Vibe Check for this week? Pain. The Pittsburgh Steelers are actively choosing pain. There is a lot to be pleased with for most of the team. George Pickens looks uber-talented. Leal looks like a great find in round 3. Diontae Johnson has confirmed yet again he is a #1. The O-line has held up fairly well and looks solid, at least in pass protection. The defense, minus the cornerback position, seems to be humming. Well, at least until the offense has consecutive three and outs and they are gassed and simply cannot keep up with whatever team they are playing. This brings us to pain: the offense, specifically the QB spot.
Blame will likely and fairly be laid at Matt Canada’s feet, two years in a row now this offense looks boring, predictable, and uninspiring. However, even if this offense is boring, predictable, and uninspiring it could still count for something. At its worst, it could still be valuable and important experience for their potential Franchise QB. The Steelers have already said they are not and will not use this mini-bye week as a chance to let Kenny start, but that is a mistake. We are wasting time. Mitch is the same guy he was in Chicago, maybe worse now. He rarely wants to make a big play, because of his fear of making a mistake. He takes no chances. The check-downs and dump-offs are at an all-time high. Mitch is giving us the Poorest version of Alex Smith. It isn’t fun, it’s painful. Even if we were to learn, that this is all on Canada and it’s his calls and encouragement to play this conservatively as Kenny plays, it will be worth the experience to Kenny.
Mitch is a solid backup parading as a starting quarterback. He currently, and I can’t believe I am about to type this, is playing less exciting football than Joe Flacco, who is 106 years old. It’s boring to watch this team on offense. Not only is it boring, but it’s literally costing them games. If the opposing team scores 21 points unless the defense is going to score once or twice that lead feels insurmountable. The solution is likely to fire Canada and play Pickett. However, the most pressing issue now is to at least play Kenny. He needs to get used to the NFL speed. Knowing how Tomlin is an old-school guy, I can see this lasting until their actual bye week. So, buckle up Steeler fans. The Mitch train is going to be chugging down the track at a painfully slow pace for another several weeks. The choice for Tomlin is clear. Unfortunately, he seems to be choosing the wrong option.
Author: Nathan McKenna
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Pittsburgh’s Pain
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NFL Weekly Vibe Check: NY Jets
The NY Jets are in uncharted territory. They seem to be in this weird twilight zone where they are having positive reactions from the talking heads around the league and encouraging results from their staff and players. Not to mention when they have been in the news for non-football-related activities, for the first time in a long time, the public discourse is positive. This isn’t the same LOL-Jets we’ve been used to. So yes, maybe it’s a little early for a vibe check and a look at some newsworthy events surrounding the Jets with rose-colored glasses. However, to play Devil’s advocate, in seasons past it hasn’t been far off to already start emulating Ethan Hawke in First Reformed and start journaling in an empty room with a full bottle. While this isn’t going to be a breakdown of all the passes Wilson threw in 7 on 7 or anything like that, this is going to be a quick look at some of the recent stories surrounding the Jets and some of their key players.
First and foremost, let’s talk about Mekhi Becton. ALL OFFSEASON we heard that, despite his constant workout videos, pictures he took with fans, and his own word, he was out of shape and overweight. ALL OFFSEASON. While he may not have been able to rehab as well as he or the team wanted after his injury in week 1 of last year, the media story surrounding him was that it never got any better. Seeing the tweets from the beat writers you would expect Becton to literally have to be wheeled up to camp fresh off losing the starring role in Deron Aronofsky’s The Whale to Brendan Fraser. In most years, the doom tweeting and borderline gaslighting of the fans with the Becton story would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any other year in the past 10, he would have rolled up to camp overweight and underprepared. However, this year? This time? He came looking ready, in shape, and the scary mountain of a man he was drafted to be. Becton switching to Right Tackle and lining up next to AVT could and should form a terrifying wall for the next 10 plus years. Becton showing up, and proving the beat wrong, is step one to making that prediction a reality. *Sigh* and then he got hurt. I will be off crying on a cliff.
Last, but not certainly not least, Zach Wilson was recently in the news. Now, I’m not going to rehash what anyone who has a twitter or was near a phone or tv for a week knows. I’m not going to debate the validity of the rumor (it’s almost certainly not true). However, one thing did stand out: the Jets were in the news, they were being joked about, their player was in the headlines and it was not another buttfumble, another seeing ghosts, or a mono situation. This was a harmless, silly off-season story. So why even address it? Well, this is the first time in a long time I can remember the Jets being in the news for something non-football related that wasn’t used to run the boring LOL Jets takes and jokes. This is just as an important piece to the vibe check as Becton actually being good to go up until yesterday. The view around this team is changing. The vibes around this team are changing, and they are changing for the better. -
Steelers Preseason Preview: Better Without Ben
For the first time in 18 seasons the Pittsburgh Steelers have a QB not named Ben, under center. For fans this is a bittersweet moment and a changing of the guard. A constant of the franchise, and for at least 16 of those 18 seasons, a dependable top half-of-the-league QB is gone. There is uncertainty in Pittsburgh; however, in spite of this change Pittsburgh has a chance to be a better team this season.
How? How are they going to be better when we know the division got better? First, Cincy retooled their O-line and are coming off a Super Bowl birth. Second, Baltimore can expect to have a bounce back year after adding to an already solid defense and Lamar is still the most electric QB in the league. Third, the Browns, while morally bankrupt, added a former top 5 QB (if he returns to form of two years ago and isn’t suspended). I hear all of that. However, let’s look at what Pittsburgh did the last two years of Ben’s career.
In Roethlisberger’s final two seasons the Steelers finished at 12-4 and 9-7-1. Those Steeler teams accomplished this with a 40-year old statue with a limited arm at QB. 31 other starting QBs in the league could have one of their feet cemented in concrete and they would still have moved at a faster pace than Big Ben did from 2020-2021. In his final two seasons, Ben’s yards per attempt hovered around Sam Darnold’s with the Jets numbers (averaging around 6.25). That isn’t good. Especially when Pitt has an exciting and diverse receiving core and now one of the most exciting and versatile running backs in the league.
I say all this not to trash Ben, but to point out that whether it’s new first round pick Kenny Pickett or Mitch Trubisky, the Steelers are going to have a more mobile and MUCH MORE athletic QB for this upcoming season. On top of that, even if they put together an average season this team should be able to compete for a Wild Card spot. Look what they did with a walking corpse under center? 12 wins!? HOW!? T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick is how. Guess what? They’re still there and so is Najee Harris. There is an argument to be had that Ben held Pittsburgh back in 2021.
All this to say, it’s an exciting time for Steeler fans, no matter who takes the majority of the snaps this year. As long as Pickett or Trubisky don’t become turnover machines, they will be taking control of a team that is very well rounded. This Steelers team isn’t going to be easy to beat, and isn’t that all you want with a rookie QB or a reclamation project QB?
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Road To Training Camp: The New York Jets
Hope. A word that has become a paradox for Jets fans. In one aspect, at the beginning of every NFL team’s season we all have hope. However, unless you’ve been delusional or maybe even high, the Jets haven’t sniffed any real hope in almost a decade. The last 12 years of Jets fandom is like Andy Dufresne’s time in Shawshank. It’s not been good. Sure, maybe you’ve made some friends along the way, looking at you SunGawd, but really there hasn’t been much to love or hope for in the last 12 years.
I know I sound like Red, speaking of Shawshank, talking about how hope is a dangerous thing, but for the first time in a long time the Jets are giving people hope. Real hope. Let’s look at some of the things that have happened since Adam Gase was sent packing:
THEY FINALLY CHANGED THE REPORTING STRUCTURE AND ARE ACTING LIKE AN NFL TEAM WITH A COACH REPORTING TO A GM AND NOT TO THE OWNER.
To any fan of a well-functioning franchise this seems obvious, but it’s something that pre-Joe Douglas, fans did not have. I never understood how in spite of all the “LOLJets” takes and the Trey Wingo’s of the world cowardly making snarky jokes on Twitter, they always left out the weirdest Jetsiest Jet thing of them all. For the longest time, Woody Johnson had a coach report to him and a General Manager report to him separately. I’m not here to relitigate the past, but that is truly baffling and the first step in the right direction, the first step to HOPE, began here ending that ridiculous structure.
Joe Douglas hired the person that seems to be the right guy, at least in the present moment. Robert Saleh was a top assistant coach in the league last offseason. However, the Jets had hired top assistants before. Again, despite the narrative in the media, the Jets usually landed a top name on the coaching market. The pairings just never really worked, Bowels and Maccagnan were the most recent version of this. However, this time? This time feels different. Saleh and Douglas seem to work well together. The drafts seem fairly evident of that. In fact, the biggest contention between the two seems to fall on a player that was drafted before the Saleh era. There was an article that came out before the draft from (citation here, I honestly can’t find it) that detailed how the coaching staff and the front office including the scouting department got together and outlined what they wanted and needed in players. This is what well-functioning-and dare I say high functioning-franchises do!!
That story alone was enough to light the embers of hope in any Jets fan’s soul. Listen, it’s basically been SEVEN years of no expectations for the Jets. The bar was so low, it was in hell. Jets Twitter as a whole was just asking not to get embarrassed week in and week out. There are realistic expectations this year. This could be and should be a FUN team to watch this year! Forget records, forget highlight plays, when was the last time this team was fun? 2011 Sanchez? Probably, yeah. For that reason alone, the fact that with LaFleur, Wilson, Hall, Moore, Davis, G. Wilson we think we can have fun? That alone is enough of a reason to feel that thing that has been missing from this fanbase for a long, long time: Hope.
