DK’s Double Shot of Steelers: Freiermuth's future

0:00Hey, guys. Welcome to Double Shot of Steelers. I'm Dan Kovacovitch. He's Chris Hallock. We're from DK Pittsburgh Sports. My wife, who is the producer of this program, and so much more in life, thinks that the name of the position tight ends is a little bit ridiculous. Well, they understand this is somebody who was grew up in Romania and heard of American football. It's a long time ago. It's how it ends. Yeah. How, how does that, how does that name? Honestly, I have not looked into the history of the naming of the position. Maybe they're tight to the formation. That makes sense. And they're on the end of the formation. So they're tight to the formation. Yeah. They're at the end of the formation. They're at the end of the formation. So it has nothing to do with their past. It has nothing to do with their

1:00past. I think a lot of football players have. I was going to make things easy on her today and not tell everyone that it's her birthday. But now you know that it's her birthday. You can come in here and flood this thing. And she decided to get us started on this. That's awesome. I told me earlier this weekend I forgot about. She's working on her birthday. Hey, he doesn't call you wifey in his phone, but at least you remember your birthday. Big high level meetings with potential sponsors. I call her mama because she is the mama of our children. Yeah. Just how it goes. Tide ends. Let's talk for real about tight ends. One of them's gone now. One of them is gone. John who Smith, the curious case of John who Smith. Let's call it that. Yeah. John who came here and he brought along his heart. I have no doubt

2:03about that. I don't know that he brought along anything else from what was left from last season with Miami. Yeah. I look at that player and I looked at him from training camp onward and I just kept asking myself, how did he have any yards after the catch? Never mind the volume that he did. How was he a threat in the passing game? And again, in particular, catch and run. How was Arthur Smith still throwing those sideways balls to him? Like he was just gonna magically rediscover it somehow. Yeah. There's so much about the John who Smith year that was so odd and really not gonna exaggerate here through off the entire offense and through off the entire season that it almost feels like it's worth revisiting even though the gentleman who were in charge of that at field level are no longer here. Yeah. There will first off, I think I said this a few times

3:03throughout the season and I might I don't remember if I said on the show but I definitely said it to you in a press box or something like that. There might not have been a quarterback slash tight end like there might have not been a worst quarterback chemistry. Like quarterback tight end chemistry between Aaron Ron and John Smith. No. It was I mean, the entire effort you didn't know. The pre snap. Yes. What the effort you're doing? And Aaron's on the hot mic. Oh my gosh. That that that play or that that sequence in general just one of my favorites of the entire. But it was anything but isolated. No. Once a game there was some kind of massive miscommunication and since it was really only John who you'd have to think it was way more of a John who thing than it was an Aaron thing. Well, they kept going to him. I know. I know. I know. I know. The the thing that's probably most perplexing and there are two plays in which it happened.

4:07Aaron is not nearly as good as he was. You know, there are I mean, he's not nearly as mobile as he was. There are there's been parts of his game that have obviously deteriorated with age. His arm has not deteriorated much. His accuracy is a little not quite what it used to be but he's still a very accurate quarterback. He made some throws last season that were just ridiculous. He missed John who wide bleeping open twice last season once against the chargers of the one and then the other one. I don't remember who it was but it was at home and it was facing the north end zone. I don't remember which came that one. And he stopped running. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like like he didn't miss anybody else that much this season. No, it was just him. And that's why I'm like, I really think he was just the quarterback. Now, that's not the reason why they cut him. They cut him because he was due for 10.3

5:08million dollar cap hit and they could clear seven million of that just by. Yeah, he was an obvious cut. Yeah, this wasn't just performance based. But let's let's also let's also be real here. We also heard stuff both you and I. In fact, we were standing in the same spot when we heard it that that John who wasn't necessarily like a thousand percent into certain things that were deemed to be beneath him. Now, you get like that as an NFL veteran. So that's only a that's not quite the criticism that it'll sound like it is. But when you look at where he ended up being physically for this team, you can see in hindsight that he needed to be at some other level from a from a conditioning strength standpoint and everything else. He needed to be something that he hadn't been previously in order to be a 30 year old effective pass catching tight end

6:13to the NFL. And he wasn't. And all of it would make at least a little bit of sense this much. If there wasn't another option, you know, but here was Pat Friday move just just standing there holding this helmet on the sideline like just there. And before he got hurt, there was Darnel Washington. And you can even throw if you want to Connor Hayward in there because one thing like Conner will get you as he will run a precise route. He will run a professional route. When you throw it near him, he he will catch. Oh, yeah, he catches it. He's he he Conner Hayward is very under a catch the football. Yeah. A lot of people like to dunk on him just go. He's came a little brother. No, I heard less than less than that over the season. I did some good things. I did too. He's a good football player. Is he is he like an all-approach? I didn't know. Of course not. Is he going to get you know 50, 60 catches the season? No, but he does a lot of little things well. He can block

7:14as a fullback. And then he adds and special teams. He is a he is a he's a guy who you want on your team. And when you look at I mean, he's a free agent. Like Steelers got to make a decision on him. You know, do you bring him back? That's yeah, that's that's pretty important. So, but yeah, John who listen like last season. I mean, when I was writing up the writing up the the thing on just to you know, just for the news, I was like, I went back and looked because I put the numbers in there. Just writing them out. I'm like, oh my it's it's it's it's just as bad as I remember 38 at 38 catches for 222 yards. It was a quarter of his production from the previous year in Miami. Yeah. And it was an average of 5.8 yards per catch. And it was only and he had those 38 catches on roughly 4,785 targets. It was a lot a lot of targets. I think it was like oh it was over 50

8:15for sure. I remember how many targets exactly, but it was it was a lot absolutely nuts that that happened at all. Yeah. But he's gone. He's gone now. And he's not going to be rough back. This doesn't mean half his targets. Yeah. Who does who keeps throwing? So the tight end the tight end of all positions. Who keeps throwing to the tight end that catches half his targets. And then gets no yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was yards after catch? This yards after the catch were four. Oh, let's see. Yeah. He had a total of 179 yards after the catch. I remember any of them. I was falling forward. 4.7 yards per which I think is the lowest of his career. It is the lowest. Sure is. His average depth of target was 4.3 yards. Yeah. He was just just just there. Yeah. We're there. Yeah. One of the two. Yeah. That's a mystery in a half. He dropped two passes. How do you drop passes that are or throw 10 yards total like from where the quarterback? It happened though. I know.

9:19The fan dual sportsbook is very much open for business. In March, it would be madness. If you did not check them out. They're going to hire me next to do their their live treats. Little bit nice knowing you. They got everything. They got everything going on. It is it is a month for college basketball. It is a month for brackets. It is a month for learning the names of schools that you've never heard of from wherever Po-Dunk, Iowa or whatever wherever it is you've come from. Du Cane places like that I went to Du Cane. I can say stuff like that. And there is everything else that you could possibly want is on there. NHL, NBA and of course looking ahead to next NHL season, the Super Bowl and everything else here. The fan dual sportsbook has everything that you would want when totals, the spreads, odds, you name it.

10:22Yep. They got everything. They got everything. He's not the best color man in the business. We're not a no. Did you see that he almost did it though? Oh, I mean, I can give my realm of impression. Really well. No, no, no. This was this was Bob Euker's music. He had the color commentator in the one movie who never said anything. Oh, yeah. He's not the best color man in the business. Hey, you were on a roll. I didn't want to interrupt you. You were on a roll. No sportsbook is the place to go. It really is. I mean, they got everything that you need. Super Bowl divisions, converges, awards. They're going to have more stuff on the NFL draft coming up soon. Yeah, they got everything. Yeah, I'm sure to mention the NFL draft is that's going to be of intensive interest for sure. Fandall sportsbook is where to go. The the tight end room remains occupied and in a healthy way. And I say healthy and large part because I think we all know Darnell's going to be back and just fine. Yeah, I mean, that's remember did Omar update not

11:24on not on if he did on Darnell on the record. I at least got it confirmed like by another source that he's fine. Darnell's fine. It was broken arm. So that was obvious. Yeah, yeah, he's fine. You could see the way he yeah. Plus, I think that's the only part of Darnell's body that break. You know, you look at the resume like his his tibia is like like a redwood. By the way, you want to you want to get some a little little insider type thing right here when it comes to another injury. The Sean Elliott, he's you know, like Omar said, he's on schedule. You know what, I was told about like one thing about his injury thing wasn't just a knee with him. His hamstring actually took more damage to the actual thing. That actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah, with with the way the leg bent, his hamstring was actually he wanted so badly to play that the pain in his face when he was when he was going through those injuries was a tough, tough thing to see. Yeah, I was told that in ND2. Yeah, because I was asking about the Sean because after Omar,

12:26says the thing, you talk with your sources to try to get some more information. We're like, okay, you know, we're waiting. Yeah, yeah, like yeah, I was like, so the knee here's almost related. Yeah, hamstring. I ordered a coffee at the Boston airport a couple days ago. They read my name off the sticker and called me Dishon. Like Dishon. And I was like, yeah, man, I know, Dishon. What's up? Dishon Elliott. So Dishon's good people, man. He really is. He's one of the good ones in there. He's one of the good ones in there. But we're back to tight ends. Yeah. Sorry. Your tight end room is still in a really good spot. Now, we should remind people here of who's a free agent, even if you presume they're coming back. Connor Hayward is unsigned. Now, you can presume he's coming back because his brother's here and everything else here. We don't know that. And he's unrestricted. So he's, I mean, once March nine noon hit, you can agree to terms with anybody. I heard something not that long ago that Miles kill a brew sold his house around here and

13:29moved to Florida, which makes me think that he would go play for Danny Smith. Also, I wonder if you won't see some sort of, oh, boy, the players. Oh, yeah, they do. If you won't see some sort of migration accompany, and I don't know any of that, Miles stuff. So don't. Right. We're just talking here. But I think that, uh, okay, here's our wise guy remark for the day here. William says it's John who's going to Ohio state with Arthur. That's very good. It's actually really like really something like a John, John is going to find some sort of a loophole to get to find another year of college eligibility and go play for Arthur Smith again. Now, for the tight ends who are here to be relevant, you have to use them. You have to use Pat. You have to use Darnell. You have to operate the way NFL teams currently operate, which is with a lot of big formations. That's just the nature of the league right now. That's the way offices are moving. Let's talk about the extent to which Mike McCarthy would utilize his

14:34tight ends. Uh, would want to go big, uh, would throw to his tight end. And while we're at it, was Aaron Rogers actually part of the problem and not throwing to Pat? Now, I know that Aaron had an answer for almost every question you would ask him all year long. Chris knows what I'm about to say. The only one he wouldn't touch with a 10-foot hole is, why didn't you throw to Pat? In some form or other, one of us would ask it, why didn't you throw to Pat? And he would be like, that's not something I'm going to talk about. Yeah. That's a better question for the coaches or something. I want to pull up that exact quote by the way. Um, Aaron. Yes. Actually, I have it right here. Just after the Texas game, after the Texas game, the playoff game. This is the actual transcript. It was another game where Pat Friarmouth didn't get really tired of it to later in the game where they're doing a lot to take him away or what's gone into not being able to get him the ball as much as when you guys need big plays. Quote. Yeah,

15:38I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. Unquote. And that's not him. No, it's not. Rodgers doesn't say things like that. He doesn't answer for everything. And the way he said it, I remember the way he said it is. He was biting this tongue. Yep. Like there was, there was something he wanted to say. I think he didn't want to bury Arthur. I think I agree with that. That's what I think. That's my conjecture on it. Aaron could be watching this right now. I don't know why it would be, but he could be watching this right now and just be laughing like Chris, you don't know what you're talking about. That's fine. That's just my, that's my guess. My guess is he wanted to throw the pat more often. I remember there being, I remember the one touchdown throw he, the one touchdown pass he had to pat. I don't remember who is against, but it was one where Pat was running up the scene. And Aaron threw it to his back shoulder, pat adjusted. And I remember Aaron talking about that play, how it unfolded, how pat, how the communication was between him and Pat. It's a play they worked on. Yeah.

16:39Two of them and they believed in it. Yeah. They believed in each other and how they could execute that play and to see it happen. Yep. In an actual game, we're by the way, the coverage on it was pristine. Yeah. Like the defense wasn't fooled by anything else that was happening there. They just beat him. Yeah. Well, and that's that was one of the games that Pat was ignored the entire time. Yeah. And Aaron just, you know, again, when it works out like that, and then you hear the way that Aaron talked about Pat, I do think that there was more that could be had there. And so when you go and you look more meat on that bone, there's definitely more meat on that bone. So when you go, when you go like through Mike McCarthy's history, you know, like most recently, I'll go to the 2024 season, 12 personnel usage, the Cowboys ranked at 29th. That's not very high. Mm-hmm. When it comes to using two tight-end sets, 2023 also Cowboys, the Cowboys are all. You don't need to use two tight-ends to throw to one. No.

17:42You don't have to. And in fact, because Darnel is such a superlative blocker, don't even qualify that. Never feel the need to qualify that by saying for his position. Oh, no, he's. Oh, yeah. He eats people. Yeah, he consumes them whole. He's a great blocker. They have no chance of getting to the quarterback because they've become food. Mm-hmm. And this guy is even if he's just in on the line, this can be your two tight-end formation. And what you don't necessarily send two tights out. Exactly. And I think, well, the first thing you're going to see, no matter what, even in this day and age, I'm going to pull this up right now. The Steelers last year, an 11 personnel, that is three receivers, one running back, one tight-end. They were 31st in the league at using that personnel grouping, less than 39 percent of the time. That's not a lot. When you look at Mike McCarthy's last season in Dallas, same thing. Three

18:44receivers, one tight-end, one running back, they were 10th in the NFL at 70.6%. That's a huge difference. Now, I'm not saying that McCarthy is going to run that exactly, but it's going to be, there's going, you're going to see an uptick in that. You're going to see more three receiver sets than you've seen in recent years in Pittsburgh. No, the problem is the Carthie could show up. This is for OTAs or whatever, well in advance of the trobe. He could stand the podium and tell everybody, this is the year, Pat Fryer. This is Pat's time. Everything else about Pat's, not just his career, his whole life, is going to have been about this moment. He's going to go all her books on him, right? This is your moment. This is Pat Fryer and Ruth's moment. They'll pan the locker room with all the USA sweaters and there's Pat sitting in it and no one's going to believe it.

19:46Yeah. And no one's going to believe it until actually including Pat. I have seen Pat with a buy-in like you can't begin to imagine. Pat is, this is the year DK. I'm feeling it, man. This is the year. This all the way till you see this offense. There are no tells. Remember the no tells. There are no tells. There's no, you know, this is all I'm telling you. I'm ready for it though. I'm ready for the challenge. Game start. He's just gone. Yeah. And not of his own volition. No. And not in any way shape or form merit-based. It's so strange. It is. It's been so strange. And yet you still have people here, no offense to anybody who has expressed such a thing before, but you still have people saying ridiculous things like he's just mediocre. Stop trying to he is not. Stop trying to make him into Travis. No, we're not making anybody into Travis. Travis

20:49Kelsey's one-of-one as far as I'm concerned with the stuff that he was able to do single-handedly winning championships. Well, double-handedly, between him and the homes. There's him and then there's Gronk. And then there's just like another tier of that they just left empty. And then there's the next wave of tight ends. All right. But Pat's in that wave. Pat's there. Pat can do a lot of things. And to not use him, it's nuts. I would agree with that. And the going through McCarthy's, you know, time and Dallas, I go to the 2023 season right now. In a season in which they had CD-LAM. And this is when like DAC was like runner up, runner up MVP. So this includes CD-LAM who was targeted 181 times, by the way, caught 135 passes, 1700 yards. What year is this again? This is 2023. So this is with McCarthy's coach and DAC at quarterback. But Jake Ferguson had 102 targets. Jake Ferguson being a tight end. 71 receptions, 761 yards, five touchdowns.

21:53That is with a receiver that no offense to DK Medcalfe is one of the top three four receivers in NFL and CD-LAM, taking a lot of targets away from other people. Jake for a tight end can be like, there can be a feature tight end in a Mike McCarthy office. So the tight end was the second leading received second. I'm sorry, the running back Tony. Actually, that was first and was the second leading receiver on the team. Yards, receptions, Brandon Cokes is behind him. Yeah, Brandon Cokes. Yeah, the only thing Brandon Cokes had on Ferguson was touchdowns. Yeah, that's it. So you can use your tight end. You can't use your best tight end. You can throw to him. You can convert first downs. You can move the chains. You can do a lot of good things. You're not going to find, I promise you guys, some people are especially sensitive to anything. It looks like retro criticism. Oh, here you go. You're high on on Tomlin or whatever else here.

22:58Hey, Tomlin doesn't need your defense. Tomlin doesn't need a lawyer. Tomlin doesn't need, you know, anybody feeling sorry for him. Believe me, he's doing quite well in his life. And he is. If you've seen any of the shots of him following his kids around and watching him played, the scholastic sports as I were, that is one happy human at the moment who is not worried about what they're saying about him on the double shot of Steelers. Occasionally, we're going to do this because it's relevant to what happens next. And you'll notice that that's the way we've been setting this one up as well. Let's take a couple of things here from our, from our members before signing off. I got to get up to the hockey game, Penguins versus Sabers tonight at PPG Pains Arena. Let's take a look at what we have from you guys. First off, Cody comes in and drops 10 whole dollars on the boss, which only means she is worth half as much as Jalen Warren.

24:02The Jalen Warren dog fund. Right. She is half of a Jalen. She's just taking her head. There's not even a recent response. Benny asks, Hey, guys, do you think the Steelers uncertainty at the quarterback position will hinder their ability to sign top and free Asian wide receivers? Not if they pay. DK Metcalf came here. There was no quarterback on the roster. There was no quarterback. Skyler Thompson. Metcalf signed. Or not signed. It was a sign in trade. But Metcalf came here to play with Skyler Thompson. Yeah. Metcalf just want money. Yeah. They want money. Emma plus like they, they, they know like even, okay, it's the same thing. Like last year you talk about the DK Metcalf thing. This happens right on the, right on the, the, the, the brink of free agency. They, they know, they know what's going to be happening. They know that there's going to be somebody who's going to be able to throw them in the football. Tyler says we should go after D. Mooney fits well next to Metcalf. How do you feel about him? There's some other guys I like.

25:07All right. I like, I like, I still like Romeo dobs. I don't think the Alec Pierce thing is happening with the, with the different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but no, there, there are some other guys. I, I, I, cold sense such a nice start. They're just not going to want to. Yeah. You're an eight that away. Yeah. You know, it makes sense. I, I do think you got to get somebody in free agency, but I think it's more important here. Somebody in the draft. I think you need both. But I, the draft is more important to me. Jordan Jarvey wants to bring in Cam Jordan. Both of these came in with a buck 99 contributions. DVM says, can we start a fund for the Steelers to bring back the block number font? To me, it's long past time. She agrees. I agree. I, I, I like the block, the block numbers. I'll, I'll, I'll take it further. I have no idea to this day what hell they were thinking. I, I knew it was Nike, I think, at the time that came in. They were like, let's go from tough to

26:09something that's just super soft. And oh, by the way, more challenging to, to read. Mm-hmm. But if I ever want to win this argument with somebody, you don't even have to say anything. All you have to do is hold up a 75 or 58. Mm-hmm. And the discussion is over. It's over. Is if I were to hold up for you, 75 or 58, with that wimpy little, those little nines that look like this, you'd, you'd, you'd convalse. You'd convalse over picturing main Joe Green or Jack Lambert, wearing those numbers. Yeah, I, yeah. Steele in Georgia says, how much, how much salary cap space do it will appear? Well, the, well, the Steelers have. There are a little over 50 million right now, after, after cutting Johnny. So they, what about after they sign Maliquilus? If they sign Maliquilus, that will take a, that will take a pretty big dent out of the 50 million.

27:14It will, however, we can't bring up salary cap without bringing up that Omar quite literally laughs. Oh, he does. When the subject comes up, it's because they have not restructured anybody. They haven't, they haven't had to do anything, any of the old Omar tricks. And all of those are on the table. I can promise you if and when he signs a quarterback who actually makes money. That's, that's, that's encouraging. So don't worry about the cap spaces, what I'm saying here. Stealer fan says, what percentage of John who's horrid season was his fault, Aaron's fault, Arthur Smith's fault in your opinion. I, I loved Arthur. There's a great, great guy to deal with. I'm sorry. I have nowhere else to put that one. And then a could John who again, have he put himself into some sort of elite state of advanced conditioning for his age. Yeah, I guess so. But that doesn't mean you have to keep throwing him the ball. When the results are

28:16so overwhelming and so in your face and so excruciating. I agree completely. I, I, it is mostly on on Arthur Smith. Obviously, Mike Tomman can put his foot down and say enough is enough. But yeah, that's, he Tomman could have stopped that in a heartbeat. Who are we doing here? He could have, I mean, he could have taken the helmet away. Yeah, but you're not good. I know all you can. Yeah, you can. But there is sleigh on a sideline. Well, it's true. That's true. Yeah, you can. Sure you can. You can do that. He stepped in there. Why? Because it was defense. Don't get started. Yeah. Matthew Smith comes in as a new member. If you want to become one, go to dkps.net slash join. And you'll, you'll see that at the bottom of the screen here in a moment. That dkps.net. There it is. dkps.net slash join is how to become a member. We have three different levels of membership depending on how committed you are to this process.

29:21There are also going to be multiple levels of enjoyment of those memberships. Once we get to closer to actual football, it's kind of a rough time of year for that sort of thing. Yeah, as we get closer to the NFL draft. And so we're going to start seeing all the members only programming everything else. Well, we might be forced to be doing more members only stuff, even as early as next week. Because if, I mean, we had to do members only stuff last year around this time. Because every agency that's right. That's right. That's right when they required a dkmet gap, we then, you know, of course, have to react to that. So if you see, you know, any major signings or trades or anything because the biggest move that they make might not even be assigning might be a trade. They could trade for Brian Thomas June. When that happens, Chris and I will jump on and do members only live stuff here. And you'll be very glad that you became a member. So go ahead and join Deborah, who's been one for 27 months. dkps.net slash join is the place to do that. Make sure you're doing it. If you're an Apple person, do it on a desktop because it's cheaper

30:27that way because Apple throws on this pointless extra charge. I don't mind going at what are they going to do? Right. There's nothing Apple can do. Apple's on sponsor. I mean, there's nothing like in life they could do to us. Other than that, yeah, it comes like that of nowhere here. So if you want to join these people whose names I'm putting on here and get our number up, we're aiming hopefully by the draft to come out of that with around 2,000 members. I think we're around 1,600 something in that in that range right now. We want to come out of the draft with 2,000 coming in with yours. Having your support would be awesome. Yeah. On multiple levels. So all right guys, listen, again, I have to head up to the hockey rink. So I'm going to say goodbye here and we're going to sign off until tomorrow and hopefully we'll have an even better show. We couldn't even have a better show. I like this one. Yeah, this is good. We got into some good tight end discussion. Yeah, about that. That is true. You were on a heater yesterday. That's enough out of you guys.

31:32Happy birthday to the boss. Yeah. Happy birthday. How are you? Can't hear. That's good. All right, guys. Talk to you tomorrow.