Drive9.14.26Hr1: Victory Monday!

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1:12Welcome to the drive on the Steelers Audio Network here on a Victory Monday. We're at Matt Williamson with you as we have plenty to discuss week number one in the books. Win number one in the books. If you've been rocking and rolling here on the Steelers Audio Network, you just heard from head coach Mike McCarthy. So we have got Matt what's going to be some busy beefy Mondays here on the show. Yeah, how about it? That's pretty cool. And hopefully you get to open more shows, a lot more shows with Victory Monday. That was good to hear. It kind of made my hair on the back of my neck stand up a little bit. Oh, yeah. Victory Mondays, let's go. Absolutely. Now, no one will say it's perfect. I thought about you a bunch during that game that week one just get a win. There's a lot of things to work on. But I definitely think even though the opponent was not overwhelming that there was much more good than bad. I mean, much more and a lot to build off of. And there's some obvious changes, I think, with this coaching staff, too. No doubt. Yeah.

2:12And I don't know if you had any specific area there that you want to get in upon or start with, but I tell you what, my kind of biggest takeaway as, you know, again, I was preaching all last week of it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be a Mona Lisa. There's going to be times you're going to be pulling your hair out. There's going to be time that Rust is very apparent. Yeah. Yeah. Matt three turnovers in that game. All three leading directly to scores for both teams. Of course, the Bijon Robinson touchdown. Three Miss Field goals, too, which I also count as as turnovers and two fails. I was just going to say to you. You're learning. Yeah. Yeah. Down attempts. I'm learning here. The, the, in a, in a game that had a lot to like, a lot to clean up, the difference as it quite often is week one. And Matt, you've alluded to this before that so often. It sounds crazy because this is the highest level of sport. This is a high school football or even division one football. This is the NFL, but still so often. And I think particularly early in the season, it comes down to who's buttoned up.

3:15It comes down to who can limit those mistakes. You talk about that all the time being like the ultimate Bella checkie and thing. Yeah. Right. How do we not lose this? How do we not lose this game? Three turnovers in that game. The fumble by Jalen Warren that led directly to the Bijon touchdown. The, um, inner, the first interception by brisker, which led a few plays later to the Pat Fryer Mooth touchdown. And then of course, what was the play of the game? TJ Watts pick six. Three turnovers, all directly leading to touchdowns. It's a great point. And you got two of those three, which in the kind of 30,000 foot view, I think ended up being the kind of deciding factor, the deciding difference yesterday. Yeah. That's a great angle. And I really like that. And really in that, that equation you just laid out, you only made one of those mistakes, you know, a Warren fumble, which he doesn't have a fun with history. It's like, yeah, I mean, Matt Kafft drops some passes. I trust he'll be better too. I mean, that's not exactly where we're going. But some of the things that didn't go right history has a pretty good backing that probably

4:17will get better. Um, I think that's a great way of looking at it. Maybe another thing in terms of, you know, where the Steelers clearly had an advantage to was depth and just less reliant, especially when Atlanta had the ball. I mean, I've rarely seen NFL game where the offense was so be John or any player derived. And I mean, boy, was he good? He's 29 total touches. Oh, and I tweeted some crazy things about his usage. And I think other than him, they had like four total catches. Pits had none. One then had two. That's it for. Yeah. I mean, that's not had to dox and add one and Zakias had one. Yeah. So I did a podcast last night, you know, it was just a reactionary first blush type of deal. And I gave the defense a lot of credit, but I really started given the defense of front a lot of credit. I really thought they controlled the line scrimmage. We saw the sacks. They brought them in in waves that the defensive depth of front was really, really good.

5:17Peyton Wilson, I thought had a breakout game. But then I'm sitting or thinking through it. I'm like, the whole world's key in on be John. The whole world knows they're going to give it to be John over and over. That's a one path to win. And you still didn't let Pits London, et cetera, beat you. I bet the secondary a pretty good game too, even without Porter. And then you re rewatched it. It's like they really did. And we'll get to this, but it's a mind blowing number. They played zero snaps. A man covered. I was waiting to see how long it was going to take you to bring that up because that is a mind blowing number. It's a mind blowing number. And again, so I think it's just a really interesting angle. First of all, I think you know, be well enough that coverage stats. I mostly trust, but I don't think they're gospel. But these come from NFL.com. I mean, they're not someone in their basement, you know, like I think that's man. I think that's a 80 90. That's not saying even if you're close, it's pretty strong theme. And of all the NFL games that were played last year, there was only one where a defense

6:20played 100% so. And let me guess it was the, it was the last day of his Raiders. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I saw it. I didn't remember on your toes. No, not at all. It's gonna be a Patrick Graham thing. But I do think what's going to be a Patrick Graham thing. So let's just stick with the zone thing for a minute. Just I think it's fascinating. 100%. I mean, even again, if it's 90% still a obscene number. If it's just the best educated guess, that's right. I mean, if they played such the more zone than anybody out there, let's just leave it at that. I think there's two reasons for it. First of all, your best man coverage corner was unavailable. No, no. And he's an average zone player, porter. Samuels better in zone than man. So if just that swap of your top cover guys, you're more equipped to play zone than man. If you have right paint paint the barn. That's good coaching. And the other thing is I don't think they respected rush all that much. You know, like we're gonna make you complete passes into heavy zones. I don't want a man coverage corner tripping and with no help over the top and you get an easy one. We're gonna make you earn everything to those other receivers.

7:22And obviously they knew rush well and that worked well and he isn't great. You know, we know that. And McCarthy knew him extremely well. But I bet you, and this is just a hunch knowing Graham's background back to Bella check. This week they might be 60% man. You're like, don't think this is what they are folks. Because I think week to week they will be a chameleon and you and I talked about that a lot. We did some deep dives on Patrick Graham's defense. One of the one of the complaints of kind of Mike Tomlund and Tarot Austin's defenses with they were that it was that they were too static. Yeah, yeah, they kind of did what we did execution base. And for a long time that worked. Sure. But eventually it started to catch up to you as well as teams kind of discovered how to diagnose you and how to how to work against that. Like if Raible Bella check or Raible McDaniel and May are all looking at that tape gun boy, we better do our zone beaters. I don't think that's a good way to approach it if I were the Patriot. No, it's not. And it's it's honestly for a kind of. I don't even know if I'd call it a wrinkle, but just something that you wouldn't have

8:22expected week one to be that extreme in any situation. And make them more difficult for the Patriot. Yeah, yeah. Like now what are they thinking about us? If you're the Bengals and the Browns and all those teams rolling along that are coming after New England, you'll have some more data points. And so it'll be sure to we've seen Graham and Pittsburgh for one game and he went all zone. Now what do we do with that? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to go all zone for two days. The road is porter playing. Is he not? Are they if he's out? Do they get to go all zone? If he's in, they go, man, what are they going to do? Yeah. And not to mention the New England Patriots as we all know, will not have AJ Brown, which will obviously be a big part of this. And he's their best man beater. He sure is. Yeah. And we will have plenty, obviously, of Patriots preview throughout the week here. Yeah, Matt, I, I really liked what we saw from the Steelers defense. I'm glad that you gave Peyton Wilson a shout there. I thought he played very well. Man, I thought the entire defense of front did a great job of being disruptive. Yeah. I loved very active. I loved the kind of snap counts for the three big edge rushers. They were all right. I want to say 39, 38 snaps.

9:24They were all similar. Yeah. I think that's a snap apart. TJ played the least of the three, but by two snaps, I think it was like 39, 38, 38, right? Yeah. Is that is 39, 38 and 38. Yeah. So man, I love that we saw those guys on the field together a couple times. We saw a lot of different and maybe this alludes to the zone coverage thing that you were just talking about. A lot of different combinations in that secondary too. Yeah. So another number that stood out to me that the more we sit here and talk through it, may or may not be reflective of real life is for all off season. I'm like, folks, they're going to be a nickel all the time. They're going to live in nickel. They're going to live in nickel. According to the next gen stats. Again, these are from the NFL. The Steelers are almost basically 50% base 50% nickel. Okay. I think some of that, those when you have three edge guys out there, what are they? Who they counting is what? I don't know if they just count number of defensive backs on the field. I'm curious how they came up with those numbers. Because it wasn't old school three, four Casey Hampton, Aaron Smith, three, four base

10:30for 50% of the snaps. That's for sure. No, it absolutely was not. And man, when you, as you mentioned, you look at the box score, you take B. John out of the equation and everyone knew he was going to make place. You're just, oh, yeah, you're, you're never going to completely limit that guy. And he was as good as ever. You were. Fantastic. By the way, did you see on the what pick six? How he got just absolutely taken out by one of his own offensive linemen? Bejohn did. Really? And it looked ugly for a second. I mean, this guy went right into his knee and he kind of grabbed it for a second and then popped right up and was like, I mean, that guy's just bionic. He's unbelievable. But when you go back, lost in the madness of that TJ what interception falls down, gets up, runs it for the pick six. Watch out. He's like, I'm not going to be a defensive lineman just absolutely destroy B. John Lauer Robinson's likes and what I'm sure was a, a hold your breath moment there for Kevin's defense. If they're aligned in a bad enough day, it's like, and when you took out our best player. Right. We did here. But Brian Robinson nine carries for 31 yards, just a 3.4 average.

11:35And then as you mentioned, man, I think they're really telling stat, hey, you don't, you can't just take away B. John's eight receptions for 90 yards and a touchdown. No, right, right. But after that Drake London two for 29, John Dotson one for 19, Zacchaeus one for five. That's it. Kyle Pits had one target, Matt one target. And it was an incomplete pass that that you would, if we would have set on Friday, put B. John Robinson to the side. Here's what you're going to get from everybody else. Oh, then you take it or would you go fish? No one would have been going fish. Nobody would have gone fish. Now, there's probably three or four passes rush should have completed. I mean, below average quarterback play didn't help the receiving notice. Of course, you know, I mean, of course, but I think the seal was recognized that coming in too. I'm much saying that they took the approach of we'll let B. John get his and take everybody else away. They were definitely key in on B. John heavy and he's just too good to slow down. Now again, if we would have had a Friday conversation of would you guys take B. John

12:37with what? 170, 180 total yards. Or would you go fish? I would have gone fish. You know, by that 21 carries for 83 yards and no touchdowns. That part's fine. I would have probably said yeah, run. Deam is good. Hey, 83 yards is not a small number, but that's just four yards per carry. I mean, that was the best back in the world. I think we can outscore him if he does that. Yeah, right. It was really the receiving game in particularly that 24 yard. I need a big one, but yeah, where they hurt you, but Matt, they also didn't take a single snap in the red zone. The Falcons office pretty crazy. Yeah, pretty crazy. Yeah. I thought it was a really good defensive performance. I did too, especially, you know, considering big plays, tackles for loss. Yeah, absolutely. Matt's cam bats down three passes. Get again. Unbelievable. It's like you expected at this point. Yeah, it's nuts. It really is. Peyton Wilson, two TFLs in 13 total tackles. I thought he was disruptive. And you mentioned him. He played like 90% of the snaps, which is way more than he has at any level. And I just think this coaching staff might view him differently. I was just talking with Mark Madden and he asked me, you know, just some differences in

13:37coaching staff. For better or worse, we'll see how it goes is one game. I think this coaching staff values Pat Fryer, Mooth and Peyton Wilson a lot differently than the other one did. Yeah, great day for Pat Fryer, Mooth. We got to spend some time talking about the offense here too, but hey, two sacks for TJ, two sacks for high Smith. That's what you're looking for from those guys. And I don't know, Matt, maybe we did bury the lead a little bit because maybe TJ what is the kind of overarching story from yesterday. Pretty exciting. Hey, again, it's just one game. My goodness, Matt, if that's the TJ what we're going to get this season. Right. Now, I don't think he's going to 34 sacks. But if you get that kind of disruptive force, if TJ want to 34 sacks, I'll jump off the committee bridge and celebration come. Play a lot less snaps and have 34 sacks. Like I probably won't project out, but still the force he was in this game. Remember, it was like, I remember that guy. It was not long ago. When TJ's been at his absolute best, like for that five or six year stretch, where he

14:39was, you know, on the very short list of defensive player of the year candidates every single year, yes, sacks were a huge part of that. We all know that. Yeah, but a lot of the other stuff, a lot of it's the other stuff. It's the TFLs. The slaps. Yeah. It's the interceptions. It's the forced fumbles and all the games and it's timely and right. And that was that was a huge moment there in the fourth quarter for the Steelers when it was still a one score game. It back to that two score cushion. Yeah, ended up needing it. And I just have that's why he's in all time. Great. It's an all time. Yeah, he is. And Matt, listen, TJ Watts a pro, TJ Watts believes in himself. He doesn't need some kind of raw, raw pat him on the butt confidence thing. But at the same time for him to come out of the gate like that when it's been an off season of questions of does he deserve that contract? Has he lost his step? Can he still be a dominant force? That's he doesn't live under a rock. He's still probably heard some rumble. Yeah. And he's not a being nice shot in the arm for him and you couldn't have scripted a better start. Yeah, and I couldn't have said it better. That's 100% correct. And I'm being guilty of this. Everybody's been guilty of this.

15:39But I think in the off season, maybe we should have mentioned that he had his lung punctured. I mean, that's not a typical like, you know, broke my wrist and I got back on the field and I was fine. I mean, that's a good issue. Yeah, I bet that had an effect. I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did, man. And it was for all the things to be excited about yesterday. That's near the top of the list. That has certainly got to be near the top of the list and they needed it from the defense once again. They got it. Brisker. You couldn't have scripted a better welcome back for the former gateway product as he gets that. He seems so psyched about being back to and, you know, miss you. That was right. He was on the pregame show was talking about you should just see him come out for warmups. It's like he looked like a kid. That's where I heard it because I follow miss you. So I was listening. Yeah. Yeah. I'm home. Let's go. He said in the post game, he had 30 family members there to watch him yesterday. You better get used to it. So yeah, exactly right. I'm sure he'll have plenty more ticket requests going forward here. But yeah, you had to love what you saw from TJ.

16:41You had to love what you saw from the defense man. Ramsey made some plays. Jamel Dean made some plays. Yeah. The event showed up. I mean, all those guys, right? Sure did. Sebastian Joseph Day had a couple disruptive moments. And I thought all the defensive backs doing a good job of keeping a lid on some of those talented eligible's that we know that the Atlanta Falcons do have. It's a little hard to nitpick the defense today. It is on Monday. It is. Again, there will be stiffer challenges. Some of the B's on stuff, but that's like, I mean, they weren't the greatest tackling defense, but no one is in week one. He's the hardest guy to tackle and lead. You know, so it's like trying to, uh, trying to slow down Steph Curry. I mean, he's going to get his right. He's going to let him take the game over. And B's on had some moments. He also man had those two fumbles that could have been. It could have been crucial. Yeah. So I really think overall, you got to love the start for the Steelers defense and a mat. We're overdue for a break here, but let's kind of focus on the offense when we come back because there's plenty to clean up. But I think it's a lot of stuff that's pretty easily correctable.

17:42Mostly. Yeah. Let's get into it when we return on the other side. Just getting started here on this victory Monday, West Euler, Matt Williamson, as the Steelers defeat the Falcons, 20 to 13 yesterday in the season, open or part of me. I'm excited. We've got a lot more ground to cover here on 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. What if we just got out of here and grab some Bud lights? The 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. We'll stock up now. Bud Light. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly, copyright 2026, and has a bush Bud Light beer St. Louis, Missouri. I used to have cable internet, but I'm a 100% kind of fan. So I switched to Verizon Fios. It's 100% fiber internet that's super reliable. So I streamed 100% at the NFL Draft Live with ultra low lag.

18:42And after what went down in the first round, still getting video calls from my best friend rubbing it in that he called all the pigs. I told you they were building their own line. I win the bet. 100% fiber internet with Verizon Fios because when it comes to your team, it's 100% or nothing. Call 1-E-3-3 Verizon to switch today. Get that hot dog, Austin Reddy. Bra. You're tuned to the drive on your 24-7 home of the Black & Gold Steelers Nation Radio. 1-0, the Pittsburgh Steelers, after defeating the Falcons yesterday in the home opener, 20 to 13. And I don't know, Matt, I think it was kind of like we were talking about in the sense of even when the Falcons took the early lead, it still felt like, all right, you're in a

19:44fine position here. I was never super worried. I was never super worried. It wasn't the comfortable blowout win maybe someone, which by the way, did you see that stat? I think it was at halftime of last night's game that they rolled out. Highest scoring week one in the league. I did it without you. The NFL merger in 1970. So there were, I mean, we saw between Baltimore and Indy was a high scoring game. Sincere Tampa was a high scoring game. The Bears. Houston and Buffalo, high scoring game. Packers and Vikings high scoring game. It was a bananza. This one, I don't know if I'd call it a high scoring. No, it was in this 20 to 13. The Matt there, I got to be honest, this was much more defensive driven and it certainly was. And we were kind of, we were looking at some stats up. If you look at the offensive percentile of success for both of these offenses in this game, it's certainly low. It's quite low. Yeah, yeah, it's very low on the on kind of that scale.

20:45And the turnovers had a lot to do with that too and negative plays and, you know, and you referenced it at the open and I'm sure most of our listeners have realized this. I think I view week one differently than most people. I'm, I'm not looking for trends. I'm not looking for a verdict or a narrative on anybody. People think, oh, we got the answers. Ram Stink and yeah, right, right. Cardinal for great. Well, now the Texans defense is going to be boot. Right, right, right. So I, I just, I think I view week one differently than most people do. My expectations are down at the floor. I want to win. I want to stay relatively healthy and I want to look better in week two. Yeah, let's go wait looking at it. And I think the Steelers offense, Matt, I got to be honest with everybody. I kind of love how it all played out. Now what I have liked it if DK made some more plays. If, if, if Roman Wilson was able to catch that touchdown, potentially instead of the pass interference, all these different things. No doubt what I have liked to see more success on the run on the run in the run game part of me.

21:45Absolutely. But I think when you look at it, the plays were out there to be made. Yeah. The Steelers just got to execute a little bit better. They got to clean a couple things up. And I love that you win the game. You have some success. It wasn't an absolute disaster on offense, but there's still a ton of meat on that bone. And now I think this week you go about addressing it. And like I said, you start to get better on Sunday. It's funny. I had a different radio hit I did with Mark Madden right before we went on the air. And I, when he asked me about the offense broadly, I said a lot of what you said right there. Some things that he cleaned up, but you know, I added some things like obviously schematically. There's some differences. Rogers played a different brand, almost all positive. And as Mark does, he counted and I'm going to do it to you. He said, why did they score more points then? Well, they probably should have. I'm like, I didn't have a great rebot to that. I'm like, yeah, DK dropped a couple, but. Because if you look at it, the offense only scored 13 points. Yeah, right.

22:45They don't get credit for TJ's touch. They sure seem like they played better than that. And certainly more encouraging than just a 13 point game against an OK defense and not a great front seven. So I didn't really have a great answer for that. And I'm not just going to say because Matt Kaffat had a couple of drops and two offensive passing or appearance calls. He also had a defensive passing or appearance call. It should have been called. It would have been 40 or 50 yards more. And Mark said the same things. Like maybe if Matt Kaff catches two of those balls or one penalty isn't called and the other one is, they may have an extra touch on. I think that's very believable. I mean, they were big chunked plays and they drove it down there through it to him deep downfield. I don't know what to think of so few rushing attempts designed rushing attempts. Because I mean, three of them were kneel down at the end of games. They like that too. Correct. I hope that's not a true trend. I hope that's not just Rogers at the line checking the past, checking the past. But I thought the passing game overall was pretty darn good. I mean, protection, we can talk about. But I thought the use of receivers, the way Rogers threw the football, throwing over

23:51the middle. My goodness. I was waiting. How long was going to take you to bring that up? That passing chart looks like something that we haven't seen in a while. No, not at all. And I have a feeling that's not a fluke. Time to throw was up dramatically as was his average up the target. They were all way higher than they've been in a sealer uniform. That doesn't mean it's better. I always thought said that before like he stinks because it's time to throw so low. Not necessarily the guys with the ones that are highest. I mean, they're the best quarterbacks of Lee. There's a lot of ways to win. But the fact that he's holding the ball, driving the ball down the field, throwing past the sticks, throwing over the middle. He made some tight red and needle throws too. I mean, I thought that was really encouraging. 24 or 40, the 221 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions. That's not a great stat line. That's not a poor stat line. That's just about average. But man, zero turnover worthy plays for football focus is another one I'm big on, which is awesome to see. Yeah, awesome to see in week one. And I think we've known that the type of game you could lose the game.

24:52If you screw, I mean, don't, yeah, like you said, open the show. An extra turnover in there. Yeah, the Steelers and it could have absolutely been a lot different to the game. And we'd be singing a different tune today. I would be singing a different tune today. But you also, I think the other side of that is if AJ Torell doesn't tackle Roman Wilson when he's beat, that might be a 50 some yard touchdown there. That's a good point. If DK Metcalf makes one or two more catches and maybe you get that pass on your appearance call that was that was clearly missed on him when his, when his arm got hit before the ball was there. I just think that's a lot of yardage. Just a couple of plays. It's a lot of yardage in a couple plays. But what again, though, Matt, there's kind of the sicko in me that likes that. Yeah. I want it to be easy on the bone thing. I want it to be easy for the offense week one. You know, I want them to be focused and sitting up straight in their chair and maybe even a little pissed off because they feel like they left some points out on the field in week one. Now again, and boss, Mr. Kit, how often is that going to have three more points right there? You're not very often, right? Right, right. Which by the way, congrats to Chris Boswell, that first kick that he made, Matt was the 300th make.

25:52Oh, really? His career. Wow. It's pretty cool. He's hot on Gary Anderson's heels as the, as about to be the number one overall leading score in Steelers, right? That's history. You also had that weird kind of, I don't know if it was a miscommunication. If it was a flub, whatever on the fake field goal with Cam Johnston wasn't a wonderful special team's day was not a wonderful special team's day. Certainly. I don't know what that was. I don't know what that was either. I know. I assume it was a fake or somebody thought it was. Yeah, exactly right. And I just, I think there was some miscommunication in the call where some of the guys thought it was a fake. Some of the guys did not get that message. That's another thing that obviously you're going to have to iron out and work out here. But I just super quick on that, just explaining to people because I don't know if any clue what happened there. And I just watched it on TV and the downstairs had no clue. Sure. People might remember. But often what can happen, much like Aaron Rogers come the line of scrimmage is special teams coaches and the main people in charge, the holder, the personal protector, they will

26:58have alerts that if we get this look, we're checking to a fake or we're checking to whatever. And maybe half the teams side or didn't hear or whatever and I don't know. I'm just saying that's sometimes how it goes. They're you see that a lot in terms of I think particularly with like fake punts and they take it. Sometimes just hey, if you see this look, go for it. Take it. In the chart in the field, they all think we're just going to kick a field goal. But between then and when the ball snapped, things should change and not everyone got the memo. And again, week one, it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. Yeah. I think there's a big difference there. Starting in week two, a lot of these explanations become excuses. Oh, sure. If you see it a couple of times a row, it's like, well, this can't happen. But for week one, you get a little bit longer of a leash there, but that certainly was a moment that could have hurt you. You were able to overcome it. And so again, I don't think, I mean, even the defense will be looking back and saying we could have done certain things better, but especially on offense, especially on special teams.

27:58It was nice to see some life from Ken Weijen. Yeah. Yeah. I think he had some juice. I thought he had some juice and made the right decisions when he was out there. But Matt getting kind of back to the offense here. I like this, this stat that you tweeted out yesterday after the game. Aaron Rogers time to throw two point eight, five seconds. George Depp, the target, 10 and a half yards. That's drastically different than last year. Dressily different than last year. And much closer or more, maybe even on the other end of league average for those type of things, you know, that obviously the Lamars and the guys that run around are going to have high times of throw. They'll buy time, Caleb Williams. Some of those guys are deep into the threes, but Rogers was very, very quick to get the ball out of his hands. A lot of it dump times the running backs, quick hitters, first reads, things of that nature. And the thing that I, and that doesn't even bother me as much as just not throwing over the middle of field of time. And he certainly did in this game. And there's a stat out there, which is a little misleading as well is how far you throw

29:01the football in relation to how far there is to go in the down and distance. So it's not even just like a third down thing. You know, on third down, if you're throwing short of the sticks all the time, well, that's not going to yield too much. But this is a stat that shows like even on first and 10. He was very low in terms of average depth of target relative to distance to go on this game. And I think a lot of it isn't maybe even Rogers related as much as using your weapons a little bit more appropriately. You know, like Metcalf the me's a perfect example that he was best game. No, if he was sitting right now, I'd probably like, I screwed up some stuff, you know, but his average depth of target was over 20 yards. That's Seahawks stuff. Yeah. You know, like he had by far his average, shortest average depth of target last year, part of it because of all the attention was getting over the top and then being the only show in town and he's your only guy. He had easy completions. But I do think and then this didn't reflect in points. Everyone kind of has their role now a little bit better than in previous years, maybe even

30:04since like the Ben years. And you saw Michael Pittman Jr. three receptions on three targets, 58 yards. Yeah. And then I know you mentioned it earlier, but I think it should probably talk about it just a little bit more. Only only one game, but I was very encouraged by how they used Pat Fryer. Moving him around, lining him up in different ways, five receptions, five targets, five five, five targets, five receptions for almost 50 yards there, 9.2 yards per average. That to me, Matt is some of the stuff that we've been begging to see. Yeah. Do with Pat Fryer. Moved over the last couple of years. And we've heard Aaron Rogers bringing his name up time and time again. And I think he's very high on them. And it wasn't the at the expense of Darno Washington. He still got plenty of snaps. There was still a lot of 12 personnel. That was great. Darno Washington killed a guy out there in the fourth. Yeah, he murdered somebody. But I do think you're dead on on Fryer.

31:04And what we were hoping were speculating all these months, boy, his numbers are really good out of the slot only. Well, let's keep them doing that. You know, after the catch stuff, the touchdown. So very encouraging with Fryer. I, I, and I understand that it can go the other way too. That if you don't make a couple plays, then all the sudden it looks way worse. But I, I'm airing on the side of positivity with the offense. They made some plays when they had to. They did some good things. Yeah, they left yards. They left points out there without a doubt. Yeah. But I think it was an encouraging starting point for that offense. Um, let's do a little line talk, which isn't as encouraging to me. Would agree with that. Certainly. Um, but how many times are the last couple of months did we say things like? Very inexperienced line. The least amount of combined starts of any of the 32 and 32. Your top guys are switching from right to left. You, you got a first round pick on the bench, you know, waiting his time, which I think is kind of encouraging because frankly, I thought Cook was the worst player of the five

32:08and it's starting to come back to earth. There's a swing tackle back up type. But oh, by the way, you have someone who's way more talented just sitting on the sidelines and he came trotting out for one play and I got a little, a little excited. And you see the little patch on his jersey like I was talking about. Remember those NFL patches? He had a little one on. Okay. So we've warned our, you know, the fans out there that the O lines going to be a work in progress and it certainly was. I would like to see more rushing attempts to judge it better because that's one of those things asked Wolf, ask time, you ever like more, you can let me run block. The better it's going to get throughout the course of the game. So we that barely wasn't the factor. But the run, there wasn't a ton of room to run either. No, they're, they're absolutely was not. And so that is that to me, Matt is kind of personifies the find a way to win. Stay relatively healthy. Get better the next week. And repeat that in week two and then repeat that in week three. It starts to build on something else. The sudden week four, you're starting to build all the sudden week five,

33:10you're starting to hit your stride. I think the offensive line is the end. Yeah. Yeah. So there's the absolute epitome of that because as you mentioned, the town is there. The pedigree is there. The expectations rightfully so are there. Oh, yeah. It's going to take some time. It is going to take time. And that was listen up as we laid it out on Friday and we won't go away from that. Now this is probably one of the more favorable matchups that they had throughout the regular season throughout the regular season, especially the front seven that lay out throughout their Falcons front seven that was missing its top two ad rushers and wasn't, you know, loaded with with talent. I thought they did pretty well in the past protection realm, but you need more. You need more in that run game there. It felt like it times early on, Matt, they were doing a good job of picking up the four, five, six yards on first down. And then it would just it'd be like hitting a brick wall. Mm hmm. And then eventually that started to go away too. And you end up like they lost faith in it and

34:11the end of the lane on a pass attempts from Aaron Rogers. Mm hmm. And it worked. But that's not if Aaron, that's not going to be your formula. If Aaron's going to throw the ball 40 times every week, it's going to catch up to you pretty soon. Yeah. Again, I can't imagine that's ever going to be the game plan is to be what three to one past or past or I can't know it. I would be shocked if we saw that again this season. Yes. Matt, we've got plenty more to get to here as we kind of continue to recap Steelers 20 Falcons 13 will give some, you know, final thoughts on the game from yesterday when we return and then an hour number two, we've got to hit on some of the things that Mike McCarthy talked about today. Oh, yeah. I haven't heard anything. Yeah. Junior. Good. And we need to of course kind of just go around the NFL and discuss some big story on division stuff going on and division stuff going on. Um, where I tell you what, the, uh, the bangles and the Ravens scoring a lot of points, certainly. Um, and then, uh, before we get out of here in hour number two, we've got to give us some thoughts about a big Monday night football clash tonight at Arrowhead between the chiefs and the Broncos.

35:11So a lot more to get to as we roll along here. Well, she will learn Matt Williamson. 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 Chris. There's nothing better than the clean crisp. Uh, what if we just got out of here and grab some Bud lights? A man we're on air for four more hours. I don't figure it out. Sounds good to me. Anything for the clean crisp taste of Bud Light. Stock up now. Bud Light. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 and has a bush Bud Light beer St. Louis, Missouri. I used to have cable in the net, but I'm a 100% kind of fan. So I switched to Verizon files is 100% fiber in the net. That's super reliable. So I streamed 100% of the NFL draft live with ultra low lag. And after what went down in the first round, still getting video calls from my best friend robbing it in that he called all the pics. I told you they were building their own line. I went to bed. Get 100% fiber internet with Verizon files because when it comes to your team,

36:14it's 100% or nothing. Call 1-E-3-3 Verizon to switch today. Get that hot dog costume ready. Bra. You're tuned to the drive on your 24-7 home of the black and gold Steelers nation radio. All right, Matt, I know you're the stats guy here. And I'm sure you've probably seen this heard this is a lot of our listeners have, but it certainly bears repeating on today's show. TJ what joints just Julius pepper. I have it. Pretty cool as the only players with 100 sack, 100 and more sacks and 10 or more interceptions since sacks became an official statistic in 1982. Is that good? I think that's good. That's pretty good. Pepper's is a rare rare dude man. He's got a gold jacket to show for it.

37:16I mean, just a side peppers note. I mean, just kind of like for fun, he was the sixth man on North Carolina's basketball team like when they were, yeah, Jordan's here. Right. I mean, like crazy. I mean, like he's a rare rare specimen first pick in the draft type guy. I'm a little shocked. There's only two. But I mean, how many guys get both? I mean, they're totally different skills. Not many. Yeah. And TJ gets so many of them at the line of scrimmage like that, which is a ridiculous trait to have. And that's why I think at times it's been fair to, you know, is TJ or Miles Garrett is TJ? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The best at getting sacks at rushing the quarterback. I always thought even when TJ was, you know, getting 20 some 19 some sacks that there was still fair conversation. Oh, yeah, yeah. But when TJ is at his best, I don't think there's been a edge rusher that's as impactful that adds, that adds the interceptions, the forced fumbles, the TFLs, the dominance in

38:18the run game too. The force fumbles are crazy too. I mean, he's one of the best ever at that as well. He's always fat in that past. Yeah. He not punch. You probably didn't hear it on the broadcast, but they were when cam had his first swat. I think they said, I, I, I jot it down. It'll be a match that's as we stole it straight off the air. But he went, cam went into that game with 30 passes defense at the line of scrimmage left it with 33, which is the most in the league over the last three years. That's why I wasn't sure if it's three years or four years. What second? Is he right? He is 27 or something. It's like they have, if he wouldn't have caught that one, it'd have been 28. You didn't get a past offense because he caught it. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's nuts. I think that's one of those. I've told you the Arthur Boats line before of success leaves clues. Yeah. And that even if, you know, even if it's not the ultimate mentorship of like putting your arm around a guy and showing them exactly how you do things, you can still learn from

39:21greatness around you. Sure. I wonder how much of, because we've seen like last year, Harmon had some success doing that. Benton had to lead the league in swathe at the line of scrimmage for like four years in a row. It's no way it's an accident. I think there's no way it's an accident. Tam's amazing at it. And obviously the coaching staffs that's been involved, you know, Carl Dunbar for a long time was what the Steelers was regarded as one of the best defensive line coaches in the NFL. You ever heard my conspiracy theory on this? No. Well, the best I've ever seen do it is JJ. Okay. I mean, JJ swathe was unbelievable. He's six, seven in his arms with his long and he had the knack for it. But coincidentally, pretty much as soon as he retires, the Steelers take over as the best ones in town. Like the KM TJ and JJ, like go to the Poke Nose for a weekend and talk about swathe down pass. He was, he was constant. Yeah. He was cigars and cars. Yeah. Exactly. This having a great weekend. And he passed on the secrets to his younger brother and KM. Maybe. That's just like this theory I have because it went directly from him to those two.

40:24I'm like, there's some correlation here. And now you're starting to see it from the other and it's rubbing off on the harmonds and all those guys. Yeah. Right. I wonder how much of it and that's kind of where I was going with this is those guys just being around KM so much. Yeah. And not even that he's like sitting with them in a film room. Like here's how you swat down passes. Here's how you do. But I bet whenever someone doesn't get their hands up when they don't get to the quarterback, they hear about it from 97. Yeah. And again, you just you see that and it's not just in games. You and I know practices training. Cam is doing that stuff all the time. And I'll often those result in interceptions and stuff to let alone just a negative play for the off. I I think that's a real success leaves clues where I am sure Cam is mentoring those guys and sharing some of his secrets. Yeah. But at the same time, if you're just a round a guy who's doing that regularly consistently, it's got to wear off on it's got to become a, well, I got to start doing that. I better. I better do those same things. You can't tell me Rogers and learn from far and loved and learned from Rogers and Aller and Howard and Rudolph aren't learning from Rogers.

41:25And it's the same thing with Hayward. It the team collectively leads the league every year in bad and passes and you call it's a culture thing. Usually it's like 10 or 12, which is a ton. Next team has like seven. Yeah. I mean, it's not even close. It's year after year. And they have to be number one already after one week. They have to read him already. Right. Yeah. After one week, they've got a handful already. Matt, before we close down this first hour, look at some around the league stuff in hour number two. Take a look at the AFC North, take a look at what was a historically, as I mentioned, high scoring week one. Yeah. It's pretty nice. The NFL. We did hear from Mike McCarthy earlier today. And I think the big thing that everyone was waiting to hear the head coach's comments on were, of course, the status of Joey Porter, Jr. Here's what Mike McCarthy had to say. Just, uh, yeah, what about 90 minutes ago? Mike is certain for Joey, uh, obviously is to get him to a spot no different than everybody else in training camp.

42:26You know, if the first players that go through that first ramp up period that are not ready to go, they don't participate fully in the padded practice. I don't really see this any different than that. Now, it is different that there's a business component to it. So in, in, and that's really a whole other topic. I love that you didn't ignore the business component of it. I do too. That's a professional head coach move to know what everyone's thinking in the room. You know what I mean? It's, I think it's a fair answer. Yeah, it's a fair answer. I will say though that all the sudden met, you know, when I hear that, you know, the first thing that my brain goes to and it's like, okay, I'm very interested to see the practice report on Wednesday then whenever it comes out. Because if it is just, and listen, we, you and I are not naive. We know how these things work. But if it is just quite as simple as Joey was still dealing with that back, he didn't have that ramp up time that you need to get there. There's a reason there's a ramp up time. That's right. There is absolute credence to that. Yeah. I was shocked that you taught me this the other day that the NCAA has a ramp up period.

43:30I mean, there's a lot of evidence to chose that you need this as a football player. Right. And he hasn't had it. And the NCAA, you got to have at least a week of practices before you're allowed to play in a game. So that's why a lot of that, maybe LSU stuff that we discussed. A lot of the time we're going to play those guys or they're not going to play those guys relates to what they couldn't have against Clemson anyways, because they didn't get on the roster till that week and they have to practice for at least a full week. I don't think there's that type of parameters in the NFL, but you also understand it from a coaching perspective of, yeah, if a guy hasn't been able to practice really this season, we're not just going to throw them out there. No matter how good he is, he needs time to get in shape. He's time to ramp up and he's time to practice. And to be fair, maybe Tomlin Woodov, because I drafted this kid. I've known him for years and years and years and years. And there's been a week or two that he couldn't practice all week and I've seen him do it. It's a new coaching staff. They didn't even have Joey and OTAs in many camp. Right. Which I knew they weren't thrilled about. You know, they just wanted to see him out there, you know? Get their hands on him. Yeah, yeah. And that, that to me is a good answer from the head coach, but like I said, it really is

44:33going to make me perk up and keep an eye on what happens Wednesday and Thursday. Let's give it a, let's give it 48 hours to see where that's at. Yeah. Joey is a full go on Wednesday and Thursday. Then it seems like the onus is fully upon. Does he want to play or not? But if Joey's limited, if he's still questionable on Wednesday and Thursday, then there's obviously still just some gray area there is this whole thing plays out. I assume I'm correct on this. I hadn't spoken this yet, but he got paid for this week. This is not a holdout situation. I believe you are correct. Yes. I mean, he just was inactive. He was just inactive. Yes. Check on Monday. He gets to game check today. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a holdout situation or anything like that. So we will see the Steelers will have tomorrow off Tuesday day off and then that'll be the news. Yeah. Practice is on Wednesday and Thursday as all eyes will be on his status for Sunday. I haven't dug into New England heavy, but with AJ Brown out, he's a very good player,

45:34Porter, but this I don't think it's instrumental. He plays this week. I'm not trying to like agree, but can I play devil's advocate for you? Because I think you're right. I don't think it's instrumental is a good word for the place Sunday in New England, but I think it is in week three against Jamar chase in the Cincinnati. Oh, I was sitting in one room like who's in the third room. And I will tell you this. I don't want Joey Porter's first live action of 2026 to come against Jamar chase in the bagels. Perfect. Yes. Hour in the books. Another hour to go. Let's take a look at the AFC North when we return to kick off hour number two. Bush, you'll learn Matt Williamson halfway home on this Monday. It's the drive Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network. So we heard Amanda is off to school. Yeah, big step. More independent. She's not going to call every week asking for more money for books. Is she with smart start banking from S&T Bank? She gets budgeting tools, scholarship opportunities, and can send money using Zell. Wow. I guess college is about getting smarter, right? Give them financial independence and yourself peace of mind.

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