Does it seem like it's all coming together for him at the right time? He's going to obviously have an increased opportunity with the injuries, and it looks like he's in prime position to step in and hop on a moving train.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

He's coming off his best game of his short NFL career to this point.

And I think that he is developing with each passing week.

You know, one thing that I found interesting is when we've asked Aaron Rodgers about what's it going to take for Jeremy Bernard to earn your trust.

He doesn't talk about making catches over the middle and hanging on the football or creating yards after the catch.

He talks about the meeting room and Aaron Rodgers quizzes his guys on things like hand signals.

Is that a move that you expect to see in Tampa? Is that something that you think is now going to be permanent moving forward?

Do you think that's possible or crazy?

No, I think you're absolutely right.

No, I think not crazy, but yes, possible.

And I think you're spot on with all of that.

The way that I look at the situation with Jeremy Bernard is he has a great opportunity to basically push those other guys down the depth chart.

And by the time Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson and Ben Skarnick come back from injury, basically established, look, number one, DK, number two is Jeremy Bernard.

I think that that's really kind of like setting the stage for him and setting expectations for the next couple of weeks.

Is that a move that you expect to see in Tampa? Is that something that you think is now going to be permanent moving forward?

Is that going to stick? It almost happened by accident as you wrote about.

yeah i mean he he really is an impressive young guy um he really carries himself in a really polished professional type of way and um i mean let's just be honest here aaron rogers is not the easiest quarterback for any wide receiver to get along with and especially for a young wide receiver and you know as much as he's making contested catches over the middle he's then you know for the most part sure handed even though he has a couple notable drops Really, it's the preparation and his ability to understand when Aaron Rodgers is quizzing him, what adjustments Rodgers might be making at the line of scrimmage, how to adjust his route based on the coverage that he's seeing.

So he really has it going on upstairs.

He knows what to do in terms of football.

He came into the league with a lot of production.

And so I think you're going to just see more and more from him.

My only concern with him, I like what he does run after.

we're talking to mike defabo of the athletic mike sprock to us by armstrong the people you trust the internet you count on armstrongonewire.com uh mike how can the steelers regenerate the pass rush and why is nick herbig 100 invisible

Well, look,

let's zoom out for a second.

Who are the winners and who are the losers in all of this? The biggest winner by far is David Mulligetta.

And if you don't know who that is, that's Joey Porter Jr.'s agent who also represented Jalen Ramsey, who also represented Micah Parsons.

And in all three instances, he basically told his client, fake a back injury and you can get whatever you want.

And so now he has manipulated the situation.

So now he has two clients, George Pickens and Joey Porter Jr., both on the Dallas Cowboys.

We've been debating all day, Mike, who is the most disappointing Steeler, like one or two, because it's quite a list to pick from.

Do you expect with that, uh, this weekend at home against the Colts, we will see, uh, either the rookie debut of Gabe Rubio or Kevin Jobity Jr.?

Yeah, I would think that Gabe Rubio, I think that everyone bumps up a spot on the depth chart.

So, you know, Gabe Rubio, he's been inactive the last couple games.

I think he gets a helmet for the first time.

You know, mostly he fits as an interior guy.

You know, he could play some nose.

He could play one of those interior positions in the sub package.

That's a lot

Do you expect with that, uh, this weekend at home against the Colts, we will see, uh, either the rookie debut of Gabe Rubio or Kevin Jobity Jr.?

Yeah, I would think that Gabe Rubio, I think that everyone bumps up a spot on the depth chart.

So, you know, Gabe Rubio, he's been inactive the last couple games.

I think he gets a helmet for the first time.

You know, mostly he fits as an interior guy.

You know, he could play some nose.

He could play one of those interior positions in the sub package.

That's a lot

Give, give Bengals fans the nutshell version of why it's been so concerning offensively.

Well, let's start with the Patriots game, and basically it was the perfect recipe for disaster.

Um, the Patriots sent a lot of pressures, especially six-man pressures.

There was miscommunication, missed assignments, poor execution.

All of it led to a lot of free runners at a 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers, who's not nearly as mobile as he once was.

So if the Steelers offense was gonna do anything, they needed to create early separation from those wide receivers.

They were without Michael Pittman Jr., and Christian Gonzalez just completely took DK Metcalf out of the game, and at times DK Metcalf took himself out of the game.

Mm

Yeah, you got to run the football more effectively, but you need a little bit more from your number one wide receiver as well.

Yeah, more than a little bit more out of your number one wide receiver.

You know, you need him to play like a number one wide receiver because he's they spent twice to get him you gave up a second round pick that's spending once and then they gave him 33 million dollars a year he's the seventh highest paid wide receiver in the league right now and you know he also got the guaranteed money that it seems like they're unwilling to give joey porter jr um so on a number of levels they've committed themselves to this player they've taken a different approach a different path than what they've done in the past at least in terms of guaranteed money And right now, Christian Gonzalez completely took him out of the game.

And in the few instances when DK was able to create separation, he wasn't able to make the catch.

And I think at this point, some of it's in DK's head.

You know, when we asked McCarthy about some of these drop issues or just how much of it was self-inflicted, he talked about confidence.

And I think right now, DK's not playing with much confidence at all.

And if they continue to kind of gel and improve over these next couple weeks, that could be something for this team to continue to lean on while the offense figures it out.

Yeah, you got to run the football more effectively, but you need a little bit more from your number one wide receiver as well.

Yeah, more than a little bit more out of your number one wide receiver.

You know, you need him to play like a number one wide receiver because he's they spent twice to get him you gave up a second round pick that's spending once and then they gave him 33 million dollars a year he's the seventh highest paid wide receiver in the league right now and you know he also got the guaranteed money that it seems like they're unwilling to give joey porter jr um so on a number of levels they've committed themselves to this player they've taken a different approach a different path than what they've done in the past at least in terms of guaranteed money And right now, Christian Gonzalez completely took him out of the game.

And in the few instances when DK was able to create separation, he wasn't able to make the catch.

And I think at this point, some of it's in DK's head.

You know, when we asked McCarthy about some of these drop issues or just how much of it was self-inflicted, he talked about confidence.

And I think right now, DK's not playing with much confidence at all.

And if they continue to kind of gel and improve over these next couple weeks, that could be something for this team to continue to lean on while the offense figures it out.

Can you just talk about what Patrick Graham has brought to this team? And if you didn't know this, Patrick Graham now four and one in his last five versus Patriot Offenses.

Yeah, Patrick Graham has modernized a defense that has long been overdue for an update.

And two things really stand out when you're talking about Patrick Graham and his scheme.

The first thing has to do with the pressure.

So he gives these pre-snap presentations with seven guys at the line of scrimmage.

And then he is near the top of the league, or he was last year, in terms of those all-out blitzes.

But then his actual sheer blitz numbers are low because he's really big into simulated pressure.

I didn't think Pittsburgh had any business winning the game, but... um the one thing i notice about the steelers they're huge like they are they fryer muth right local guy from here um darnell washington the size of that man i mean just the patriots though they they tried to get a fullback this year they they upgraded their offensive line if it's rainy out there and you know the ball can't really be thrown through the air i'm almost curious in your mind who do you think is the tougher team

Is there Super Bowl hopes and expectations, or is they just trying to be middle of the road and not blow it up? What's going on down there? Yeah.

Yeah, you bring up a great point.

This was my question when the Steelers brought in Aaron Rodgers.

Is he going to be a bridge to the future to get you to potentially some of these two young quarterbacks that they have, or maybe a first round pick? Or is he going to be the thing that holds you back? Because I think the worst case scenario for the Steelers is they have a season just like many of the others over the last decade, where they're just barely good in to get in the playoffs or barely miss the playoffs um and then don't accomplish much of anything once they get there and really if that's the case then maybe aaron rogers just plays the steelers out of a position to draft the quarterback to get them out of this mess and that's really the the tough thing with what the steelers are doing right now they kind of have not picked a lane and they're very much against rebuilding very much against pushing the reset button If there was a time to do it, it would have been when you make a change at the head coaching position.

Instead, the Steelers did the opposite.

They gave a 37-year-old Cam Hayward a contract extension.

They hung on to a 30-plus-year-old TJ Watt, who they might have been able to get a good deal for in a trade.

Is the perspective different? Is he a good guy? What is your vision of him? Because we have our own up here.

Is that something you expect, a change that is here to stay going forward?

Well, first and foremost, I think what this tells you is the coaching staff needs to start asking you and Matt for more advice because you guys have absolutely been on it all along.

Last week I was on the show and you were talking about could TJ Watt do a little bit more with less? That's exactly what happened.

And just to put this in perspective, he played 37 defensive snaps.

When he was on a pitch count coming back from that punctured lung, he played 42.

And last year there were six games that he played 60 snaps or more, including one.

He was as high as I think 72 or 70 was his high.

Um, I think a lot of that seemingly, um, led to Roman Wilson having one of his more productive days as a Pittsburgh Steeler yeah there were some moments where you would have liked to have maybe see a little bit more but I also thought he was making plays and was a real viable option out there do you expect that 11 personnel to still be the the chunkiest formation that we see from the Steelers on offense and I know Aaron Rodgers spoke today you know did he have anything to say about Roman Wilson's performance on Sunday

Is that something you expect, a change that is here to stay going forward?

Well, first and foremost, I think what this tells you is the coaching staff needs to start asking you and Matt for more advice because you guys have absolutely been on it all along.

Last week I was on the show and you were talking about could TJ Watt do a little bit more with less? That's exactly what happened.

And just to put this in perspective, he played 37 defensive snaps.

When he was on a pitch count coming back from that punctured lung, he played 42.

And last year there were six games that he played 60 snaps or more, including one.

He was as high as I think 72 or 70 was his high.

Um, I think a lot of that seemingly, um, led to Roman Wilson having one of his more productive days as a Pittsburgh Steeler yeah there were some moments where you would have liked to have maybe see a little bit more but I also thought he was making plays and was a real viable option out there do you expect that 11 personnel to still be the the chunkiest formation that we see from the Steelers on offense and I know Aaron Rodgers spoke today you know did he have anything to say about Roman Wilson's performance on Sunday

I kind of have a feeling that the sixth offensive line – approach is probably a thing of the past, but the three-outside linebacker approach is a thing of the future.

Absolutely.

We saw the Steelers under Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin kind of tinker with that, especially in one-dimensional situations, and I think that that's something that you're going to see Patrick Graham really lean into.

I found it interesting that they listed Nick Herbig as a starter on the depth chart, and I don't think that that was an accident.

I think that they... view him as a guy that's going to be part of a rotation with those other guys and often trying to find ways to get them on the field together.

I mean, we saw some different looks, maybe not with TJ Watt out there, but even in the preseason games with one defensive lineman, three outside linebackers.

So I think that they're definitely going to lean into that and try to use Nick Herbig in a variety of ways, really test him in a couple of different ways, because in some instances, you've got a lighter, leaner type of outside linebacker who's going to be rushing over a center or a guard and that's one of the things that he's going to have to do if he's playing in that package.

We want inquiring minds want to know.

I kind of have a feeling that the six offensive line approach is probably a thing of the past, but the three outside linebacker approach is a thing of the future.

Absolutely.

We saw the Steelers under Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin kind of tinker with that, especially in one-dimensional situations.

And I think that that's something that you're going to see Patrick Graham really lean into.

I found it interesting that they listed Nick Herbig as a starter on the depth chart.

And I don't think that that was an accident.

I think that they view him as a guy that's going to be part of a rotation with those other guys and often trying to find ways to get them on the field together.

We want inquiring minds want to know.

What do you think really the plan is for Patrick Graham with a guy with Hall of Fame type credentials and Jalen Ramsey?

All the different ways that Patrick Graham dials up to utilize a versatile player like Jalen Ramsey.

I think his primary role is going to be in the nickel.

And you look at things that Patrick Graham did during the preseason.

He was very often blitzing that nickel through the B gap or using that nickel in a variety of different ways.

You can also use the nickel to help disguise coverages, especially when he's a guy that has experience as a safety last year.

Whether you want to roll coverage in a particular way or even have Jalen Ramsey run through as a middle run-through player on a Tampa 2 or some other type of coverage.

last one I got for you is, do you also think there's a competition or a rotation at the No. 3 wide receiver position between Roman Wilson and the rookie, or does one guy have that job tied up?

What do you think really the plan is for Patrick Graham with a guy with Hall of Fame type credentials and Jalen Ramsey?

All the different ways that Patrick Graham dials up to utilize a versatile player like Jalen Ramsey.

I think his primary role is going to be in the nickel.

And you look at things that Patrick Graham did during the preseason.

He was very often blitzing that nickel through the B gap or using that nickel in a variety of different ways.

You can also use the nickel to help disguise coverages, especially when he's a guy that has experience as a safety last year.

Whether you want to roll coverage in a particular way or even have Jalen Ramsey run through as a middle run-through player on a Tampa 2 or some other type of coverage.

last one I got for you is, do you also think there's a competition or a rotation at the No. 3 wide receiver position between Roman Wilson and the rookie, or does one guy have that job tied up?

And I, I think that that is another cool aspect that this team has put into saying, hey, even if these, even if Will Howard nor Drew Aller are the next guy, the next Ben Roethlisberger, we can do more to put more, uh, development into these guys to grow them into someone that at least helps us in a better way than we've seen in recent years.

Yeah, I just look at the situation of what Mason Rudolph walked into when at one point the Steelers thought he could be the heir apparent to Ben Roethlisberger, to what the Steelers have now as they still con- continue to search for the long-term answer with two young guys.

You know, Mason Rudolph in a story I wrote about the QB school was saying, you know, they told him, "Just do whatever you want with your footwork.

Just don't look at Ben." That was their instruction for footwork.

They did not even have a quarterback coach on their team at the point, at that point for the first two years when Mason Rudolph was in his first couple seasons.

Um, you know, now you look at it, they've got a head coach who is extremely detail-oriented and is always standing behind those guys during individual periods, giving them specific detailed feedback.

They've got a quarterback coach in Tom Arth who's gone through that quarterback school that Mike McCarthy believes in, so he completely understands his philosophy.

Mike, do, as a person who's been observing these things and taking these notes day to day, um, do you see concern or do you see any reason for concern for maybe there should be some more effort to get some chemistry with that total group? Because we haven't really seen them in quite some time.

And here's what Mike McCarthy had to say earlier.

Mike, I know you talked about signing your own and getting that done.

What's it like for you to walk into a new situation where you have some young guys to fill your team?

So I thought we got off to a good start there.

Last one.

Yeah,

Mm-hmm.

And the year before that.

And, and that's, I think, maybe one of the concerns with Aaron Rodgers is, you know, it sounds funny to say, but a worst case scenario would be a team that barely gets in the playoffs or barely misses the playoffs that's competitive, but all it does is push them further away from that draft pick that gets them out of this QB purgatory that they've been in and these, these continuous Band-Aids of, of veterans that they've put on this, the most important position in football.

Um, I found it interesting when they drafted Drew Aller because I thought that that was almost, um, kinda like a security blanket or, um, like a break case in, break in case of emergency kind of like, "Hey, what if, again, this quarterback class doesn't pan out to be what we think? What if they're not in a position to move up and get one of these top passers?" Now you presumably could have two young guys in Will Howard versus Drew Aller battling it out for a year.

And I think you could sell the fan base on that for a year and maybe Mike McCarthy can unlock something in one of them.

Um, so I, I, I, yeah, I think that they would love it to be a first-round pick that gets them out of this situation they're in and is clearly the guy of the future, but I think that there's also a, a likelihood that you're talking about Will Howard versus Drew Aller being the big camp competition a year from now.

Yeah

... and unwilling to, to change and go out of the area that he's, you know, become one of the best defensive players over the last decade.

For our listeners out there, you know, I don't wanna spoil the article, but could you maybe tell us some of the things that y- you learned along the way while figuring this out, w- writing this story about Mike McCarthy, and more specifically, his relationship with his, uh, passed on brother, Joe?

Well, first of all, I appreciate all your kind words.

And really, I, the credit goes to Mike McCarthy because it's pretty rare that an NFL head coach would invite you into his car and then drive you around his neighborhood in Pittsburgh and then open up in such a way.

And so, you know, we started this car ride, and I thought truly the story was going to focus on His relationship with Greenfield, which is a very blue-collar neighborhood in a very blue-collar city.

Most of the people that worked and lived in that neighborhood worked in the steel mills and really basically wanted to, you know, make enough money that they could, uh, send their kids to Catholic school and watch the Steelers on Sunday.

You know, that's the kind of neighborhood that it is.

And so he took me around and explained why he loved this neighborhood and why it means so much for him to be the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But how much of a, of a subtle change like that do you think can have in the locker room and for the season?

What have you seen so far, Mike?

Yeah, it's a very different approach to training camp.

Mike Tomlin led arguably the most physical training camp in the league.

A couple years ago at The Athletic, I surveyed my colleagues and I said, "How often does the team you cover tackle?" And it led me to conclude that Mike Tomlin did have the most physical training camp.

Very different approach to tackling.

There will be no ball carriers taken to the ground under Mike McCarthy.

But what I think that tells you is here you have the third oldest coach in the league, but he's not old school.

Any of the backup quarterbacks doing anything?

What did you get to know

about the new head coach? Yeah, well, first of all, it was an awesome opportunity.

And I think that The only reason why Mike McCarthy was willing to do it is because he feels so connected to the city of Pittsburgh and to the neighborhood of Greenfield.

And I think he was willing to do it because he knew I'm a local.

I grew up here in Latrobe.

I understand what Western Pennsylvania is all about.

And so as we're going through, you know, on one hand, he definitely has these feelings where he is making his family immensely proud.

Again, with the caveat, right, if it's only been two practices, this is all grain of salt at this point, but any early thoughts and observations on Will Howard and Drew Allard?

Oh, the Insiders podcast too, dude.

Follow me on Instagram @mike.defebo. [laughs]

Family picnic up there sometimes.

Yeah, I think my grandmother goes up there and puts palms on Palm Sunday.

How have you kind of seen that shift?

Yeah, so I mean, you know, Mike Tomlin, when he came in, Really, I think it came from Dan M. Rooney.

He was big into cooperation with the media.

And the Steelers, to their credit, they might in some ways provide the most access of any team.

During the season under Tomlin, we were allowed to watch every minute of every single practice.

And when I would tell other beat writers about that, they were absolutely floored and stunned.

Like, wait, you mean to tell me that you can – ahead of a playoff game watch every single snap and it's like yeah they they trust you not to report things that you shouldn't they trust you to use some judgment on things and they also have like it creates some tough gray area roles where technically you're supposed to get everything you see confirmed so in in some ways it was like okay i just saw something interesting happen or i see depth chart stuff now i have to walk up to a player and be like hey, did you get any more snaps today than usual? And they look at you like you're crazy.

If there were a spot, where do you think there are like the concern areas, if you will, on this roster right now? Not necessarily from a starter's perspective, even if you're looking at depth.