2023 GDT 0-1 Steelers vs. 1-0 Da Browns

[3rivers]

our effort/ preparedness and play in week 1 was possibly the worst so far in this league season.  Even  denver has had some decent play , as have the Cardinals, Colts etc.

this game tonight better be much better for effort and playcalling.  Even if we lose,  there better be major progress overall. Warren better get more snaps, KP needs to be accurate and have poise , and the run defence will have to hold the Browns run game in check.

[bigben07MVP]

13 hours ago, JustPlainNasty said:

Rams running right through San Fran, and we made them look like the 85 Bears...

That game was all I needed to see to know we have one of the worst coaching staffs in the league. Our roster is miles ahead of the Rams yet they were able to keep the game competitive with the 49ers while we looked like a JV team against them.

[warfelg]

17 minutes ago, bigben07MVP said:

That game was all I needed to see to know we have one of the worst coaching staffs in the league. Our roster is miles ahead of the Rams yet they were able to keep the game competitive with the 49ers while we looked like a JV team against them.

Warning: the following is not a defense of Matt Canada. 
 

That said. This better be an overreaction and not how you truly feel. This is no where near the worst coaching staff in the NFL. Using this (silly for the nfl) transitive property:

Daboll almost lost to Arizona and needed a last second FG to beat an openly tanking team after getting pantsed on national tv by Dallas. 
 

Sean Peyton got beat badly in the second half when every ball didn’t go their way by a team that barely got by an openly tanking team. 
 

Taylor should be fired then for Joe Burrow looking terrible for two games and losing two easily winnable games. 
 

BTW those Rams - their better than you give them credit for. 
 

Bad games happen. And games as bad as last week are never at the feet of one person. Kenny couldn’t throw a pass to save his life, DJ/Cam both got injured, multiple OL players had the worst game of their careers. 
 

I caught some of that LAR/SF game. SF just didn’t make the plays they made against us. 
 

The HC and defensive staff will be fine by the end of the year. Heck they’ll be fine by week 5. The offense I’m admittedly worried about. But I have little confidence in who else is in that offensive staff that can make play calls. That’s not a reason to keep Canada, but it’s the short hand way of saying if you fire him in season, I wouldn’t expect much better. 

[warfelg]

Chris Carter on Locked On made an interesting observation. 
 

Kenny Picket doesn’t have a comfortable go to playmaker on the outside right now. And every time historically the offense took off that happened for the QB with an elite WR. Ward, Burress, Wallace, Brown. Someone needs to step up and be (1) the guy who can get numbers no matter what but also (2) the guy that dictates coverage. 
 

While the scheme is super lacking, we’re also easy to cover because no one strikes fear in a defense that way. Yes we have a bunch of guys who can do stuff and you can reasonably say “who’s the primary” play to play. But no one makes you dictate coverage pre-snap to try to stop. 

[warfelg]

Sorry for the triple post but - heard a podcast give a good schematic concept for us to overcome Cam being out. 
 

The suggestion was to look to Wade Phillips Rams defenses with Donald playing NT. Basically take Fehko and Benton and put them at DE, and line up Larry O over the nose. This puts Larry O in one on one with C’s, forces the line to pick who gets single blocked on run downs of Fehko/Watt or Benton/Highsmith.

 

It was suggested that even frees up the ILBs more because that means someone on the line has to come of Fehko/Benton to get a hand on them and that’s going to be a challenge to do. 

[Dcash4]

4 hours ago, bigben07MVP said:

That game was all I needed to see to know we have one of the worst coaching staffs in the league. Our roster is miles ahead of the Rams yet they were able to keep the game competitive with the 49ers while we looked like a JV team against them.

I would be very interested in an independent study on ranking entirety of coaching staffs across the league. Coaching is such an imperfect art. There are dozens of ways to skin the cat, but I can't imagine people would look to favorably on our staff. I would be surprised if we ranked in the top 15 as a whole, and Tomlin is probably doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. 

It's hard to gage staffs when you don't get any opportunity to be in the rooms, but I don't love ours, personally. Tomlin is a great CEO styled head coach and helps create a fantastic culture, but he lacks schematics and so does the rest of our staff. That's a problem. Matt Canada would be 32 of 32 OC's if the Bears didn't exist and I don't think anyone would be running out the door for Austin if he was available and they needed a DC gig. Our position coaches are never attractive to other teams - professional or college -- which is a bit odd considering how universally respected Tomlin is. But if you are not getting Tomlin, what are you getting? There are only a couple of position rooms I feel like we see scalable improvements in players through their careers with us (TE, Edge/DL, RB). 

We can add in scouting/drafting/GMing to all this equation too for talent, but we seem to rely heaaaaaaaaaaavily on talent. I just watch the games yesterday and look at all the teams with better schematics be able to do things more often -- and we need that. The Commanders scored 35 -- something they have done twice in the past 5 years -- with a 144th pick at QB and a brand new OC against what's been a pretty solid defensive unit. You mentioned the rams with a 2 deep on offense that outside of Stafford needs a google search. The Colts have an insanely raw 21 year old QB and a backup QB who diced up a secondary with zero threatening skill players. The Packers LT wont play on turf, were missing their best offensive weapon, have Jordan Love at QB, and their leading receiver was a 2nd round rookie....yet still could score enough points to reasonably win a game.

On defense, I shared something before where against good QBs/offenses we were 3-10 and gave up over 30 points a game in the last two years and already in week 1 we gave up 30 and got another L towards that count. It's hard to play D in this league, but we can't slow down top offenses even with all world guys being all world players. Even in games we always have chances to win against teams like the Browns, Stefanski really picks on our rules and breaks down how we use Minkah....because we rarely change or update the schematics. Simply moving his #1 receiver to a #3 count breaks our defenses brains. 

Again, it's hard to understand any part of the coaching aspect for good and bad because results are not a perfect answer....but this was a long winded way to say, I don't love ours. Could totally be wrong too. But I would love to see a change in the way we hire starting next off-season. 

[warfelg]

1 minute ago, Dcash4 said:

but he lacks schematics and so does the rest of our staff.

I’m mean, compared to what or who? I need to see quotes that support this because there’s a ton of players on podcasts talking about how Tomlins understanding of schemes is one of the most underrated things about him. 

[warfelg]

This is why I don’t love picking on coaching without the context. 
 

Look at the SF game tape. Deebo was heavily shadowed by Minkah tipping his way. Max in the box to attempt to stop the run. Zoning Kittle to prevent too much. Let Peterson man Aiyuk on the outside. 
 

Was it scheme when Peterson slips? How do you better defend that second TD? I mean sometimes you need to credit great plays. 
 

Watch the tape for the number of times Minkah was frantically moving Neal and Kazee (especially compared to how little he did that to Edmunds). Like the coaches can’t run out there and move him to the right spot. Kwon Alexander drifting and taking himself out of the hole. Loudermilk trying to drip to the inside when he has outside leverage at the snap (this was the long CMC run). Those things are players in the moment making a choice that blows up the scheme. 
 

And the bigger part is that two people can watch the same play with the same mistake and come away with two different conclusions. Someone could say that Loudermilk was told to cut the inside across the guards face (doubt it). 
 

To me, thinking on my own coaching background, I’ve learned to watch who’s out of position the most and I point to the guy. If it’s close to even across the board then it’s coaching. But when Loudermilk (forced into action), Neal, Kazee are constantly guys I see out of position most pre and post snap. The only fix there is benching guys, and as the game wore on Benton got more snaps. But who else can you go to at the FS spot? Other than Peterson changing (or what I think should happen….Wallace) there’s little you can do to get them to understand what they need to do. 

[August4th]

anyone else think watt is underrated nationally? seems like he does not get the praise Garrett,bosa and Parsons get when he outproduces all of them when healthy 

[Dcash4]

7 minutes ago, August4th said:

anyone else think watt is underrated nationally? seems like he does not get the praise Garrett,bosa and Parsons get when he outproduces all of them when healthy 

I always feel like its just my bias talking, but yeah I think so. I think the injuries and having already won the MVP kinda wore down his status, but still....

He is falling into the Big Ben category for me. Ben was never the best quarterback in football, but he was the best football player at quarterback. I think it's becoming the same with TJ. Those guys may yield better pass rush numbers, but find me the guy who has as many PD, FF, INTs, and TFL as he does to go along with is sacks. TJ fills up a box score in a way those guys do not. 

 

[warfelg]

24 minutes ago, August4th said:

anyone else think watt is underrated nationally? seems like he does not get the praise Garrett,bosa and Parsons get when he outproduces all of them when healthy 

Nah. He was hurt a good amount last year. As soon as someone else gets hurt the same shuffle will happen. 

[jebrick]

I will say this game is good if the Steelers can score 17+ points.  They do not even have to win.  I just want to see the offense score more than 17 points.  I do not think they can do it

[3rivers]

5 hours ago, warfelg said:

Chris Carter on Locked On made an interesting observation. 
 

Kenny Picket doesn’t have a comfortable go to playmaker on the outside right now. And every time historically the offense took off that happened for the QB with an elite WR. Ward, Burress, Wallace, Brown. Someone needs to step up and be (1) the guy who can get numbers no matter what but also (2) the guy that dictates coverage. 
 

While the scheme is super lacking, we’re also easy to cover because no one strikes fear in a defense that way. Yes we have a bunch of guys who can do stuff and you can reasonably say “who’s the primary” play to play. But no one makes you dictate coverage pre-snap to try to stop. 

Pickens is the answer, everyone knows this

 

1 hour ago, August4th said:

anyone else think watt is underrated nationally? seems like he does not get the praise Garrett,bosa and Parsons get when he outproduces all of them when healthy 

I noticed this as well, but I also can't stand most of the commentators either. 

 Parsons is up there, but Bosa and Garrett maybe not quite (but still elite no doubt) at TJ and Parsons level. I like Parsons all out effort until the whistle the most out of all of them, dude never lets up.  TJ will just have to show them and get DPOY and in turn that will  remind everyone  that last year he was injured a lot in case they forgot. 

If they are talking about bend around the edge, Garret might own this over everyone that has played.  It will be a major test for OT's tonight especially if they move Garrett around. 

35 minutes ago, jebrick said:

I will say this game is good if the Steelers can score 17+ points.  They do not even have to win.  I just want to see the offense score more than 17 points.  I do not think they can do it

not sure what to make of this comment. I agree we want to see some scoring but a legit win would be nice . I see your point,  but another loss could be a problem later on.  17 points as in 2 TD's and a FG?  There was a time that could be interpreted as 5 FG's and a safety, winning with defence and Gary Anderson

To add to your comment, I am more interested in coaching decisions and adjustments.  We can only expect a few changes for players and scheme/playcalling but it better happen if required. 

who is calling the game?

[Dcash4]

DJ and McFarland officially to IR. Ollison being called up to the 53.

Well, the 52....we are one short?

[bigben07MVP]

I have a bold take…I already said this is the type of game Tomlin usually wins. My bold take is that this is George Picken’s coming out party. Not coming out as in a viral highlight catch, but I think he has double digit targets and dare I say two receiving touchdowns.