Scout’s Eye with Matt Williamson: Six offensive linemen?

0:00Football is back and this is believed. Your home for NFL and college football news and analysis all season long. Now let's start the show. Hello everyone. Matt Williamson here. How is it going? It's great. We're going to play. I'm recording a song Wednesday and we have an NFL game tonight and tomorrow. I can't wait. The season has begun. You'll probably know you will know the outcome of that game. Super Bowl rematch Patriots in Seattle. Don't love that aspect of it by the way. In case you aren't aware Patriots are the Steelers next opponent and they will have a very long week after tonight to prepare to host the game. So that doesn't work out great in the Steelers situation but let's watch those Patriots tonight with the game 2 in mind for the Steelers.

1:00As mentioned I'm recording this on Wednesday and rarely are we going to go over like injury reports because it is you know a little bit late by the time you listen to this. But I think it's pretty telling that the injury reports came out today and Joey Porter Jr. was listed as a player. I think we know exactly what that means. I don't know that it's a slam dunk that he plays. I don't know that it's a slam dunk that he doesn't sign between now and Sunday. I think something's going to break here in terms of either hey I'm sitting out or hey comes across the timeline maybe by the time you heard this and he signs a new deal. You know we talked about that a lot I really don't know anything else to add. But what I found really at note where he wasn't the Porter situation as much as no other Steeler on the injury list.

2:01Pretty cool. I mean it's pretty rare that you walk into the season as healthy as this team is. And it implies to me that Metcalf, Pitman etc etc. probably a week or two ago even though they didn't play in the preseason. Would have suited up if it had been Ravens week week six or we're a playoff game or anything of that nature. Now where I wanted to go with this is and then we're going to talk some more stuff about the upcoming game is I know that people will crush Coach McCarthy. If they look sloppy and lose to the Falcons who I believe are an inferior team should a work harder and can't. Maybe you're right maybe you're right but a couple things and I just want you guys to remember this. If your fresher in December or winning a playoff game or two isn't that worth it. I think we can debate that but I think that this is not a sprint. This is a marathon.

3:04Let's absolutely be aware of that and it is a very long and grueling season. But the other thing is and I can't stress this enough. Week one NFL football is sloppy. It's somewhat of a lesser product in terms of quality of play. Especially the crispness of passing games and run blocking. Defense is usually ahead of offense early in the season. It's a reactionary position. It's not as execution based. But more than anything, none of these guys in any game across the league, including tonight and tomorrow night, have played substantial snaps. And more and more, the trend across the league is keep guys fresh in the preseason. You get 17 games and hopefully play off the head. Let's just get these guys to starting line and if they're not in peak physical football shape but I put that in quotes.

4:05So be it. They'll work their way in. And I do think the Steelers have very good depth particularly on the D line, the edge rushers. Big people are more worried about than little people. Tight end. Where you can keep a pretty good flow of rotating pretty strong players in and out of the line up and not losing a ton. So I understand this strategy and frankly I'm all for it. More and more. Originally I was skeptical like everybody else. You know, you got a bang in practice. I just think the more homework I've done on it, the league has done so much work on it that it makes sense just to get there. Even if you're not in top physical football shape or as sharp as you would have been and say a Tomlin lead training camp. So we'll see how it goes against Atlanta.

5:06But I do think getting to the starting line with nobody other than Porter who has an asterisk by his name on the injury report is gigantic. So as always is a case with deadlines and contracts and big money deals. One of these sides in the Porter Steelers impasse is going to have to go the extra step. Either the Steelers are going to have to throw a little more money than they want a Porter or he's going to have to say, man I got a pretty good here. I'm going to take a little less. But if you're hiring great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on Zippercrooter as a way to stand out from the others. Zippercrooter has a new feature that shows you the most interested most qualified candidates first. So you meet the right people faster no wonder Zippercrooter is an unborn rated hiring site based on G2. Try Zippercrooter and meet candidates who will go the extra step for your job. Four to five employers who post on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day.

6:08Try it for free today at zippercrooter.com slash audio that zippercrooter.com slash audio. Zippercrooter meet your match on Zippercrooter. Okay so as you guys know I write a pretty extensive stat packet, Matt Stats for Steelers.com every week, every previewing every game. And midweek during previewing games I like to pull some nuggets out of there just to chat with you guys, get you some paint some more of the picture. And it's tough with these teams of course because there are two new coaching stats. Still you have an understanding of how teams play and there are a lot of returning players. But I found this one particularly, at least a couple of these things particularly interesting. Only the Niners and Lions utilize their running backs at a higher percentage of this time in terms of offensive touches

7:09than the Falcons who were third and the Steelers who were fourth. Again new coaching staff but be Jean I go on and on and on about how he deserves all the touches in the world. And frankly I think if the Steelers lose this game it's because he went crazy. And I think especially with two in the game he's going to touch a ball eight times. Tyler Ausyear is gone. They're going to try to get him isolated on linebackers. They're going to throw him short passes. They're going to detach him from the formation. He does it all. And I think they're going to try to shorten the game on the road and run the football quite a bit. Stretch that Steelers defense out laterally and get him on cutbacks and things of that nature. Now the Steelers don't have B. Jean Robinson and Gainwell's gone and Rico Dowd was in as you know. I don't know if they will be near the at the absolute top of the league in terms of percentage of running back touches.

8:11I do believe Rogers is going to dump it down to the running backs a lot no matter who his coach is. Frankly I would like to see that a little less. I would like to see a little more of throwing pass a sticks driving the ball down the field. Will we get that or not? I really don't know. And I think we'll have a really good idea Sunday evening and maybe it'll change throughout the year. But is this scheme going to be more conducive to a higher average depth of part? I do think the Steelers are running the ball fair amount. I don't think they'll be at the bottom of the league in terms of running, you know, flat out rushes. And you know there's not going to be any real design quarterback runs. So when they run the football it goes to running backs.

9:13Do you want the Steelers to be near the top of the league in running back touches? I mean the Niners have McCaffrey, Lions have Gibbs, the Falcons have Bejohn. They're the top three running backs that are getting drafted in fantasy right now. There's a reason they're touched the balls once they are. They're the best three in the league probably. Sears don't have that guy. They're not weak there. But are you comfortable with them being near the top of the league and running back touches? I would like to see them at 12, not 4. I find this interesting. And it's not really that big of a deal to be honest for this particular game. But I did find it was an interesting juxtaposition here that Pittsburgh's offensive lineman collectively had the league's fewest number of combined starts. If everyone there offensive lineman they've combined the start 91 games. We know they're very young. Max Ahonachor, Dunker of course have zero. But Atlanta's offensive lineman has the most combined starts.

10:17They have 490 starts collectively from their offensive lineman. There's a lot of continuity there. Jake Matthews has a ridiculous streak going of consecutive games as the whole Matthews family always does. They're the ultimate NFL Ironman. I would think early in the year that continuity certainly is an advantage. You know just playing together, playing a lot of snaps. Those Falcons offensive lineman have gone through a lot of weak ones that are always weird and have a better idea of what to expect. Where the Steelers could be swimming a little bit up front. All right, this will probably come as no shock either. 19% of the Steelers snaps the last year had an extra offensive lineman on the field. More than 5 offensive lineman. Highest in the league.

11:17I see no indications to think that they won't be lowest in the league now. Like it would be great if Cook starts to get a honniture out there as a six guy. Great way to get your feet wet. And it's not that Anderson is the six guy. You know you could bump him out and get back to that role. But I think you just want to leave him at right guard. You could put Hoffman or even Dunker there. But I think that's a thing of the past. I just think that's a coaching staff change. But that's 19% of your plays. So that's a lot of snaps to give to somebody else. I think that's going to go directly to Bernard Wilson Washington, right? I mean, that's a huge chunk. Now what never happened that they will have an extra offensive lineman. I hope that they watched enough of last year's tape to say, let's not totally scrap it. But I've heard no indication that that's something that they intend to do.

12:18So think of the past as my hunch. The last thing I want to talk about, and this is applies to this game directly, of course, is Blitz. The Steelers faced Blitz last year at the lowest rate in the league. Why is that? Several reasons, but it's actually very obvious. First off, Rogers isn't going to be mentally perplexed by Blitz packages at this stage of his career. I very much believe that to be true. He's going to diagnose Blitz. He's going to call it out before the snap, move the running back where he needs to be. He's in control. But the bigger reason is it wasn't worth blitzing the Steelers because the ball came out of his hand so quick. I mean, he had the shortest time to throw. And historically over his career, he has beaten the Blitz. But why bring five or even six guys, if I don't even have time to get home,

13:22I might as well flood those short zones, you know what I mean? But that brings me to the Falcons. The Falcons, and they bring back the same defense of coordinator, were the second highest defense in the league in terms of Blitz rate, only behind Flores' Vikings who are Blitz crazy. And it worked. They were really good when they blitzed. They generated a lot of pressure when they blitzed. So what's Jeff Albrecht, their defense coordinator, going to do here? It'd be nice to say, wow, like everybody else, I'm not going to blitz the Steelers. But as I've mentioned, and I'm sure you're aware of at this point, the Falcons are down their two best pass rushers. They're young rookies from a year ago, both first round picks, Pearson Walker, are dangerous young edge rushers. They don't have them. Frankly, because of that, I could see the Falcons easily going back to being the worst four-man pass rush in the entire league.

14:29Their interior guys aren't super disruptive. The backups on the edge aren't super disruptive. So how does that play out through the course of the game? I mean, no defensive coordinator is going to be happy not creating pressure. You can't just let any quarterback sit back there patting the ball. But if he douse up Blitz, I would think Rogers should attack it quite well and get the ball out. Big-bodied guys like Metcalf, Rire Mooth, Pitman, get it to them on a quick slant, the first Blitz, and they shrug off a tackler, and before you know that's a 12-yard game. Move the change. So that's something I really want to watch in this game, because if I'm all brick, I want a Blitz. I have good second-level Blitzers, but is it worth it against the Steelers? Is it worth it against Rogers?

15:29Though I just drop everybody and hope my four-man pressure gets home? But I don't know how you could trust that if you were a man all over all. So I think that's a really interesting angle of this game of a pair of things.