The Worst is Yet to Come - Packers @ Steelers Recap
Me too, Coach. Photo Credit.
Yinz remember when Jalen Ramsey was on The Pivot podcast, and Channing Crowder said: “Y’all really got three ones..” implying that Jalen Ramsey, Darius Slay, and Joey Porter Jr. are all CB1 capable? And, at the time, Jalen Ramsey responded how I would’ve responded, too: “Oh, for sure, yeah. That’s how we view it, too!” That was a pivotal moment in the offseason for me as a fan, pun intended. I watched that clip get chopped up into 100 different (all very cool) hype videos, and I bought in. That shit has aged like uncovered guac.
I aptly titled this post ‘The Worst is Yet to Come’, because we are only now getting to the meat of the schedule, and I’m not sure how the vibes could be lower. The defense has a mighty….enormous…collossal…just significant problem covering the middle of the field, and I’m fairly certain that we lost S DeShon Elliot for the rest of the year during last night’s game, so you can look for that problem to somehow get worse I guess. While we’re talking about DeShon Elliot, I guess I should probably mention what an asset he is against the run as a box safety and how sorely he’ll be missed in that regard. I know the fan base is sick of hearing about the problems defending the run, but the problem does exist even if there are other problems too. That problem also just got worse ahead of our matchup against Johnathan Taylor and the 7-1 Indianapolis Colts.
From where I’m sitting, I can’t find anything that the Steelers do well on defense right now - a real far cry from the dominance that a lot of us were expecting. There’s so much money being allocated to that side of the ball, and now it kinda feels like we’ve just set all that money on fire. I love T.J. Watt sooooo much, and when his contract talks were happening…I said slide that man a blank check and let’s play football. $41M a year was the number, and I’m good with that, but that’s above-average-starting-quarterback money. For that kinda money, I need your hand in the cookie jar every single game. Period. I only saw one pressure from him against Green Bay. “But PFF credits him with 3 pressures…” FUCK THAT. He got called for illegal hands to the face on one, and another was a completed screen pass. One pressure. A nonfactor.
The pass rush as a whole was really a nonfactor in this game, and that should frustrate you, but here’s what makes it even worse: across this two-game losing streak, T.J. Watt has played 121 snaps, Alex Highsmith has played 100 snaps, and Nick Herbig has played…wait for it…53 snaps. If T.J. has lost a step, which is looking more and more real every week, then why not bring his snap count down a bit? Also, what the hell has Alex Highsmith done lately to justify THIS division of labor? Herbig was CLEARLY our best pass rusher when Highsmith was hurt. Just stupid, honestly. I hope you guys enjoy one more year of Nick Herbig, because another franchise is gonna pay him a lot of money in 2027 to be a star for them.
How ‘bout Darius Slay? I’m not even sure if I should start down this road…I’m just gonna get pissed off. Yinz thought the Patrick Peterson experiment was bad? Get Darius Slay the fuck off my squad, honestly. It’s irresponsible to have him out there as a starter.
The answer for the secondary is that there isn’t an answer, unfortunately. The Steelers brought guys in thinking they were capable of fulfilling this scheme, and they were wrong. I was wrong. A lot of people were wrong. The best thing we can do now is try and minimize the damage moving forward - hopefully a lot more zone coverage, and a lot less Darius Slay. It really falls on the coaching staff to adjust at this point. Other than that, my tone on this group hasn’t really changed from last week. We’re in trouble.
Just to quickly gloss over the other side of the ball, the offense continues to overachieve, in my opinion, although there were some things left to be desired. For me personally, this was my least favorite DK Metcalf performance in his Steeler career so far. The box score is fine…5 catches, 55 yards, and 1 TD, but we really got the classic DK Metcalf experience in this one. Yinz know what I mean. He got called for an OPI on our first drive that stalled us out and forced us to kick a FG. Then, in the 4th quarter, he got called for that dumbass unnecessary roughness penalty after the play and took away what would’ve been 3rd & 2, and instead made it a 3rd & 17. Of course we didn’t convert that, and we punted. That’s that bullshit he was known for doing in Seattle; it just hadn’t affected us to this point. Can’t have it. OH, speaking of third down, the Steelers offense was 1/10 on third down in this game. Find me a team that has ever won a game where they went 1/10 on third down…and lemme know when you do.
Also, we started the game out with three field goals - I hate to sound so cliche, but you have to score touchdowns if you want to beat good teams. Even when we were up 16-7 at halftime, I couldn’t help but think to myself…can you imagine if just ONE of those FGs resulted in a touchdown? 20-7 changes the complexion of the game SIGNIFICANTLY from 16-7. 24-7 is getting into ass-beating territory. It just sucks that the offense wasn’t able to finish those drives.
Jaylen Warren continues to be our best player on offense - 15 total touches for 73 scrimmage yards, and averaged 4.8 ypc as a runner. He only touched the ball three times in the second half, so basically all of that damage came in the first half. Strange that we had a lead when we used him and then lost the lead when we didn’t. Who’d a thunk it? - I hope he retires as a Steeler.
So, while the offense wasn’t perfect, I think they did enough to secure victory in this one. If they had stuck to the script and let the ground game do their heavy lifting like they did in the first half, I think we still would’ve won in spite of the defensive collapse. To me, it begs the question: who’s making the call that #30 only sees the ball three times in the second half? Is that really how Arthur Smith is calling the game? Or, is Aaron Rodgers getting a little pass happy with his presnap audibles against his former team? I wish I had a way to get an answer for yinz.
Even if I had an answer, it wouldn’t matter. We got our ass beat. And while we ponder everything that has gone wrong over the last two weeks, the best team in the NFL is preparing to come to Pittsburgh this coming Sunday and, probably, bury us. It’s so funny to me…I’ve said everything I’ve said in this post (and meant every word), and yet at 4-3, the Steelers are still in first place in the AFC North, AND they still have a two-game lead over second place. As crazy as it seems, they still very much control their own destiny moving forward.
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