The Steelers Are Old, Disagreeable and Winning

Browns, Steelers, Steelers 27, Browns 6.

You talked to Patrick Queen in the locker room, Albert, about the, uh the vibe here, it, it just seems immaculate, like, and this, this just goes to show how poorly I can be or anyone else can be at projecting this.

In my mind, it's Mike McCarthy taking over a veteran roster of guys who loved Mike Tomlin.

Uh, Aaron Rodgers coming in and maybe being fully immobile at 43, and, you know, TJ Watt entering, I think his age 34 season, Cam Hayward entering, I think his age 37 or 38 season, you know, this is an old team, what if it breaks down and combust?

None of that's happened, and they delivered an absolute whooping on Cleveland, and I watched this game from start to finish, Albert, and The Steelers left a lot of points on the board.

I mean, this should have been, this should have been like a 42 to 7 uh uh game for for the Steelers.

Yeah, and, and I think like again like the Steelers are probably gonna be walking the health tightrope the rest of the year and we've talked about that because of their age, right like but Um, I love, like, uh, like, so I, this is why, this is why I want to talk to, to, to Patrick Queen after the game, because I've noticed this like.

Again, like I think I used the Clint Eastwood reference last week, right?

Like the Clint Eastwood and El Camino vibe to the team, to the entire team, right?

Um, and I've, I've said that with, I'm, I, I'm, I'm overusing that now because I used it on Todd Monken too.

So there's got to be a statute of limitations on me using that, but there is like that feeling to the locker room where it's like, they just, they're too old to care what anyone thinks.

And so, like, you remember like Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy had the on-field confrontation.

Then I think Rodgers like questioned play calling.

And then Jalen Ramsey came out the next week and he said that there was like a disconnect between the locker room and the coaching staff.

And with like probably 31 or 32 teams, it would be like, holy crap, what's going on there?

And it doesn't exist with the Steelers, and I think the reason why, and this is from my own wisdom getting older, is when you get older, you stop like with the pleasantries and you start like becoming more direct with people and you start becoming like, you know what, the faster.

The fastest way for me to deal with this problem is to confront it.

And if I, if I dance around it for the next 3 weeks, it's not getting solved.

So like, let's just talk about it.

And then you start to do that enough, and then maybe publicly you're OK talking about things that way.

And I think that's where all these guys are.

And this, this quote from McQueen, um, I, I, I said it like really seems like it, like no one cares about hurt feelings there and it's working for you guys.

And he, he answered , yeah, it definitely is.

I think it's because everybody has the same end goal and that's to hold the trophy up.

And once you go through things so many times, you're not trying to go into this insanity, you're just trying to find a new way to do things.

And we understand with all the alphas in here, nobody's selfish.

So that's the biggest thing.

Even with all the alphas we got, we got, no one's selfish.

Everybody wants to win, and everybody understands how we got to win.

And so, like, It was that, and then he said like, like on Friday, Patrick Graham, their defensive coordinator, basically said to them, we ain't changing anything.

We're good, these are your roles.

This is the way we're doing it.

It's like, we're good.

And it's just like this direct.

Like, I think, and I think it's permeated by the McCarthy Rodgers relationship, right?

Now follow me with my logic here.

I think, I think that permeates it, right?

Like it's like, OK, like these two guys are like, these two guys are like a married couple.

They've been together for so long and they have so much background with each other that they just, they, they drop everything like as far as any sort of like manners or whatever, and they just talk directly to each other.

And I, I actually think like.

It's working for them in a very big way.

They're 6 and 2.

They're all alone in 1st.

It's funny, and I don't think many of us would have guessed that that would be the case.

It's funny because um I have a dear friend, and the communication between him and his wife is hysterical.

I love being around them, um, and, you know, he'll say something like, you know, uh, we'll all be FaceTiming one another, like all of our buddies from high school, and You know, the wife will walk by and she'll say like, you see how dumb uh my husband's new glasses are?

And then they'll say like, oh, you know, you know, my wife's just mad because she thinks she looks fat in that dress, you know, and then, but they'll, it's just, and, and, and they love each other like no, no.

Tomorrow, you know what I mean?

And they've gotten each other through these incredible life situations together.

And, you know, when you first you hear it, and you're like, oh my God, but then behind it is like a freedom to be just totally direct and Mike McCarthy and Aaron are the same thing.

How many, how many?

Play callers and established Super Bowl-winning head coaches would bench a guy who was MFing him on the headset, uh, because he didn't get a play call in.

And, you know, he did that, McCarthy did that to Rogers, and then the camera goes back to McCarthy, and he's, and he calls him a fucking asshole, like on the sidelines, you saw it, and he's like, fucking asshole.

You know, and, but maybe, maybe it's OK.

Like it's just like, I think marrying totally OK, marrying an Italian family has led me, has led me to believe that that this is possible.

I remember, I remember when I, I remember when the Richie, Richie Incognito thing happened, right, which I thought was like the Richie Incognito Jonathan Martin thing.

I thought was largely.

Garbage.

Like, I think it was like, did they go overboard?

Maybe.

But like, I thought like in the, like, the actual, in actuality is something that probably should have been handled just in the locker room, you know.

And it became a big thing.

And I remember thinking to myself, oh my God, if anybody saw my text messages with my friends, or got into like the fantasy football draft chat.

Like with my college friends, like, or like, saw what me and my high school friends said to each other or what our high school coach used to say to us when we, uh, like, we'd all be in huge trouble.

But there's a way, like if you've got good relationships with people, there's a trust that you have, that you can talk to them a certain way, that you wouldn't talk to other people, right?

Like, it's just, it's a directness, and it's a, and I think I'm starting, like you start to see with the Steelers with so many veteran guys in that locker room, um, you know, TJ Watt, Cam Hayward, go down the list.

Alex Highsmith is now a vet, Patrick Queen, Jalen Ramsey, DK Metcalf, Aaron Rodgers, Rico Dowdell, Jalen Warren, uh, Pat Friarmoose is, is, is getting older now, like all of these guys that have been in the league for so long, and like, there's no need to like coddle anyone.

And um yeah, it's, I think it's a cool thing, and I can't wait for their next game.

They gotta buy and then they go to Cincinnati to play on Sunday night after the Bengals get back from Spain.

Which is kind of an interesting scheduling Cork.

One team's coming off a bye, another team's coming back from Madrid.

Yeah, I mean, that sets up for the Steelers to be relevant, uh, for some time and maybe deliver back to back signature wins.

Um, on the Browns side of this.

I'm just gonna pound my chest a little bit.

In my dream trades column, I just said go get Spencer Rattler as a backup, as a backup, um, because DeSean's gonna start turning the ball over because he has a high rate of turnover-worthy plays.

He's gonna start turning the ball over.

He takes a lot of sacks.

He's probably gonna get hurt because he's been hurt for most of the last decade.

Everyone's, oh my God, you're just trying to rain on our parade.

We're 5 and 2.

Finally, we fixed everything.

Fine, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Deshaun Watson has taken 8 sacks twice this season.

He's the only quarterback to get sacked 8 times in a season, and he's done it twice already this year.

The other was the bad weather game against the Jets, but this one was just, you know, he was seeing ghosts downfield.

I think pretty early on, you could see Monken just convert and say, let's put the top up on the convertible and just go straight into a run, basically, our zone read, our run stuff, let's kind of take the ball out of DeShaun's hands right now cause he can't handle it.

But like, this is why I was pushing them so hard to get a quarterback because The Browns believed that this season was about setting up this young core, Schlesinger in Boston and Concepcion and Mason Graham.

Like they have undoubtedly great players.

So go show them that they're great, you know what I mean?

Go get, go get a serviceable Joe Flacco type player.

And at least get that guy in there because when DeSean, when the, when the floor falls out on this thing, all you have is Shaur Sanders, and he was so bad that you didn't want to entertain the idea of starting him in the first place.

Am I, am I crazy about this?

I know I keep bringing it up.

I think it's hard to integrate, I, I think it's hard to integrate a quarterback on the fly like that.

I, I could see if it was maybe Flacco, um.

I don't know that you're gonna get a higher level of play than you've got out of DeSean, and I understand what you're saying.

It hasn't been perfect, but he's played well down the stretch of a lot of these games.

He's had good 2 minutes, but he's still like the 28th best quarterback in the NFL.

Don't you also think like, I don't know.

I mean, you were talking about noise with Lamar.

If you do that, you're inviting like the whole Pandora's box opening back up again, where this thing seems to finally be settled to some degree, and like they can go and have like a relatively normal football season now, the rest of the way.

And if you do that now you're sort of opening the conversation back up, you know, I don't know.

I mean, I mean, but like, I mean, I don't know.

I, I, I, I, I would at this point, I think like I'm not against adding depth like the Spencer Rattler thing is not a horrible idea.

I, I, I also think like the, you know, the, the makeup of your team and where you're at, like I, and he took 8 sacks yesterday, so like there's no defending that.

His numbers look better than he played, no question, right?

Like his numbers actually look OK.

Um, But You got the Saints next.

You got the Texans, then you got your buy.

I, the schedule is relatively manageable the rest of the way.

It's not horrible.

I mean, you have the Giants at the end of the year, we'll see where they're at.

Um, the Ravens potentially without Lamar, the Colts are on there, the Raiders, like I, I, I think, I think you're OK staying the course here.

Now, if we're gonna have a bigger picture conversation about where they are at quarterback going forward, that's different, you know, like, and obviously all these things are, are part of that equation.

So, uh, from since week 5, there's been 15 quarterbacks who have played at least 130 snaps.

Um, OK.

Deshaun Watson is, wait, that's it.

Let's see here.

There are only 15 quarterbacks who played 130 snaps since when?

Since week 5.

So there's bye-weeks involved, there's injuries involved.

OK, I got you, um, you know, all that kind of stuff, but I'm just trying to zero in on the last 3 weeks of like regular established starters.

I'll even bump it down to, let's say, 7.

I need to get your analytics tool there, whatever you're using.

What's that?

I need to get your analytics tool, whatever you're using there to boil that down.

You got good filters there.

I have great filters.

OK, so, all right , I bumped it up to 75 snaps, and then we have 32.

So we have a full sample size of quarterbacks over the last 5 weeks.

OK, Deshaun Watson.

is 28th in EPA per play.

The only quarterbacks who are worse, Tanner McKee, Daniel Jones, Justin Herbert, and Bryce Young's had a bad couple of weeks.

Justin Herbert, uh, yeah, we'll get to that.

Um, he is, let's see, 24th in success rate.

Again, Tanner McKee, it's Jalen Daniels, it's Justin Herbert, um, you know, um, completion percentage over expectation.

Um, he's middle of the road, OK, but like, This is, you know, I, I, I don't know, because on one hand, it was, if the Browns are really into this, the idea of this season, don't waste it.

You were in first place, you know, I don't know.

I don't know who's available.

I think that's part of the conversation too.