Hey Steelers Fans. Welcome to Friday.
The Kickoff
OK… Take a deeeeeeep breath. Breathe… Breathe… OK good. Now, repeat after me. “It’s preseason football. It’s preseason football. It’s preseason football.” There, do you feel ready for a serious conversation now? All kidding aside, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Green Bay Packers 28-9 in the preseason opener for both teams. There were some exciting moments and terrific debut performances but there’s also stuff to work on. That’s the former coach in me.
Allar
Regardless of who you’re playing or when you’re playing them, when you throw for two touchdowns and run for another, you’re doing something right. Drew Allar, the Penn State rookie, did just that last night. He went 10/13 for 153 yards and more importantly, he looked confident in doing so. There’s zero doubt that Mike McCarthy’s influence reaped rewards with the third round pick. His decision making – often a problem for him at PSU – looked much better. In at least one instance, Allar looked off a safety and delivered an accurate throw. In another, he came off the first read and delivered a dart to Kaden Wetjen. It was an excellent debut for Allar and now you just want to see it continue.
Howard
Will Howard finally got his chance after a Training Camp injury derailed his rookie season. He didn’t disappoint, leading a two-minute drill to a score. He finished 7/9 for 86 yards. I thought he commanded the offense well and didn’t look out of place at all. He made a nice decision to throw a ball away when nothing was there and also delivered a great throw to Robert Tonyan which led to a TD. His only real poor play was putting a ball up for grabs over the middle while under pressure. Thankfully it was incomplete but shouldn’t have been thrown.
Rudolph
Not to be outdone was the wily veteran Mason Rudolph who got the start. He managed to go 10/11 for 93 yards despite being under a lot of pressure. He was sacked twice and early had a TD as he avoided multiple pressures to deliver a ball to Germie Bernard who went high for the ball but couldn’t get both feet down. Essentially, Rudolph did nothing to make anyone believe he isn’t the number two guy right now.
Other Positive Performances
-Jamin Davis, the former first round pick who is trying to make the team as an EDGE rusher had eight tackles, and two sacks.
-Rookie Gabe Rubio had six tackles and seemed to be everywhere for a guy playing D-Line.
-Rookies Devan Boykin and Robert Spears-Jennings both made good plays behind the line of scrimmage and were involved in other plays as well.
-Rookie Kaden Wetjen didn’t do much as a returner but caught two passes including one for a TD.
-Asante Samuel, Jr made two really good plays on balls thrown in his direction. He’s making the most of his opportunity with Joey Porter, Jr still not participating.
-Robert Tonyan caught four passes for 61 yards and I think he’s going to be on this roster.
Red Zone
What a difference! The play calling in the Red Zone last night was so noticeably different that I found myself wondering who I was actually watching. Two plays designed for the fullback? A read-option? What in the name of Chuck Noll was going on last night? It’s one game and a preseason game at that but I loved what I was seeing.
Concerns
One of the issues during Camp has been penalties and that carries over into the game. The Steelers had 11 accepted penalties for over 130 yards. Many of these came on Special Teams. In all fairness I thought a few of the calls, like a roughing the passer and a personal foul on Ben Skowronek were incredibly weak, but still, they have to clean these up.
I wouldn’t give any of the offensive tackles a high grade for last night. Troy Fautanu and Dylan Cook were both overwhelmed at times early on and Broderick Jones had some ugly moments too. Are these poor performances related to flipping positions? They sure could be but their play has to be better in the next game.
Kaleb Johnson needs a fresh start somewhere else. He had just two carries for three yards last night. Lew Nichols, Eli Heidenreich and Travis Homer all had more carries than he did.
Random Reads
The field of Acrisure Stadium was noticeably different and it was. The team has finally moved away from bluegrass to Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass. This is the same surface the Eagles have. Let’s see if this can hold up better than it has in previous years… Max Hurleman was a guy that shined during last year’s preseason and he looked good again last night… With only three preseason games, this coming week becomes the “dress rehearsal” game that always used to be the third game back when it was a four-game schedule. It “should” mean starters will see a few snaps… I’m not going to go too far with Patrick Graham’s defense because during the preseason, defenses are notoriously vanilla. On the surface? I liked the different pre-snap alignments and guys appeared to be much less confused than in previous years… Merrill Hoge joined the TV booth last night and I immediately thought, “why doesn’t he have a full-time job doing this?” Hoge is really good at analyzing the game… Next week the Steelers host the NY Jets on Friday night at 7pmET.
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