It’s been a crazy offseason for Pittsburgh. After 19 consecutive winning seasons, a Super Bowl win, and a Super Bowl appearance, Mike Tomlin is not on the sidelines. I was hoping they would go young and take a chance on promise as they have the last 3 times since 1969, but instead they went with Mike McCarthy. And then they decided to run it back with Aaron Rodgers, who swears for real this time that he’s retiring at the end of this year. He also says that Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted for fraud, so listening to him in general is lunacy. But I digress.
I’m in a weird place this year. On paper they’re as competitive as they’ve been in years, but there have been so many changes. Prior to getting Pittman and Bernard at wide receiver and drafting Max I’llneverspellhisnameright it looked like this year it was finally going to come apart and they would rebuild. Instead they reloaded. But with McCarthy… I just don’t know.
As for how they finish, if you asked me the day they hired McCarthy I’d have said 6 wins, tops. But now they look better than they have in a while, and after years of everyone saying they’d fail this year for sure I’m going out on a limb and saying 10-11 wins. It’s a very thin limb, though. We’ll see how it goes.
Steelers fans do indeed have it better than Browns fans. Really, most fans do, the Browns will likely be getting a top-5 pick next year.
Reports of Watt’s demise were greatly exaggerated. He essentially owned the Falcons today along with Heyward and Highsmith. In fact, today Watt became only the second ever with 100+ sacks and 10+ interceptions, and the other, Julius Peppers, is now in the Hall of Fame.
That said, they ended up with a close game against a Falcons team led by Cooper Rush, and Bijan Robinson nearly got 200 yards of total offense. Against an actual potent offense, with Joey Porter, Jr.’s status still up in the air, that’s not going to cut it. And the offense was adequate but DK Metcalf committed two fouls, caught a ball out of bounds because he lost track of where he was, and straight dropped a gimme across the middle at an important time. He needs to figure it out.
But for a good number of the starters, this was their first game action, so I’m going to simply attribute everything to rust and hope I’m right. But some things never change, and even with a new coach the Steelers still tried to kill me today.
Funny game. Even though it was tight, and we tried to gift a win to the back up of the back up… if Roman Wilson holds on to that catch in the end zone, and/or the Refs don’t miss the blatant pass interference on the long throw to Metcalf, it feels like the game would’ve been securely in hand. Though it did help that Atlanta got called for holding on every other play.
What the hell is going on with Metcalf? Dude simply can’t catch. I know he wasn’t the best in Seattle, but this year so far the drops have come at the most brutal times. And for all of McCarthy’s alleged offensive genius none of it is showing up on the field.
The defense is doing its job for the most part, but the offense once more is not carrying its weight. This is what the fans chased Tomlin out of town for? At least he’d have given them a chance.
The Offense was of course extremely disappointing, but for me the worst was when they pulled Rodgers in garbage time, instead of one of the rookies getting reps to see what they’ve got… we get Mason Rudolph.
So today the Steelers scored more than 7 points in a first quarter for the first time in years and everything looked under control.
Then Roman Wilson, who looked like he might belong out there, dropped an easy one which was picked and resulted in a touchdown, and the next thing you know the game is tied. Between that, the overthrows to Metcalf and Freiermuth, and Warren tripping over the yard line instead of scoring that game should have been a blowout.
Instead, it was contested to the very end. Harmon made a great play to clinch it, but dammit, why can’t Pittsburgh ever win a game comfortably? Every week they try to explode my heart. Every single week.
Anyway, the offensive line is much improved, which I credit to playing their first-round pick in the position he actually plays, which seems obvious but in Pittsburgh has been a rarity over the last few years, and Warren played a fantastic game, that inexplicable stumble notwithstanding. The Bengals’ defense was exposed as fraudulent, though, they’ve been getting a lot of hype and didn’t really ever stop Pittsburgh cold. Tomorrow’s talking heads should be interesting.
On to the Brownies on Thursday, led by a resurgent Watson. Here’s hoping there’s no letdown.
I feel like we have seen that much YAC since the Killer B’s days.
If we can replicate that success running the ball, and the receivers quit playing volley ball, we might have a decent season. Nice to get a division win.
I have no Steeler fans close to me, so I’ll ask here: how do Steeler fans feel about the Joey Porter trade? Seems to me that getting a 2028 2nd round pick and a 6th 2027 pick is pretty fair for a troublesome, injured, CB who is much better in man than zone. But I’m wondering how Steeler fans feel.
I’ll speak up as a Seattle fan who watched him in pretty much every game he played for the early part of his career.
You are correct that he wasn’t the best in Seattle, though he had his strengths and they were amazing strengths. He is big and jacked like a superhero. That helps make him great at contested catches. He is also extremely fast; he even tried to qualify for the Olympics. (He didn’t qualify but he made a good showing of himself.) And he also used to have this knack of getting under the skin of opponents and drawing fouls without committing them himself.
He was never the greatest catcher. He wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t his strength. There were times when he missed catches that you felt a receiver should be able to (but again, not to the extent of making him bad, he just wasn’t a guy making highlight reels with catching). And from what I can tell, these days he’s the guy more likely to draw fouls than to bait others into doing it. I think that his time in the NFL and the accolades got to his head.
He still seems fast and strong, but he was a legit #1 WR in Seattle for a time. I’m not sure he should qualify as that anymore. But he still seems good overall and still has some of the talents that made him a star to begin with.
He was pretty damn good last night–5 catches for 115 yards. The box score said he was targeted 9 times, but I don’t recall him missing any passes that he should have caught.
Regarding the Steelers as a whole: I just don’t think they can make the playoffs with Rodgers as QB. He may be the best they have at the moment, but his lack of mobility is a huge detriment.
And it seemed like he was hit on almost every play, at least for a span. I will admit he’s a tough guy, but you can’t keep doing that to a human being and expect them to be able to perform at their peak week after week.
I think that they probably ought to have signed him, but he and his agent overestimated both his value and his leverage. Pittsburgh definitely learned from the Bell situation and traded him while he still had value.
Notice how suddenly his back is better and he’s expected to be active tomorrow for Dallas, and that he never did get a new contract? If he had any real leverage he still wouldn’t play, but now he has no choice. That’s a serious miscalculation, he turned down a big contract offer from Pittsburgh and now he has to finish out his rookie contract for a team that can’t afford his demands after throwing everything at Prescott and Lamb and needs to try to resign Pickens as well. He overplayed his hand and got played himself.
Pittsburgh got back what they spent on him plus a third, and that’s telling. If he was all that he’d have gone for much more. So, did Pittsburgh win? No, they didn’t, but they sure as hell didn’t lose. JPJ lost fans, credibility, and potentially a ton of money.
Pittsburgh is so Jekyll and Hyde. They dominated the 1st quarter, they dominated the 4th quarter, and in between totally forgot how to play football. That first pick seemed to be the catalyst for the Browns and after that they were unstoppable until Watt woke everyone up again.
And something is up with Boswell. I don’t think he has the yips but he’s clearly uncomfortable. The Steelers lost by 3 in a game where he missed what has been an automatic kick for the last few years. I hope he figures it out.
