Drive9.23.26Hr2: Latest from Practice, Pick A Player

0:00So 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. Stop by your local branch. Call 835-2265 or visit STbank.com to send money with Zell. Both parties must have an eligible checking or savings account, terms and conditions apply. S&T Bank, member FDIC. I'm going to go to the south side to talk to our buddy Chris Hallock of DK Pittsburgh

1:04sports. If you are rocking a roll in 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 a embearing the lead. What's the latest on Joey Porter, Jr.? What do you see today? What are we thinking? What's his status? Yeah, with Joey. 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 is 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

2:10has gone the first two weeks of the season, Thursday has been the padded practice. 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 runs are tired of hearing that. Sure. Here in 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 in the stretch period during time and then the media only gets to look at the individual. Individuals. Yeah, he was taking part in the individual drills. So I mean, it's a hell of a gun. No, he wasn't doing it. He wasn't doing it. Correct. Okay. Yeah, and then that's what you want to see. You know, at least from a guy who's probably going to be a limited participant practice.

3:11But if he's a full participant, then hey, that's great. You know, at least he's back out there and at least at least in participating in a limited fashion, but maybe even a full of we'll see. Chris, are you expecting any good news for Michael Pittman Jr. this weekend? Listen, I'm sure we'll ask you a little bit about the offense here as we roll along. 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, definitely would he was also on the practice field today with with his team. He was a microcarp, he said it before practice that he was going to get. He was going to work today. He doesn't know exactly again how much he's how much work he was able to do in practice, but 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. You know, we'll see again, you know, see what happens Thursday with him being a veteran player.

4:13There 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 Faltono in week one or week two, I can 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 pitman returning to the practice field is definitely encouraging. You know, we'll see what happens 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 Dowdell. And if he can't go, we mentioned yesterday on the show, maybe Lou Nichols gets that call. I can't imagine Hayden, Raker, Homer being a guy that you want to give 30% of the backfield touches to it at this point. It's a potential, you know, that's a potential guy that you should look at getting a call off now with Rico. He was not participating in anything that I saw during the window of practice open to

5:13the media. He was actually in a walking boot on his left foot during, I actually got a chance to see him and he was in the walking boot, but we'll see how that plays out, but that's not an encouraging sign to start the week. So we'll see what happens there as your Friday, if he's able to get on the field at all, again, being a veteran player, having played in McCarthy system before. Maybe there's a little bit of a longer leash there, but that's certainly not what you want to see when the practice week is beginning. But yeah, when you're looking at potential replacements, somebody who can take some touches away from jail and warrant to make sure you're not overworking him. Yeah, I think Lou Nichols is the guy you can look possibly look at. I think as long as you feel, maybe if Pittman does return and you don't feel like you need to play Ben Skaronic a whole bunch, add actual wide receiver on offense and you can have him be more of your special teams guys. And 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.

6:21Chris Alec 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? It's hard to say right now because before practice, Mike McCarthy was talking about the importance of continuity and how, you know, when you're, 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 they during individual drills, they

7:26had them working in, you know, like groups of two, like in pairs. And they had Brock Hoffman and Maxi Honnichor working together. And then they had Spencer Anderson and Dylan Koch working together. So what I would think based off of that, if there are changes that are made, I don't think it's just one change. I don't think you just, you know, cook off the field, put Maxi Honnichor on there and put him with Spencer Anderson. I think you're talking about change. Yeah. Yeah, you're pretty much changing lines there. You're going to Brock Hoffman at right guard and Maxi Honnichor at right tackle. So it could be that. And you know, Brock Hoffman is, and this, this actually, and 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 Michael McCarthy, but he also has multiple years of experience of facing Dexter Lawrence twice a year. Oh, yeah.

8:27So, yeah. Very, right. If you are going to make a change, this might be the week to do it because you're 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 extra Lawrence is just to freak in the inside. So at least you have a guy who's been in there and faced him, but that would also probably mean Maxi Honnichor would be starting next to him. Again, if I think that the line combinations are as important to, to Mike McCarthy as he says it is, I think that's what it's going to be. It's not going to be a horrific 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 a really good observation, especially the Lawrence background and he obviously is not the typical challenge on even an NFL Sunday. I'm curious.

9:28I 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. 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 Fannica. I 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. I think out of the five Spencer Anderson was definitely the worst in past protection. He did not have a good game. The one where they obviously the sack fumble for the touchdown, Spencer Anderson got pushed pretty much back in Roger's lap and Roger's tried to escape and make something happen. Obviously, the defender, Barmer, was able to get his hand on the ball.

10:33I 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 make me think this is worth keeping our first round pick on the bench. And again, just when you combine everything together, the fact that Spencer Anderson was probably the weakest of the five Dylan. Especially if it is a package deal like you laid out. Right. Yeah. And Dylan cook is again, not being a world beater over there. And then you consider the fact that he brought Copman to face extra 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 right cleanland. Maybe the long week after now. You could, but is it worth possibly going one and three before you make those changes?

11:33Of course not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely not. I mean, that would be who listen, we, whatever happens here, you can't lose to both Ohio teams in the span of of five days. I think we can all agree upon that. Chris Alec 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. 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, I'm starting to Jones for it a little bit this week. Yeah. T leaves are starting to kind of become a little more clear maybe on that. I, 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 and not kill you. Oh, yeah. And trust is big.

12:34In 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, the, 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 and that red for the right side of the Steelers offensive line. And I can't believe that they watch a honna churn practice and can't be like, I got to see what that looks like. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly right. Cause 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 talents, obvious. Certainly something will be keeping an eye on and talking more about as the season rolls along here. We'll do some, some early thoughts on the Cincinnati Bengals and their roster when we return with another one of our favorite exercises, West Shuler, Matt Williamson, it is the drive Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network.

13:39And now a word from our sponsor, Bud Light. 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. They'll 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 Heiser 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. It's 100% fiber in the net that's super reliable. So I streamed 100% at 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 rubbing it in that he called all the pigs. I told you they were building their own line. I win the bet. Get 100% fiber internet with Verizon Files because when it comes to your team it's 100% or nothing. Call 1-8-3-3 Verizon to switch today. Get that hotdog costume ready. Bra.

14:39You're tuned to a drive on your 24-7 home of the Black and Gold Steelers Nation radio. Matt, in just a few minutes I want to get into some trench warfare with you. Okay. I'm excited for it. But before we get to that in just a minute we have to run back another Wednesday exercise that we do throughout the regular season that we actually kind of forgot about week one and then a bunch of our listeners reminded us and said, hey don't forget about this. Yeah. It's just the age old if you could steal somebody from the other team who would it be. And this is a fun one. Now reminder for everyone there's a caveat we say you can't take quarterbacks because that's it. Everyone would take burrow. Right.

15:40And this is probably maybe one of the easier ones that will do all season. It is, but they also have some of the best candidates across. They have. It's way better than New England. Way better than New England. There's like five guys I would take in over the New England. Especially on the defensive side of the football. Yeah. They've got some nice pieces on the offensive line. I mean I think the answer is obviously Jamar Chase, but this is it is and he might be my answer if I could take anyone to league who I would add to the scene. Really? I mean it's pretty high list. Non-quarterback. I can't imagine Metcalfs or two and Pitmans or three and you got to worry about that guy. I mean, all your offensive woes might just go away. So really good point. Yeah. He would be on the short list in the conversation without a doubt. I mean maybe you take a different receiver that's cheaper or whatever. A little whatever. Maybe. I mean, man, he's a special special player. I think he's unless he stubs his toe with injuries or whatever. He's going to the Hall of Fame. Yes. Agreed with you on that. Yeah. But the other candidates are fun. The other candidates are fun. They've got they've got one on the offensive line that would be an interesting conversation. I adore a Marius Mem. Yes, you do.

16:40And he is a monster. He shut down Bane in the first game. He shut down Anderson and or Hunter in the second game. I mean, big time prospects. I assume he will go one on one with what? Some with her big, of course, but what's usually going to be that he's the right mimse of right tackle, folks. I think he'll be one of the top two or three right tackles in the league for years to come recognized after this year and like Lane Johnson gets out of the way. He's maybe next now. A hot short could be, but let's let him play a game first before we get there. Sure. But that's the problem with taking mms to me is he's a pure right tackle. A hot and sure is a pure right tackle. If you could even say like, okay, we'll move Faltanu to guard, but then who are you moving to the left side? That was my problem. Like if it was Penny's soul, and we've seen this fish before. I would love to see Faltanu a guard. I think he might be the best guard in the league, but I don't want to take one of these right tackles and make him play left. Yeah. So he's off the table, unfortunately, but in terms of for like we're having an online draft,

17:43you know, from scratch, he'd be really, really high less. He's a rare cat man. And he's still so young. So young. Yeah, and still getting better and better and better. You'd have to even consider Higgins. You would. I mean, Higgins a really good player. Yes, he is. Probably a 15th best watch receiver walk in the planet right now. He's a really good player. He certainly is. Yeah, you care him with Matt calf every snap. Okay. And then you're still cooking. Yeah, absolutely still cooking. There's the two on offense besides Jason and burrow without a doubt. Without a doubt. And then I mean, I think they have a couple on defense now too. Imagine Dexter Lawrence on this run. Imagine Dexter Lawrence with this defense of front. I mean, without nerd now too much on my Twitter feed, I retweeted. It's just a graph at people. If you put a graph out there, people are like, I don't know what this means. Just read the bottom axis and the other. X and Y axis. Didn't we all. Isn't that difficult in this in middle school? You don't have to have a doctorate in physics to figure this out. You know, like if you're in this corner, it's bad. If you're in this corner, it's good. It's good. But the graph I put out, I didn't create it.

18:46I just retweeted it. But one of it is how much are defenses playing with a light box, which is what everybody wants to do so they can play too high. Once in a while, he's playing with a light box more than any defense in the league. And the other side of the axis is how well are you defending the run? They're the best run to defend. So they're getting the best, it's like being the best pass for us, team, and never blitzing. And that's all Lawrence. Yes. That's all Lawrence. You know, like he's been unbelievable. Oh, by the way, he's an amazing pass rusher. But the fact that you can live in light boxes and still be really, really good against the run was worth trading the 10th overall pick for. Yes. And you add a lot of pass rusher with them too. Yes, you do. I threw this on Twitter too. If I was giving steel fans hated me for it. If you were giving the defensive player the year after two weeks, I would give it to Dexter Lawrence. I haven't seen Watts numbers. Well, yeah, but I think Lawrence has had a better year, a more impactful year, more

19:50snaps. It's not a knock on Watts folks. Watts have been great. He has great numbers. I think Dexter Lawrence has been the best defense player in the league this year. He's that good right now. So yes, you'd have to consider him. I don't care what you have it knows or how much you like Benton or Harmon or Black or any of those dudes. You put him on the defense. I mean, you good. Lord. If you're not the best defense in the league, adding Dexter Lawrence to what you already have, then something's wrong. You would probably think you're right. I think you would be the best defense. Even back seven is just okay. You would never have to that, educating what he's extrored of the line of scrimmage. You'd be fresh all the time. You know, you could do so many things. I didn't realize this. Did you know Dexter Lawrence was the number two rated recruit coming out of his high school class in Wake Forest, North Carolina? Really? He's the highest ever rated North Carolina high school football player. Wow. I didn't, I knew he was a five star dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He went to Clemson and won a national championship there and was a front from the league.

20:52He lined it a couple of first seven. It was like Cleveland Farrell who went way too early, but everyone he would have went the first either way. Yeah, he was number two on scout, number two on rivals, number two on 24 seven, number two on ESPN, consensus, number two player. He's very special in that class. Good Lord. And he is, yeah, he has been off and running in his first two appearances in the Cincinnati Bengals, uh, Bengal stripes there. Uh, they're smart chase. That's the end. Of course. He's a really good corner and he's at the same stage of his contract as Porter. Um, I prefer Porter, but Turner's. Welfth best corner around, you know, never gets that kind of credit. He's been such a bad defense every year. He probably will start to give you a great foundational piece, but I don't think the Steelers need a corner unless Porter would leave or whatever. Sure. And their ed rushers are really intriguing as well. Boy, I'm off a, but he's making a lot of money. They just signed them. Cassius Howe is going to cause problems. I'm telling you right now. He's really, really good. He's been the steal of the draft so far. Yeah.

21:53And he's gotten a little heavier. He's like two 60 or two 65 now and his heck of a pass rusher already. Um, and he's cheap, but not only the Steelers need edge guys, you know, right? Yeah. That's the, that's the kind of unique one in that conversation. Yeah. I mean, hey, if it's, uh, if it's someone like Will Anderson, right, we'll take them and we'll figure it out. Yeah, right. But of course, uh, all right, Matt. Let's transition here now. You know, speaking of, uh, you put out a graph and people have no clue what it means and you got to, it's amazing how many tweets I get back. Like I don't know what this means. I'll just read it. You should reply to those people and just say Google.com or not that. Just read it. It says on the bottom. You don't know how to read it. Go Google and that's correct. True pressure rate, Matt, uh, TPR week two update, studying, charting and grading every recorded pressure from past rushers with seven or more pressures through week two. So this is our buddy Brandon Thorn who we always, always refer to for O line. Big fan of it. And that's his specialty.

22:53But because he watches so much O line, there's D lineman on their side. He go again. So he won't claim to be as much of a specialist or as strong of a analyst with defensive lineman as he is offensive lineman. And it's all in here. I subscribe to his sub stack or whatever it's called. It's very, very good. I suggest people do that because frankly, there's not many O line gurus, even on the Twitter sphere. He's the best. Um, it's not a sexy position to break down. No, and it's a really hard one to break down. You know, even like Greg Coastell will tell you, oh, yeah, boy, I wish I felt better about my analysis on O line. I definitely would. I mean, many people would anyone that's honest with themselves. But anyway, um, so what he does and there's, it's kind of worthy. But there's a lot here in terms of what he calls true pressure rate and true, you know, and basically the short of it is he, he judges pressures and sacks based on how difficult they were. If TJ watt beats a tight end and then a running back and then finally gets to

23:57the tackle and gets a sack. That's like a valedictorian. Yeah, that's a day plug. That's way better than unblocked pressure that the right tackle goes the wrong way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, TJ still gets a sack, but the right tackles blocking down on Benton or something. So because it just doesn't know. So he grades kind of the difficulty of sacks and, you know, true pressures. True sacks. And it's a pretty cool way of looking at it, you know, through two games. He doesn't do it every week, you know, once a month or so. But through two games, he tells you who's really playing the best on tape. Yes. And it's not really analytics as much as it is. Yes. What he sees on tape. What he sees on tape. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what, Matt, he kind of breaks it down in a lot of different ways. The one that I like though is the pressure quality ratio. Yeah. Again, it sounds how complex, you know, how, how high quality your pressures are versus the amount of times that you are rushing the quarterback and pinning your ears back. And I tell you what TJ what the good news, Matt is TJ Watts pretty high on this list. I bet TJ what is one, two, three, four, five, seventh, best pressure quality

25:01ratio in the NFL through two weeks. The bad news is number three on this list is Dexter Lawrence. Yeah. Number five on this list is boy, a mafia and it's harder for detacles than the ends. I mean, because you got to go through two people most of the time. Absolutely. Like Aaron Donald used to be the top, which is unbelievable for him to be at the top is crazy. Yeah. And then if he keeps going down, three Simmons is number two on this list. And that which is amazing accomplishment. Yes. Yeah. Dexter Lawrence is three boy, a mafia is five. TJ what is seven cashiest how is 10 and then also in the top 25, Matt, he checks in here at number 18. I think it is is Jonathan Allen. So all four, no one's talking like four tackles for loss. I mean, he's loving getting single, single block all four of the bangles, uh, starting defensive linemen are in the top none of who were on the team last year. None of who were on the team last year. One was drafted. The other college, the others were signings, but a trade. Yep. And second on pick. Matt, that really paints a picture of how disruptive those four, uh, have been

26:05for Cincinnati through the first two weeks of the season. Huge success in terms of where they spent their offseason resources. Um, I'll counter that though. This one's just simple math. I think everyone can follow along. This is from pro football focus that I tweeted out earlier today. And all it is is how many sacks you've, uh, a ratio of how many past rush reps you've taken and what percentage of them have turned into sacks. Okay. So if you rush the passer 100 times and you've 10 sacks, 10% of the time you get home, that would be an amazing number. So along those lines, TJ watt has a sack on 10.5% of his past rush that more than one out of 10 past rush snaps. He has gotten a sack. That's big time. That leads the league. Put in perspective, Zidaria Smith is second at 8.8%. Okay. So I mean, it's a full percentage point plus from one to two. But Alex Heisman's third at 7.9.

27:09So that goes back to mate, all those guys, Heisman and what are playing less snaps and thus less past rush opportunities than they have in the past. But I think keeping them fresh is paying off per snap, which was the plan all along. Yes. You know, everything. And there's some, there's some proof of concept that exactly. I mean, in terms of if I'm getting a sack over 10% of every time I rush the passer and I'm guaranteed 50% of them. The ball comes out where they don't even block me. I couldn't get home. You know, like it's a screen or it's a bubble or something like that. Pretty awesome. It's only two games. But yeah, pretty awesome. Heisman's third. There's a there are a lot of guys on both sides of the football that are represented on these defrons are used to be the Steelers. Defront was light years better than the opponents on Bangle week. Now they're comparable. Matt, it might be it's still very early in the season, but so far, we've been brought Cam Hayward yet.

28:09He's pretty good too. So far, I think you could easily say, and we'd have to really break it down and think, but right at the forefront of the conversation of most improved units in the NFL from last year to this year. Since the defense of line. Yeah. And that's with Hendrickson gone. Right. Yeah. Who's a good player in zone? Really good player. Yeah. They brought in four new guys in different ways. And all those first round picks, it's not like Schemar Stewart and Murphy are hitting either. It's all the guys that has went and got this off. Yeah. Imagine if they could get anything from Schemar Stewart. Right. I think he did have a sack last week, but it's only he's playing great. It's it's it's very telling. And I tell you what, it's maybe, maybe this game will be more of a defensive a struggle on both sides than than we've anticipated. Yeah. And certainly then, then this game has been the last couple years where it's felt like the first of 35 or 38 points is the winner in this match up the last couple years. I don't think that's going to be the case on Sunday. There's been a lot of sacks in the two Bengals games. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of different guys. Yeah. I think there's been like 16 sacks in the two Bengals games from mostly from

29:13Bengals, but not entirely. Houston got after burrow a lot too, you know, it's a big number. Mangleings and there could be a lot in that one. They could be a lot on Sunday. Big number. Let's get to our last break of the day here on the other side. We'll give some final thoughts. We'll hit on some of your questions, comments, concerns and reactions before we get up out of here. Westpuler, Matt Williamson. It is 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. 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. Stock up now. Bud Light. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly, Copyright 2026 and Heiser 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.

30:13It's 100% fiber internet that's super reliable. So I streamed 100% at the NFL Draft Live with ultra low light. And 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. Get 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 hotdog costume ready. Bra. You're tuned to the drive on your 24-7 home of the black and gold Steelers Nation Radio.

31:27Down the home stretch here on this Wednesday. It's going to be a fun few days ahead. Of course, tomorrow will fully turn the page to Cincinnati. We'll do Matt Stath. I'm hoping we can catch up with the Dean of Doom and the Lord of living years. Bob Labriola tomorrow as well. We'll do all of our early scout of the Cincinnati Bengals as we will have all eyes on Sunday. Also, I'm intrigued tomorrow night. Matt, little Thursday night football, the Packers and Jordan Love and of course, what appears to be the other day view of Michael Pennix. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm a little bit of encouragement for where it land has been. And at least certainly something that makes Atlanta a more intriguing watch than they would be with with anybody else. No question. Matt, let's hit on some of these questions, comments, concerns and reactions before we get up out of here on this Wednesday. For those that are wondering, there are two ways to get involved. You can always tweet us. He's at Williamson NFL. I'm at Wesley Euler or you can just leave your questions, comments, concerns and reactions on our YouTube video every single day and our guide, the birthday boy TV.

32:32Pulls him for us and we kind of do a hodgepodge of both. Zach says, love the show, Matt and Wes. Do you think the Steelers will draft a quarterback in the first round next year to complete to compete pardon me with Drew Aller? Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. We've talked about this. Who knows, but yes. A lot. Who knows? And we, the great unknown in this is always what they see from him day in day out practice. You know, every single day or, you know, a handful of times throughout the week. There could be unforeseen circumstances where he plays substantial amount to. I don't think that's the plan, but it could happen. But that's the thing that I think is the one way. There's two ways only that I can see the Steelers passing on a first round quarterback. The first being the Drew Aller gets in there this season for six games eight games 10, 10 games and really shows that there might be some. I'm not talking one one or two games. I'm talking a. I remember like shocked last year is the competition. I mean, or the comparison.

33:32He played the last start of the last six games. Maybe the more. Yeah. Seven or eight and was really looking the part down the stretch. Okay. I think that's the only way that I can see the guy into the next season. Or if just he's doing stuff at practice again every day that none of us see. But they all think and they're in the film room with him and he's picking everything up right away and he's sharp and he's on it. And they're all kind of. That was my homes in his rookie year. Now I'm not saying he's going to be my homes. You know, like I'm sure my homes were their doors off. Sure. And also, you know, a first round pick. A first round pick. Yeah. What was he 11th over? I think so. Something like that. I mean, the only thing that's, you know, you know, you're going to have to get to where you want on draft day. Maybe not. I mean, they have one win. They could end up with four wins and end up with the fourth pick. They could end up with the 25th pick. How many guys are available? Can you get there? I mean, just, just because you want to. Doesn't mean you're going to just take a guy to take a guy easily. You know, but Matt and I have stayed in many times throughout this off season.

34:32We're, we're ready to see the stealers step back into that batter's box. Yeah. I don't, I don't want any singles into left field or any doubles off the wall at quarterback anymore. I want to step into the batter's box and swing for the fences. And I'm hoping in April, we're going to see the stealers do that for the first time since. What can he pick at five years ago? Yeah. And mixed with Howard and Aller. That would be a really fun training camp because you only need one to hit. That's it. You know what I mean? That's it. I'm sure Vegas would say this is a dumb thing to save. But would you put the odds equal that their first selection is a quarterback versus every other position? I'm sure Vegas is probably like Bet the field. Yes. You know, I'm sure math people will be like that's there's no way Matt. Yes. But it has to be the the shortest odds. You know what I mean? I would think it's absent when you have a 42 year old starting quarterback. Who's already said he's retiring. Who already said he's retiring. Right. I mean, I would say that's not going to be the shortest odds no matter what you have behind him.

35:32Unless you just drafted a for a tie Simpson to stash for for a year or something like that. I would say though Matt as much as I hate. I would say as much as I hate saying this. I work for the Department of redundancy department. I would say though. And I hate saying this. I don't think we can completely eliminate offensive tackle off the board at this stage either. Really? What if what if we get to next spring and we're still not sold on Faltonu and or e-Honnature for the future? And I know you've just used three. I'm just pretty sold on the three of your last three of your last four first round picks have been tackles, but just we know one. Oh, there's a lot of positions where the need could get bigger. I mean, if both receivers look old. Okay, but that you're right. But tackle I think is the only other one where I'd go that has to be a first like that has to be a pick. You can't deal with it on day two or whatever. I see what you're saying. I get a wide receiver in round two. I could get a good guard in round two. They might have a big safe backers. I could easily write story where safety is a big need.

36:32Safe. I doubt it's a person around pick. But if all the sun, it's like we're moving Troy to guard. We need another tackle or something like that. But it's it's quarter back right now. Yeah. It's as harder to grab one. Yes. I mean, most years hopefully this is easier than two hardest positions to get in the first round. Quarter back and offensive tackle. So you're going to say you're getting a that's what I should open. It's easiest say you're getting a quarter back. Totally. It's harder to do it. Totally. Yeah. Without a doubt. There's three that are acceptable when they go in the top five picks and those teams are straight now. Like well, we didn't get one. Yeah. Yeah. If it's Caleb Williams and Jane Daniels and Drake made. Yeah, you ain't getting it. Yeah, I'm not getting one, right. But hopefully maybe there's somebody that you can get a pick 10. Yeah. Yeah. 9, pick 11 or pick 13. Matt Dozer says any thought of sliding Dylan Cook to write guard and starting max at right tackle. Not for me. I don't know. Cook has any guard experience. I don't know if he has any experience there at any level. But his style of play. I think his pads would be too high.

37:33Yeah, I mean, I think he's got the tackle body time. Yeah. And he's also stiffer and doesn't come out of his stance low. I don't think that would go well. Yeah. And you know, he was another one of those like he went to Montana state, I think for college, right. I'm trying to find it here. So I have to imagine he was a big fish in a small pond at college and probably played probably played a lot of tackle. Actually, he started as a quarterback at Montana state. I did know that. That's crazy. According to his bio here. Interesting. Very, very interesting. He does not project as a guard to me though. I don't think so. I don't think so. 23 starts at tackle at Montana. He's he I tell you what from going up from going to a quarterback to offensive lineman though. That's that's hilarious. Usually smart and you know, you understand protections and all that kind of stuff too. Yeah. Worked out very well for Lane Johnson moving from quarterback to I forgot he did that too. Yeah, he did that in Oklahoma though.

38:34Yeah, that's different world. Pretty, pretty big program Montana. Not to besmarch the good people. I'm sure they're wonderful of the Montana university football program. Annie says if the JP J saga can't be resolved and it becomes clear that a trade is in the cards. Would it be better to do that sooner or closer to the trade deadline? What would help maximize the return? That's a great question. Yeah, and that's a tough one to answer. I mean, if you were to get a player back sooner the better because I want that player playing for him. He has opposed to waiting till the deadline. It's a great call and having Joey on the sidelines potentially. But as the season goes on and if he never sees a field, he's got zero chance of getting hurt where other teams could get weaker and weaker and weaker corner and more and more desperate. And we do know deadlines make deals happen. If you get the deadlines, this is up my last chance. I've been offering a second for a month. And this is my last chance to get it done. And I'm going to get fired if I don't win some games.

39:36All right, Steelers, you broke me. I'm going to give you a one. So I can see both sides. I can too because I think if you're the team acquiring Joey, you would have rather you would rather gotten that done in the off season. Yeah, so you can have time to work with him and if you're the lines or bears, I want them now. But if I'm the lines or the bears, I want them now. I think sometimes the best time to trade guys is in the off season. You get the best return. Yeah, yeah, usually like on draft day, you know, everyone's got their, their all their picks and you know, all their picks and all their time. To figure out how that guy's going to work and gel and get to know him better and contract stuff and all that. But I think there are some, there's some desperate teams around the NFL corner is one of those positions. There's always always a lot of thirsty teams for corner back help. And so maybe Joey's kind of the rare one where getting it done in the middle of the season wouldn't hurt that much of the in the return department. Maybe not. It's also not a position. It's real difficult to transition from. You know, like it's hard to throw it's starting guard in there that you trade for on the next week corner.

40:38You got him, you know, we're playing zone. I mean, there's more to it than that, of course, but it's, you know, it's more like a baseball throw him in right field and you don't figure it out. You know, interesting one from Matthew here on Twitter who basically says, you know, I've been kind of thinking about, you know, this upcoming defensive game plan. And, you know, you've got Joe borrow who isn't much of a running threat, but he's got some big, you know, some true kind of big play wide receivers. Of course. Then the Steelers who have a quarterback who isn't a running threat and are still looking for the big play wide receiver. How does how how how does that make life game planning from a deep events of perspective when you're going up against a quarterback who doesn't really run an air in Rogers and a wide receiver who, you know, wide receiver group that doesn't have many of those big play threats. It's a part of the problem, part of the reason where there's the bottom of league right now and offense right. One's a lot harder to prepare for than the other. It certainly makes it easier. It's also certainly though why I think we need to see some more from those because where you look and see that what could be the advantage for the Steelers offense, it feels like it has to be those tight ends.

41:42Yeah, I keep going back to whether a doubtful plays or not. I want more touches. I want more feature role for Warren, Fryer, Mooth and Washington than what we've seen through two weeks, particularly because of the opponent, but also because you're struggling. I mean, tight ends of torn the Bengals apart for years and sholts went when crazy on them last week. The tight end that are linebacker and safety is not the strength of their defense. The front is and frankly, I think Warren's like a constant in this offense that I know what he gives you and he's been quite good. Yeah, under the radar doing stuff on his own. I want to see more of that as well. Yeah. Matt last ones here. I'm going to kind of combine a couple of these tweets. We got one from Smooth Dave, one from RJ. There's been a couple others. I think Steve here as well. Talking about more kind of J.P.J. hypotheticals and that Detroit being a trade partner continues to be one that a lot of people want to discuss.

42:42Yeah, I keep getting asked about them. Would you be interested in James and Williams? Would you want draft picks packaged with that? You know, the James and Williams ones interesting to me. Yeah, some names like Brian Thomas Jr. and and Marvin, Harrison Jr. Being thrown in there, but the James and Williams one is interesting because I think Detroit would really welcome a guy like Joey Porter Jr. Because James and Williams are really good player and they've got some wide receivers there in Detroit too. But he's like their fourth option. Yeah, I mean, St. Brown gets the most targets then Gibbs and LaPorter are head of Williams and they like Tesla quite a bit. You know, so they still would be quite a good offense without him. He's got some of that the Sean Jackson to him where like his first two weeks he's hardly done anything and the next week he might have like 120 on three long touchdowns. You and I've talked a lot about where do the explosives come from on Steelers offense? Well, that's his specialty. I mean, so he's his style of play would be very welcome. They paid him recently. So financially it doesn't hurt you though that might go and have a big.

43:44Because Simon's own his chance to already did that. That Hayes and the barn. No, no, no, he would eat more caps face than Porter does at the moment because Porter's on a rookie deal. But it wouldn't be more than Porter would get. Now he has been suspended for. Dambling at the facility and I mean, he's he's missed time. He doesn't have the cleanest track record. Right by no means is I say he's a bad dude not being charged with felonies. No, I'm aware. I don't think so. I think he's gotten injured and he was dumb in place bets on his phone at the facility or whatever, which that's not smart. But I would consider that one straight up. Yeah, I mean, what about Joey? I would like to get some little spring. Joey in a third for Williams in a second. That's something like that to me is. Is a morbid yes. Less of a conversation. Especially if Samuel, which he has shows that he can be pretty darn good. And you're happy with Everett in his future. Let me ask you this.

44:45But let's say Detroit because I think to any team that's going to want to acquire Joey Porter, Jr. here in season is going to be a team that fancies themselves as a contender as a playoff. Yeah, I don't think it's the card. The Jets and the car knows. Right. Browns aren't my auntie's not calling. They're not getting repixed. So with that, even if you're able to get a first for Joey, I think it's safe to assume that's going to be in the 20s. Probably. It's going to be in the bottom. A project to be. Yeah. And you just root against that team all year. Exactly right. So let's. Let's say Matt, I present to you two pills, right? Black pill, gold pill, whatever the case may be. We I have an agreement with the Detroit Lions that they will give us a first round pick for Joey. And you can look at that and you can say, oh man, that's really that's the gas that we need to go get our quarterback. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's going to be in the 20s and all likelihood. But that combined with our first round pick will be able to get us where we want to go to get a quarterback in April. Or they're offering offering you a, their offer soon offering you Jamison Williams.

45:48And I could use this same example for really any team around the league. Yeah. You know, they're offering you a first round pick for Joey. Are they offering you a similar valued play capable wide receiver? Yeah. Which one would you go with? Um, probably the first, especially this early, I mean, like the Lions are good. They could win the Super Bowl. That would surprise me. But they, but they absolutely could. I think there's a better chance to win that division, didn't we? Uh, yeah. Now I don't feel as good about it. And the, and the, and Porter would help because their defense is terrible. No doubt. Um, I think there's a better chance though they missed the playoffs than when the Super Bowl. For sure, especially that division. I would say that about probably every team 25, 27 teams in the NFL. But yeah, so I mean, it's not crazy to think that ends up being the 15th pick. No. Yeah, I mean, that's about where they picked last year, right? And it's that's about where they would have been last year. Yeah. Now the other thing you can do if you take the pick.

46:49Is now that doesn't help you win now, but if Porter's at an impasse, he's not helping you win now either. But it'd be lovely to add James and Williams or somebody like that to the team today. Um, but you could also between now and the deadline, you've all these picks. You could take a third and go trade it for Marvin Harrison. You can't make you'll number two. You know what I mean? Sure. You get the first for Joey. You send a three to Arizona or whatever. You can make more than one move. You could do two things, right? That's a lot of cards in your hand. I think that's the pill that I would take. I think that's why I said I take the first and just root against that team. Hope it's high. You know, and then part with one baby golf gets hurt and then I win again. Part with one of your, you know, your day day three picks and get some help and some reinforcements there. At any position if needed. Always a lot to ponder. Yeah. Great Matt Williamson. I tell you, that was fun. I enjoyed today's show. We covered a lot of different ground. And tomorrow we will really start zooming in our focus on those Cincinnati Bengals.

47:51Thanks to Chris Alec for joining us earlier and a thank you and a big happy birthday to video producer resident statistician all around really good dude. Mr. TV Tyler V for Matt Williamson. I'm what you'll take care. Everybody we will talk to you tomorrow. As always you know where to find us. It's on your 24 seven home of the black and gold. 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 Chris. What if we just got out of here and grab some Bud lights? Four more hours. I'll figure it out. Sounds good to me. Anything for the clean Chris tastes of Bud Light. Stock up now. Bud Light. Easy to drink. Easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 and Heiser 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.

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