DC Patrick Graham understands The Standard

It's the slow starts, waiting for an opponent to beat itself and suddenly finding themselves down by multi scores and scrambling to catch up. I think Tomlin knew the gig was up when HOU was gifting the Steelers the game and they still couldn't take advantage. But ok, we move on, ... that's life.

 

If Graham does good and then gets a HC job, the Steelers will get some comp picks .

 

He better have them playing With passion and urgency!

 

The first thing I will look for is for the D to be in sync with each other and PG's scheme. It drove me nuts for the last several years to see five defenders all screaming and pointing at each other when the ball was snapped.

 

"Watt is 31 years old and has had the two lowest pressure rates of his career in the past two seasons. If I had to guess, one of Highsmith or Watt will be off the roster by this time next year. After all, the three pass rushers are three of the six biggest cap hits on the team in 2027." -Ben Solak

 

"The part of me f***ing up was probably slim," Queen said. "If I could collect all the plays from an entire season, it's probably about 11 plays of me messing up. That is 11 plays out of 17 games, I'll take that."

Hmmm... only 11 plays?! Although I do remember Queen repeatedly saying how there were questions coming out of gameplanning meetings that were never answered very well. Explains why Austin was a terrible DC.

 

Hoge was really talking up about the defense last night and the changes Graham has made with the schemes. I like it. Gotta hope a lot of these changes actually stick when the season starts. Oh, and Samuel looks legit as CB2. Receivers actually getting challenged at the point of catch. Wow!

 

Great presentation and explanation. If the ILBs can't hit a gap and tackle, than they need replaced. I think Queen and Wilson will come through. I think Wilson is going to break out if healthy actually.

 

Hoge is the man and knows what he's talking about. He called out the Johnny Manziel craze years ago and was right. He's right again. Steelers through and through. Love that dude.

 

Did Graham show his cards too soon? Was listening to a podcast and he claimed the Steelers defense was blitzing from all directions and at a high rate. Said normally coaches stick to vanilla on both sides of the ball in preseason. Graham went all out (according to him).

 

Let's hope Queen can deliver on the field.

He did much better in Baltimore when he was allowed to just play instead of run the D with the dot.

Some guys just can't do that. And Queen seems to be in that camp.

But I think it's hard to be the primary ILB if you can't wear the dot.

 

Welp, didn't see a bunch of hand-waving and shoulder shrugs in the game. That's +1 for PG.

 

That's a pretty damning quote from Queen.

Not a good reflection on the coaching staff.

 

This has been removed. Good. Maybe they'll put it back up when it means something again.

 

Coaching staff meeting notes:
Q: What's the game plan this week?
A: I don't know, ask Tomlin

I love what Queen said here: "I didn’t want to come and feel like the same things constantly happening where we aren’t sure about this or aren’t sure about that. You get to the game and see guys doing this puts hands in air. It gets aggravating.” This has been my complaint for years. I was so sick of watching five defensive guys screaming, waving arms, and pointing at each other when the ball was snapped!

 

Ya know, we put blame on Queen for poor run fits and maintaining gaps but was he being coached poorly? Like; "do what I tell you to do, not what you think you should do". We'll find out soon enough how much is on the player vs coaching.

 

Odds are pretty good that since our staff was garbage with a questionable HC, that he was being poorly coached. I can't honestly speak about his accomplishments in Baltimore but I think he was pretty good.

 

Hell I called out Manziel before he was drafted

 

Someone show me one team with a new HC, and coaching staff that the players, and reporters aren't talking about how much better it is.