Everyone is talking about Mike Tomlin’s future in Pittsburgh. It’s to the point that even the X’s and O’s of a crucial Steelers-Ravens game have been muted during the dialogue of this week’s Steelers coverage.
So for this Friday’s “Football Footnotes,” we get into a bunch of other topics surrounding the Black and Gold heading into a first-place battle with their longtime AFC North Rivals.
And we dive into some matchup conversation as the Steelers head down to Baltimore for Sunday afternoon’s game.
I didn’t directly ask Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith about the criticism hurled at DK Metcalf from Asante Samuel Sr. He’s the former NFL cornerback — and father of current Steeler Asante Samuel Jr. — who panned Metcalf earlier this week for not using his physicality and playing with too much finesse.
Especially when it comes to getting off the line of scrimmage.
On his podcast, Samuel compared Metcalf to the big man you used to play youth basketball with, who refused to play big down low and only wanted to play on the perimeter and shoot 3-pointers.
Without mentioning Samuel, on Thursday I asked Smith if he thought Metcalf uses his size and strength the way he wants to see him use it early in routes, getting off the line of scrimmage.
“DK made some big plays for us this year. Last week, you lose a game like that, get off the mat, and you’ve got Baltimore coming this week. Got to get back to things we were doing well earlier in the year,” Smith said. “There are some things we need to change up with all of our guys. Don’t get the results you want, you’ve got to keep working, and you’ve got to problem solve. You’ve got to be solution-based. But all these guys made big plays at different moments. We just need more of them consistently. We need to string them together.”
I … um … didn’t see the word “Yes” anywhere in that response. Did you?
Can I get some bacon bits on that word salad, Arthur? It was a pretty direct question that could’ve yielded a pretty easy response.
If Smith thought Metcalf was good at the things I asked about. So maybe Samuel Sr. is on to something.
Here’s something else Smith said that left me rubbing my chin like the confused yellow emoji in your phone.
Smith was asked specifically about using tight end Jonnu Smith more often. More broadly, he was also asked if the Steelers are justifying their roster construction.
“The emergence of Darnell and Kenny (Gainwell), there is give and take, and that’s kind of what’s gone on,” Smith said. “There are other things you look at that sometimes, where guys are in a little bit of a lull. You’re trying to get guys open, and sometimes things happen, break down our play coverage, ball goes somewhere else.”
Indeed, Gainwell has been better than just the role player he was advertised to be. And Washington is developing into more than a blocker.
But isn’t this the latest example of what we heard about Smith during his time in Atlanta, and maybe even occasionally when he was a coordinator in Tennessee? He falls in love with average guys that overachieve, sometimes to the detriment of the stars he would draft or acquire in the first place.
Ironically, in the past, that was often Jonnu Smith. Go figure.
There is a chicken-or-the-egg problem here. Smith frequently talks like there aren’t enough balls to go around for this offense. Yet this offense can’t stay on the field long enough to get more balls to more players because it isn’t any good.
The Steelers have run 667 plays, the fewest in the NFL.
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Buffalo running back James Cook said the root of Buffalo’s game plan last week was to attack the Steelers’ cornerbacks on the ground because they aren’t good tacklers.
He went off for 144 yards rushing. The Bills totaled 249.
I asked defensive coordinator Teryl Austin if that critique from Cook was valid.
“To put it on all the corners would probably not be the right thing to do. There are a lot of things that go into making up a big play and how a big play happens, and so it was a little bit of everything,” Austin said. “I thought we could have been better on the edge in terms of how we set it and not making the corner so short. Obviously, we could have shown up a little bit sooner and been there faster. But there are a lot of different things. It’s not just one thing or one person that goes into making a bad play.”
I agree with that. In fact, I think Joey Porter Jr. worked his backside off to get Cook down a few times in open space, and if it weren’t for him, Cook would have busted off a few home run touchdown jaunts.
But it was just so easy for Cook to get to the corner in the first place because the front-seven guys were so deficient that it made the corners look worse.
Now the question becomes, how do the Steelers stop Pro Bowler Derick Henry from doing what Cook did?
He’s not as well-known for exploiting the edge like Cook. But whether it’s between the tackles or outside of them, once Henry gets a head of steam going, it’s over.
Pittsburgh knows that all too well. Henry had 146 yards on the ground against them over three games last year.
“Get multiple guys to the ball,” Heyward said of trying to tackle Henry. “He will make one or two guys miss. But if you can get four or five guys, … you can’t juke ‘em all.
Henry hasn’t been as explosive this year. He has just one 100-yard outing in his last four contests. But he still has 931 yards on the season.
The Mike Tomlin debate has gotten so loud (and I’m one of those shouting) that even an injury debate to quarterback Aaron Rodgers has gotten lost in the din.
Rodgers’ ability to play effectively with his busted non-throwing wrist is still a big deal — especially when it comes to the ball-handling element of the game.
It was evident that the offense was adversely affected by it last week, but Tomlin insists it’ll be different this time.
“I feel good about what we can do offensively. I don’t think we’re limited in any way,” Tomlin said of Rodgers. “Certainly, we’re going to do some things a little bit different to accommodate present circumstances — like, we worked almost exclusively out of the gun or pistol a week ago to minimize some of that. There will probably be less discussion this week. I think he came out of the game, at least physically from a wrist injury perspective, in a good place.”
Rodgers was just 10 of 21 for 117 yards and a 5.6 average per attempt against the Bills last week.