34 minutes ago, DoWorx said:

would have been nice to see what DeVonta Smith brings to the table buuuuut........just saying 🤷‍♂️

He brought a Yankee hat. 

So watched Reagor’s snaps closely… He’s much better as a route runner. 42 for the Steelers is a guy I’ve never heard of, but Reagor beat him consistently, even on passes that didn’t go his way. He shook him on the Ertz drop, and he had a nice stutter step on a slant to create easy separation. 

I saw some comments about how he didn’t look fast on his screen like Watkins did. Watkins had a massive runway. After 10 yards he was able to get into third gear. On Reagor’s, the pass took him backward, and he had far more to read in terms of blocks. He couldn’t simply run straight ahead as fast as he could. 

As others mentioned, Reagor’s drop was a meh throw, but he needs to come up with that ball. 

I got home from the game about fifteen minutes ago. There were LOTS of Steelers fans, which was kind of annoying. And they were celebrating like they had just won another Super Bowl. It was quite ridiculous.

Almost no one was wearing a mask on the concourse. I saw signs for them in the area where people take the escalator to the Club Level, so maybe that's what they're targeting. But for the regular folks, it was business as usual.

Damn, it was hard to get a feel for what went on there tonight, but I'll give a quick review of what I thought I saw.

QB -- I don't think Jalen Hurts did anything to change anyone's opinion of him. But for the most part, I thought he did pretty well. He had one beautiful downfield throw to Dallas Goedert. He overthrew Quez Watkins on a bomb that could have been a massively long touchdown. Couple good throws to Ertz, one of which was dropped. One play that annoyed me was on a third and long. He tried running for the first down and got about two yards. Silly decision. Joe Flacco seemed okay at first glance. Seemed to have good touch on shorter throws, unless I'm just mistaking that for a lack of arm strength. Nick Mullens played with the scrubs and was sort of disappointing, though not in a Clayton Thorson kind of way. He had two interceptions. The first one wasn't his fault. In fact, I thought it was a great throw. The second one was awful. He had a receiver wide open down the middle for what looked to be a thirty yard completion. But he threw it late and a defender jumped in front. Not good. Overall, a mixed bag for the quarterbacks. But all things considered, I wasn't particularly disappointed.

RB -- Sanders didn't play. I thought Kenneth Gainwell looked better than Jason Huntley. I thought Kerryon Johnson looked like Josh Adams, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Hell, they hardly ran the ball at all.

TE -- This is probably the strongest position on the team, and it figures to be another year of a heavy dose of tight end passes. Goedert had a big reception. Ertz caught a couple balls but dropped an easy one that killed a drive. Richard Rodgers looked good. But what impressed me the most was the potential displayed by Tyree Jackson. He just looked the part of a tall, athletic receiver. Yeah, he failed to make a touch catch on a low third down throw. And he didn't turn around fast enough to catch the pass that Mullens threw for an interception. But he has something. I'd like to see more of him.

WR -- No Smith or Hightower. Ward, Fulgham, Arcega-Whiteside didn't catch a pass. JJ had one thrown to him but it was wide of the mark. Reagor had a couple catches. I thought he looked okay. He dropped a pass at the sideline early in the game, but I couldn't really tell if he dropped a catchable ball or whether it was poorly thrown. I'm sure those watching on television will have an answer to that. Quez Watkins got behind a defender on a route that could have resulted in a 98-yard touchdown (I think that was the distance; I'm going off memory here) but the ball was overthrown. And later on, he caught a quick screen, dodged a tackle, and ran away from all the Steelers defenders for an 80 yard touchdown. He might just be a playmaker, guys.

OL -- Who the hell knows? I didn't focus on them too much, to be honest. Dillard and Dickerson didn't block anyone all night, so they're obvious busts, I guess.

DL -- Barnett started ahead of Sweat, for what it's worth. I tried to watch Tarron Jackson and Milton Williams a bit. They both looked okay. Williams got some pass rush pressure, in particular on one sack by Raequan Williams [edit, maybe it was McGill]. Milton was right there too. I wasn't all that impressed with Marlon Tuipulotu, although I didn't focus on him all that much. But the middle of the line when he was in there was frequently getting run over. To be honest, the run defense, as well as the tackling, was pretty bad all night.

LB -- I kinda thought Shaun Bradley had a good game. He was pretty active getting to plays. And later in the game, late round pick Patrick Johnson did some nice things.

DB -- Zech McPhearson impressed me. He got flagged for interference in the endzone (at least I think it was him), but he was a real battler throughout and looked tough as a tackler. Elijah Riley picked off a pass in the fourth quarter but the Eagles promptly turned it over.

ST -- I watched Jake Elliott in pregame warmups and counted him as making 18 of 21 kicks, most of them from medium and long range. One of his misses was from 43 yards. But I saw him make several from outside 50, including one from I believe was 57 yards. And at halftime, I saw him make five or six kicks without a miss. He may have attempted some that I didn't notice. So all night long, including the game, I only saw three misses out of thirty or more attempts. So I would say it was a good night for him. I'll put the stopwatch to his kickoffs later in the week but my memory is that his kickoffs were good. Actually one of them was intentionally hit short so as to swarm the return man before he got to the 25-yard line. But I recall his HT being only about 3.9 on that one, and the returner got more yardage than planned. I believe that was the only time they employed that tactic. Arryn Siposs had a good game. I'm sure his numbers will reflect that when I get around to timing them. One of his punts in the second half was a monster. Now I'm no expert on punting mechanics, but I have the impression that his "drop" is somehow a little weird. Maybe a little longer than usual, which suggests to me that he may be vulnerable to some inconsistency. We'll see. It also looked like his punts tended to sail right, although maybe that's just the way he was aiming them. I dunno. 

Overall, I guess it was an okay game for a preseason opener. Yeah, they lost but when their "better" players were in, they were ahead. If that means something. 

I'll have to watch the replay to fill in a lot of the gaps that I missed, especially with the line play.

Marlon T. or whatever. I’m not going to bother learning his name. If tonight was any indication, he won’t be here long. He was terrible. 

McPhearson is too grabby, but he’s really good in the run game. He took on blocks, shed some blocks, and he forced runs back to the middle. He wasn’t afraid to stick his nose in there. 

Huntley doesn’t look very natural catching the ball. Besides the drop, he kinda fought the ball on another catch. 

32 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:  

Overall, I guess it was an okay game for a preseason opener. Yeah, they lost but when their "better" players were in, they were ahead. If that means something. 

Appreciate the long post and analysis man. Not to rain on any parades because I saw a lot that I liked, but to be fair the game also started with our 1s on offense and not theirs, and several of their key defensive players didn’t play. So I think the fair characterization is our 1s v their 1.5/2s won. 

Tyree better make this team. 

Quez we see you. You belong.

Hurts was an overthrow away from looking the part.

Carry on.

 

McPhearson

Quez

Milton

Jackson

Some nice young talent showed up tonight, much needed.

 

I rather an overthrow than an under throw. We’d have so many posts about him not having an NFL arm. 

1 hour ago, schuy7 said:

90% of those players will be cut.

How many % are starting by week 9?

6 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

How many % are starting by week 9?

Fair point.

It was nice to see Jake Elliott go 3/3 from 40+ after a disappointing season last year.

The overthrow to Watkins doesn't bother me, the pass had nice touch and was thrown to allow Watkins to run under it, just the timing was off, which isn't a big shock given they've probably tried that maybe twice in practice?

Can’t be to judgmental on Hurts. Don’t forget Reagor dropped a first down and Ertz also dropped one that would have given the Eagles 1 and 10 inside the red zone. He also did something Wentz just refused to do, he actually threw the ball away instead of an unnecessary pass.  
 

Overall I liked what I seen from Hurts. 

1st Team defense looked capable.

Hurts might be a good game manager given the opportunity.

 Don't count this team out.

 

1 hour ago, austinfan said:

The overthrow to Watkins doesn't bother me, the pass had nice touch and was thrown to allow Watkins to run under it, just the timing was off, which isn't a big shock given they've probably tried that maybe twice in practice?

Actually feel pretty good about Hurts after that game. Clearly too early to judge and a long way to go, but had some nice throws, protected the ball and if he carries on like this we may have something.

Remember that preseason game against Green Bay back in 2015 or so when Sam Bradford threw 10 passes completing them all and 3 of them were TD's? Yeah Preseason is the best way to gauge if your QB is good or bad, reliable as all hell.

Honestly for the first run out of a new offense, it was pretty much exactly the mixed bag you would expect, the defense was encouraging, looked more aggressive than Schwartz. All in all considering the Steelers were playing their second game that was a pretty solid run out.

Preseason wins are worthless, it's about timing and rehearsal, not worried at all, not least because all I want this year is that the team plays more entertaining football and doesn't embarrass themselves in games like last year.  Last year the record was horrible but the football was worse, dull, unpractised and ineffective. I can live with a rebuild as long as I'm not watching a team that play like they've never met and are making it up (badly) as they go along.

 

A lot of people in the draft community thought Zach McPhearson's best position was slot CB. You can see it: the change of direction, the toughness, the physicality, the instincts, etc. His combine showed explosion (good for quickness) and average top-end speed. He might not be fast enough for an outside CB, but I'm fine pencilling him into one of the top 3 CBs spots next year. 

12 hours ago, bpac55 said:

Nick Mullens is going to go off against the 3rd/4th stringers tonight causing people to overreact.

Having just breezed through the posts, this one made me laugh.  Oof.

As for the D, I did wonder if the coaches deliberately left the 3rd/4th string DL and LBs into to do 2 things.  1 get some real tape for them, 2 to make them realise they ain't done ish and they need to get fitter if they want to play.  One or two backsides were being used to get air into their body.

And of course say to the FO.  Depth is an issue. Bigly

8 hours ago, Uscg-green said:

I still don't understand Howie's complete disregard for the LB position. 

Meanwhile prior to the game last night.  Steelers get better in the LB room.

 

26 minutes ago, RLC said:

A lot of people in the draft community thought Zach McPhearson's best position was slot CB. You can see it: the change of direction, the toughness, the physicality, the instincts, etc. His combine showed explosion (good for quickness) and average top-end speed. He might not be fast enough for an outside CB, but I'm fine pencilling him into one of the top 3 CBs spots next year. 

His speed is fine, the only time a 4.54 40 is going to make a difference is if he's instantly blown by at the line of scrimmage by a receiver running a go route for a pass that flies more than 30 air yards, in game football positioning, instinct and ability to change direction are more important than outright speed, Asante Samuel, Joe Haden and Richard Sherman were all around a 4.5 and they were fine outside

9 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

Meanwhile prior to the game last night.  Steelers get better in the LB room.

 

His base salary for 2021 is $7M according to Spotrac. 

20 minutes ago, UK Eagle said:

Having just breezed through the posts, this one made me laugh.  Oof.

As for the D, I did wonder if the coaches deliberately left the 3rd/4th string DL and LBs into to do 2 things.  1 get some real tape for them, 2 to make them realise they ain't done ish and they need to get fitter if they want to play.  One or two backsides were being used to get air into their body.

And of course say to the FO.  Depth is an issue. Bigly

Yea, that was a doozy of a prediction huh?  Man he looked bad.