, I think I'd agree with you on that. I still don't think I've seen an inspiring play out of Dylan Cook over two weeks.

I tend to agree.

I think he is what he is. Yeah, to make me think this is worth keeping our first-round pick on the bench.

Mm-hmm.

And again, just when you combine everything together, the fact that Spencer Anderson was probably the weakest of the five. Especially if it is a package deal like you laid out. Right. And Dylan Cook is, again, not being a world beater over there. And then you consider the fact that Brock Hoffman faced Dexter Lawrence several times and this might be the time to make the change. I think if you don't make the change now, I don't think you're making it next week because it's a short week that you're going to be going on the road to Cleveland. Maybe the long week after that you would. You could, but is it worth possibly going one and three before you make those changes? Of course not.

Absolutely not. I mean, that would be... Listen, whatever happens here, you can't lose to both Ohio teams in the span of five days. I think we can all agree upon that. Chris Halleck, DK Pittsburgh Sports, kind enough to lend us his time here on a busy Wednesday. Chris, thanks, partner. Great stuff as always, and we'll see you this weekend.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

There he goes.

That's interesting about the hockey line shifts, you know, maybe a package deal, because they have worked so much with each other, combo blocks, outside zone.

It adds up.

It does.

Instead of just making one change, you know.

I'm starting to Jones for it a little bit this week.

Yeah, tea leaves are starting to kind of become a little more clear maybe on that.

I understand, and you and I have talked about this, so much, I shouldn't say so much, but a sizable portion of coaching is who you can trust to not kill you.

Oh, yeah.

Trust is big.

In that regard, to start a season, you are almost always going to go with a veteran, a guy who's been there, as opposed to a rookie. But there's a point there where I think the reward greatly outweighs the risk, and you've got a real opportunity to raise your ceiling without doing much damage to your floor, and it feels like the rubber might be hitting the road in that regard for the right side of the Steelers' offensive line.

And I can't believe that they watch a Haunted Tour in practice and can't be like, I got to see what that looks like. Exactly right.

Yeah.

Exactly right. Because you and I have seen a few snippets of what that looks like, and we want to see more, and they're with them every day.

I mean, the talent's obvious.

Certainly something we'll be keeping an eye on and talking more about as the season rolls along here. We'll do some early thoughts on the Cincinnati Bengals and their roster when we return with another one of our favorite exercises. Wes Shuler, Matt Williamson. It is The Drive, Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.

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Drive9.23.26Halicke: Chris Halicke on Steelers Latest

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