The Steelers could have been contenders in 2025

correct - he was "pop pass" Ben.

his career was pretty much over.......we have had a terrible transition plan now for about 8 years.

it ultimately falls on Rooney

 

Almost anyone ever has been better than Rodgers this season. He's a fraud.

Defense doesn't have to defend the entire field. Rodgers can not or will not throw deep inside the hashes. He won't throw intermediate almost anywhere. So....none of Smith's fancy playaction stuff is even worth calling. Defense doesn't respect it and it doesn't work.

Honestly, it was what I feared was going to happen when they announced the Rodgers signing. At least he hasn't been a total jerk as a teammate...but he's useless as a player.

And the washed up "pop pass" or "moonball only" QBs of the last handful of seasons explain the second half pratfalls to some extent.

Weeks 1-4 defenses are still adjusting to the Steelers tendencies and there are things that they can do that surprise the defense.

Weeks 4-6 and now there is tape. The defense begins to counter.

Weeks 6+ - the book is out on the Steelers and their handicapped offense. Defenses have counters that the Steelers can not answer. Collapse.

Meanwhile, the defense is facing an astounding amount of plays and has their own flaws exposed.

Football is intended to be a complementary exercise. With this broken of an offense, it makes any holes you have on defense even worse.

 

The Steelers need to stop signing old QBs and have false hope. Of course, my expectations for the Steelers were at its lowest this year, and I never understood their plan in recent years.

I hope they don't sign Kirk Cousins next year!

 

I KIND of understand their plan. I think their plan is mostly to avoid making another bad bet at QB in Round 1. And, honestly, out of the last few classes the one QB I think they would have really wanted (Maye) they had no shot at getting their hands on.

At some point, they are just treading water until they can get the assets in place to go get a QB. I believe that is the plan.

 

That is why my plan included getting Darnold instead of Rodgers.

 

Who said he would be a mad bomber? The idea would still be to focus heavily on the run, though splitting it between Warren and Gainwell rather than having a feature back, but that would still open up enough targets for Pickens and Metcalf.

 

Smith is so bad

 

Oh sh!t

 

Weird dichotomy of the average Steelers fan; desperately wanting a losing season in order to grab a higher draft pick and hopefully the next franchise QB. Now that they are on the verge of said losing season, fans are up in arms over the lousy team they are witnessing on the field.

 

I don't think the draft pick will be high enough if they finish at 7-10 or 8-9

 

Jonnu has been a negative, not a + for this offense. Terrible as a blocker and invisible as a receiver and yet he is outsnapping Muth on a weekly basis. Gotta hand it to A. Smith, he does like his favorites and isn't afraid to play them over all others (ref. Patterson last season).

 

The one season of the Titans offense that everyone wants to reference had the following stats:

Tannehill - Yards per Completion: 12.1, Yards per attempt: 7.9
Brown - Yards per reception: 15.4
Davis - Yards per reception: 15.1
Jonnu Smith - Yards per reception: 10.9


That looks like the stats of deep passing focused offense to me. Remember all of that was on a team that ranked 30th in the league in pass attempts.

 

Success of PA isn't dependent on run frequency or run effectiveness
https://weeklyspiral.com/2021/10/29/play-action-passing-is-the-best-play-in-football/

 

This.

He's PF, but older and not as good.

Yet he's on the field more the PF (or at least he was last time I looked)

At least 80 has been getting the most TE snaps for the last few weeks.

 

AGREED!

But I suspect you have to actually hit the shots you are setting up. Steelers are not hitting them and often Rodgers is turning down the deeper option for the checkdown. Defense is just now swarming the checkdonw.

 

Yep.

Maybe this game is different if we hit on the play when Wilson got free. Not sure how much of that was miscommunication, how much was a bad ball, how much was wind...but since we're a team that doesn't get (attempt?) many explosive pass plays, we need to make them count when they're there.

 

We should not pretend that PF is any good either. What evidence of that exists? One stretch of games where an old Ben R threw a bunch of touchdowns to him?

PF can not block well in the run game. He is barely adequate as a help pass blocker. He does not run fast enough nor is he a technical enough route runner to regularly create separation in his pass routes.

What does PF do well? I have never seen or understood it. He is tall and from Penn State? I mean they should certainly use him more than the not at all that they currently are and I am all for firing Jonnu Smith into the sun. But I do not think PF is the answer to much at all.

 

I think he's probably somewhere around average. OK at everything, but not really great at anything (except playing the Bengals).

And I think his contract reflects that. He basically got the lowest 2nd contract you give a guy (just outside top 10 AAV) who you value more than a "just bring him back on the vet minimum" (the Edmund's special).

The sad thing is that he's basically the best guy we drafted in the End-of-Ben offensive retooling. I think Colbert ended his career by trying to force draft picks to happen rather than letting the draft come to him. Would love to see some alternative universe where 50 doesn't get hurt and we don't have to try to rebuild the D on the fly when we should have been near our peak competitiveness.

The good news here is that I think we've realized that Washington is the TE1 on this team.

 

How about a 1st down rate of 46% vs J. Smith's 27%?? That's what a TE is on the field for.

 

I suspect he is better than basically all the rest of the TEs on the roster as a receiver. Washington is the far superior blocker.

I just don't think it would make much of a difference if his snaps skyrocketed.

 

I agree that Jonnu Smith is useless.