Scout’s Eye with Matt Williamson: Why start Tua?

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. Well hello everyone. Matt Williamson here. How is it going? Things are good. It is Monday, a little bit afternoon. The news of the day, at least thus far, is especially for the Stealer World is the Falcons Pittsburgh's first opponent. Have named Tuha as their starting quarterback. I'm a little shocked to be honest with you. And I'm going to get into that last, but I wanted to just kind of bring you back to the world. I'm going to be a little bit more honest with you. I'm going to be a little bit more honest with you. I'm going to be a little bit more honest with you. Young to currently at the finals. We're going to move on a little. That's it.

1:02So the basketballhoo has started Nations 9 GamingANTed. Born February 6, 2009. Okay. think and better than it has been in recent years, except the edge pass rushers. So for decades, I'm not even exaggerating. The Steelers were the best pass rushing team in the league. The Falcons were the worst. And finally, Atlanta fixes it. I mean, much consternation, but they used two first round picks on edge rushers last year, trade with the Rams. Neither ones available for this game. So they finally got a lot of pressure on quarterbacks, and their best two guys aren't available. Which I think works out great for the Steelers with their offensive tackle movement. But overall, the rest of the defense is pretty solid, especially a young secondary that's probably better than you think. Overall their offseason was very monotone, very eat your vegetables in terms of, had a lot

2:11of cap issues. Intentionally, did very little in free agency, especially the first couple of waves when the top names were falling. Didn't have a first round pick because of that edge rusher situation. And really all they did in terms of bringing in new people was very, very minimal other than two of them. Who they're given a one year slightly over a million dollar contract. So that kind of tells you what you think. The league thought of him. But the Falcons to their credit did extend pits, London, Beijon, another starting guard, Bergeron, who's a decent player. And they have a ton of caps based next year. So they intentionally went about kind of getting their cap right, get the right people in the building and extend, or keep the right people in the building and extend them. And set themselves up to be aggressive next year. And a lot of that revolves around new coach, what's the quarterback situation, which we'll

3:13get into here in a minute. So it's tough to say that they went the offseason extra step. How about that? 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 and most qualified candidates. So if you meet the right people faster, no wonder Zippercrooter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Try Zippercrooter and meet the candidates who go the extra step for your job. Four to five employers who post on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at zippercrooter.com slash audio. That's zippercrooter.com slash audio. Zippercrooter, meet your match on Zippercrooter. Okay. So as most you probably know, Michael Panix was Falcon's first round pick a little bit ago, a couple years ago. And that was the offseason they gave Kurt Cousin huge money to go from Minnesota to Atlanta.

4:14And then they double down on a first round quarterback. And I even think the owner came out and said, we just never want to be a pickle at this position again. We got it solved. And much like this edge ruster conversation we just had, they might be the two weakest positions on the team. I mean, like you kind of feel for them a little bit because they were aggressive at both those spots and are getting potentially very little out of key areas that they invested. So Panix is, they're both lefties. That's about the only thing familiar about the two. I think Panix will before long get in there and quarterback this team for a couple reasons. First off, as mentioned before, I think they have to figure out is he our guy or not.

5:18Right now he's at a hard time stay on the field. He isn't been terrible, but he hasn't been great when he is on the field. But the problem is he only got cleared to practice like we could have for two weeks ago. So I think it came down to, we haven't seen enough of them. We're a new coaching staff. It's a new system. He's still knocking off the rust or whatever cliche you want to use. So we're not going to start Panix in week one against the Steelers. But I don't think it'll be long because frankly folks, I think this two of being announced as a starter is a gift to Pittsburgh. I think he's pretty close to being shot. He was never physically overwhelming to begin with. He's been injured a lot. I bet more than that, I think he's just been figured out where, again, they're both lefty quarterbacks. Panix is a big power player that drives the ball down the field once to stay in the pocket. High average depth of target, aggressive, big game hunter.

6:21Now he has some work to do with some accuracy and finer points of the game. But two at this point really can only play one way. And to me that is, give that quick diagnose, accurate, hit guys and stride. And he's good at that stuff. But the longer the plays go on, the worse he is. He doesn't handle pressure well. When he gets pushed around, as you've seen, it can be a little scary, a little ugly from even like a physical nature that he just doesn't absorb contact well and takes a big hit. A lot. Isn't as mobile as you'd think either. And frankly, the reports since he's joined the Falcons have been really, really harsh from beatwriters, etc. on to. So how does this affect the Steelers? And we'll talk more game plan stuff as a week goes on. But my first thought when to was announced was, boy, I hope Joey Porter Jr. is available. I don't think this is a guy you want to blitz a lot. I think you want to take away his first read.

7:23I think you want your big press man corners, even against Drake London and Ramsey against pits, making him hold the ball instead of 2.2 seconds, 2.6 seconds. And the Steelers pass rush, even without blitz, should be able to come home. And that's why I came to Porter immediately saying, if you can play some more press man this rough timing of initial reads, I think you'll have 2 or right where you want him. Now as the week goes on, we'll talk about Drake London and the greatness of Bijan Robinson. That doesn't mean he guarantee a win. But just viewing this news from a Steelers perspective, I was pretty happy that they picked 2 of and I'm kind of betting the months for now he won't be their star.