2024 GDT Week #3 Steelers 3-0 Visit the Colts 1-2

[43M]

Today really felt like a Matt Canada game.   

Arthur Smith has been better, but not light years better.     He is still too predictable and conservative with playcalling.    I get they are trying to protect Fields, but if you really want to see if he is the future guy, you need to give him a chance to really fling the ball around.   If he makes mistakes, oh well.   Either he corrects those mistakes and we know we have a guy who could be the future, or he DOESNT fix them and we know we need to move on.

I would be extremely angry if our entire season went like this.   Say we finish 10-7 and get a wildcard and lose in round 1 (yet again).   The entire season is just Fields being an overly coddled game manager who hasnt proven he cant really do much more than win games when the defense and running game are firing at all cylinders.   Then, we foolishly give him a bunch of money to stay.   

I dont know about you guys, but I have no desire to sign a guy to big money whose whose can only show he "wont lose" games when things are going well, as opposed to QBs who can actually go out and win and OCCASIONALLY pick the team up, when needed.     Fields shows very slight glimmers on possibly being able to do that, but not enough for me to throw money at him, and we arent going to see if can be THAT guy unless they let him loose a bit.

We are seeing around the league what happens when you overpay lesser QBs, and if we arent going to try to figure out if Justin Fields is truly the right guy, then just put Russ in and be done with it.    Fields has shown some decent ability, but nothing that makes me remotely comfortable giving him a bag.     We have 13 games left.    If we dont figure it out, its a massive L for Tomlin and the offensive staff.

Edited Monday at 06:53 AM by 43M

[43M]

Oh, Najee ******* sucks.   

Stop defending him.

He has never been that good.    He is, at best, Najeh DAVENPORT.   

I dont care if he can turn it on later in games and later in the season.      He was a first round pick (foolishly) and he doesnt have one single ability that you can say is elite or even great.    He has really poor vision, has less burst and agility than our 33 year old, out of shape former WR turned RB, and literally never looks good early in games/seasons.   He can make some things happen when defenses are tired and worn down, but Im willing to better Benny Snell could do the same thing if we brought him back.

This needs to be Najee's last year here unless he takes a 1 or 2 year deal for backup money, because thats all he is...at best.

[warfelg]

 

[rlon]

Wow, lots of injuries on offense. Not a good sign on your weakest, least experienced area, particularly the line…and now RB. I know Dallas has some injuries too, but they may look at the early offensive game plan of the Colts, getting the ball out ultra early. Steelers need to find a way to go 4-1. Hopefully, true home field advantage helps. Yesterday was a bad game, with mistakes, poor coaching, and poor officiating. At least they showed some fight, but that first half wasn’t exactly atypical of the recent history of this team.  

[rlon]

6 hours ago, 43M said:

Oh, Najee ******* sucks.   

Stop defending him.

He has never been that good.    He is, at best, Najeh DAVENPORT.   

I dont care if he can turn it on later in games and later in the season.      He was a first round pick (foolishly) and he doesnt have one single ability that you can say is elite or even great.    He has really poor vision, has less burst and agility than our 33 year old, out of shape former WR turned RB, and literally never looks good early in games/seasons.   He can make some things happen when defenses are tired and worn down, but Im willing to better Benny Snell could do the same thing if we brought him back.

This needs to be Najee's last year here unless he takes a 1 or 2 year deal for backup money, because thats all he is...at best.

It takes him too long to get a head of steam. He was able to do it when he cut inside in space on that screen, as he had a lot of momentum, but his lack of suddenness and propensity for dancing around is the issue. He has the vision of Ray Charles.

[43M]

1 minute ago, rlon said:

It takes him too long to get a head of steam. He was able to do it when he cut inside in space on that screen, as he had a lot of momentum, but his lack of suddenness and propensity for dancing around is the issue. He has the vision of Ray Charles.

Thats why I compared him to Dookie Davenport.    He was a big back too and hard to bring down once he got going, but he was NOT a power back.    He had poor vision and no real burst to power through small holes.    

[warfelg]

This game as a whole was a failure. Top to bottom. Coaching to players.  Turds happen, it's how you rebound that matters IMO.

7 hours ago, 43M said:

Arthur Smith has been better, but not light years better.     He is still too predictable and conservative with playcalling.    I get they are trying to protect Fields, but if you really want to see if he is the future guy, you need to give him a chance to really fling the ball around.   If he makes mistakes, oh well.   Either he corrects those mistakes and we know we have a guy who could be the future, or he DOESNT fix them and we know we need to move on.

IMO we're seeing an offense designed for Wilson. The only really similarities in Wilson and Fields play is they have big arms and can be mobile. I personally feel installing the offense that would work for Fields would be like going to camp again for a lot of these guys. I agree on the just opening it up though. Some of Fields best plays have come from empty sets and 5 blocker sets. The issue that comes with that is then teams blitz him and he just has no clue. I look at the play he fumbled. There was extra man pressure off the side of the two free rushers, he drifts into them, and has his hot route right behind them. Say what you will about Russell, but I think that's a play Russ makes 99/100 times.

7 hours ago, 43M said:

I dont know about you guys, but I have no desire to sign a guy to big money whose whose can only show he "wont lose" games when things are going well, as opposed to QBs who can actually go out and win and OCCASIONALLY pick the team up, when needed.     Fields shows very slight glimmers on possibly being able to do that, but not enough for me to throw money at him, and we arent going to see if can be THAT guy unless they let him loose a bit.

No, at this point I'm all in on throw out money at WR2, OL depth, RB in the offseason and sell the draft farm to go get your QBOTF on a rookie contract.

7 hours ago, 43M said:

I dont care if he can turn it on later in games and later in the season.      He was a first round pick (foolishly) and he doesnt have one single ability that you can say is elite or even great.    He has really poor vision, has less burst and agility than our 33 year old, out of shape former WR turned RB, and literally never looks good early in games/seasons.   He can make some things happen when defenses are tired and worn down, but Im willing to better Benny Snell could do the same thing if we brought him back.

Yup. Sometimes I think he gets too much hate, but he's not it. He's a bust of a pick. My problem comes back to he's not a complete back. His pass pro was bad yesterday, he gets to holes but doesn't hit them, and the Colts LBer was right, he's SAWFT! Like 10 ply Charmin soft. He gets those "Angry Runs" love, but it's always him as a 6'2" 240lb RB picking on some poor 5'11" 200lb DB. Like, yea he better win that matchup. I've also never seen a running back so willing to have contact yet shy away from it so much. Like even that bonehead play late in the game, (#1 he should have stepped OB) but he curls up AWAY from the DB rather than lowering the shoulder and delivering the blow.

His locker room outburst after the game pisses me off too. Notice how in that first year after he was drafted the organization talked about him being a leader? How about now? No one talks about it. Like dude shut up ripping reporters about doing their job asking about Fields. Also kinda tired of him defecting the blame to "as a team" issue. Like, just own up and say something like "Yea he got better in the second hald, CPatt was a big part of the turnaround, but I could do more to support him, I was terrible, and a poor running game would put any QB behind the 8-ball". That's how a damn leader answers a question like that.

[bigben07MVP]

8 hours ago, 43M said:

Today really felt like a Matt Canada game.   

Arthur Smith has been better, but not light years better.     He is still too predictable and conservative with playcalling.    I get they are trying to protect Fields, but if you really want to see if he is the future guy, you need to give him a chance to really fling the ball around.   If he makes mistakes, oh well.   Either he corrects those mistakes and we know we have a guy who could be the future, or he DOESNT fix them and we know we need to move on.

I would be extremely angry if our entire season went like this.   Say we finish 10-7 and get a wildcard and lose in round 1 (yet again).   The entire season is just Fields being an overly coddled game manager who hasnt proven he cant really do much more than win games when the defense and running game are firing at all cylinders.   Then, we foolishly give him a bunch of money to stay.   

I dont know about you guys, but I have no desire to sign a guy to big money whose whose can only show he "wont lose" games when things are going well, as opposed to QBs who can actually go out and win and OCCASIONALLY pick the team up, when needed.     Fields shows very slight glimmers on possibly being able to do that, but not enough for me to throw money at him, and we arent going to see if can be THAT guy unless they let him loose a bit.

We are seeing around the league what happens when you overpay lesser QBs, and if we arent going to try to figure out if Justin Fields is truly the right guy, then just put Russ in and be done with it.    Fields has shown some decent ability, but nothing that makes me remotely comfortable giving him a bag.     We have 13 games left.    If we dont figure it out, it’s a massive L for Tomlin and the offensive staff.

We won last week because of Fields. We were only even close this week because of him. The only two games they’ve given him the chance to, he HAS put the team on his back and put them in a chance to win the game. He was named the starter 1 hour before the Falcons game and won the game in a gameplan designed for Russ. Week 2 they just legitimately didn’t need to do anything on offense in the 2nd half after he played pretty lights out in the 1st half.

So after week 1 where he was named the starter an hour before the game and week 2 where it was clear 13 points was going to be more than enough to win the game, he has thrown the ball 66 times, completed 71% of his passes, for 557 yards and accounted for 5 TDs, 1 INT, 1 Fumble. How much more do you want them to “let him lose” or “fling it around”?

Yes, the defense was good last week. But they were pretty awful against the Colts. If we don’t get absolutely carved up in the first half, you’re looking at a different result. We are talking about a team with the highest paid defense in the league and a ton of draft capital invested in the o-line, a team that is DESIGNED to win games with its defense and running game, neither of which did a damn thing yesterday.

Of course the jury is still out on giving him a contract. It’s been 4 games, but let’s add some context here. Fields has carried this team the last two weeks. 

[bigben07MVP]

1 hour ago, warfelg said:

 

Get one starting guard back, lose another. The OL injuries have killed us man. 

[warfelg]

1 minute ago, bigben07MVP said:

Get one starting guard back, lose another. The OL injuries have killed us man. 

After being relatively healthy there the last two years it was a matter of time.

[bigben07MVP]

8 hours ago, 43M said:

Oh, Najee ******* sucks.   

Stop defending him.

He has never been that good.    He is, at best, Najeh DAVENPORT.   

I dont care if he can turn it on later in games and later in the season.      He was a first round pick (foolishly) and he doesnt have one single ability that you can say is elite or even great.    He has really poor vision, has less burst and agility than our 33 year old, out of shape former WR turned RB, and literally never looks good early in games/seasons.   He can make some things happen when defenses are tired and worn down, but Im willing to better Benny Snell could do the same thing if we brought him back.

This needs to be Najee's last year here unless he takes a 1 or 2 year deal for backup money, because thats all he is...at best.

Not only all of that, but he’s also a horrible fit for Arthur Smith’s offense. Jon Ledyard pointed this out on a podcast as soon as Smith was hired. Low key I think that was a pretty big factor in not picking up his 5th year option. 

Edited Monday at 11:50 AM by bigben07MVP

[bigben07MVP]

Call me crazy, but I think putting a 35 year old QB who hasn’t been very good in 3+ seasons, whose mobility has already been zapped and is coming off a 2-month calf injury behind a injury riddled O-Line, no running game to speak of, and poor pass catching weapons is…a bad idea. 

[warfelg]

13 minutes ago, bigben07MVP said:

Not only all of that, but he’s a horrible fit for Arthur Smith’s offense. Jon Ledyard pointed this out on a podcast as soon as Smith was hired. Low key I think that was a pretty big factor in not picking up his 5th year option. 

We need to see a healthy Warren in this offense, but I don't think he looked great in his limited time either.

[warfelg]

Giving a rewatch of this game and this statement is going to tick off some people:

Alex Highsmith was missed.

The edge on the defensive right wasn't really well set almost all game, and the Colts OL was able to block down all game because Herbig just isn't the run game threat that Highsmith is. Then on top of that the pocket for Flacco/Richardson was constantly able to shade to their left to avoid TJ coming off the other side.

Something Highsmith really helps with is he can get depth without putting much space in the "b-gap" between the LT and LG. So it allows Heyward to be able to attack more over the guard and effectively 2-gap from there. Herbig gets up field really well, but he leaves that gap really exposed and was walled off from getting into it a but easier.

I'm watching the late Larry O/Heyward sack of Flacco, and if that were Richardson instead of Flacco back there, that's a 10 yard gain for the Colts rather than a sack for Larry O/Heyward. And it's all due to that issue. And that was a play with a 5 man front. 

I think Herbig could be good one day. I feel he's going to always be one of those top end serviceable OLB's. To be a starter he needs to be the SAM in a 4-3 who will come down to the edge on obvious pass downs. He's just not able to hold up when up on the line in run downs. I feel like it's just size and length along with the strength. 

[warfelg]

 

Good view of the late botched snap. McCormick taps Frazier and Fields raises leg. All signs we're ready for silent count snap. Fields not watching for the ball and still looking around. Frazier even waives back to Fields to indicate silent count on and Fields isn't looking.

This looks to be 100% on Fields. Especially how everyone else saw and was set and ready to go.

Edited Monday at 12:21 PM by warfelg