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HR1: Fundamentals · In the Locker Room presented by Neighborhood Ford Store (Pittsburgh Steelers)

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: This is In the Locker Room with Rob King, Max Starks,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and Willie Colon on Steelers Nation Radio. Brought to you
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: in part by the Steelers Pro Shop. Get it direct
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at shop.steelers.com.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And by your neighborhood Ford store. The F-150 is the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: official truck of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Definitely play better than your opponent.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: So.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: that's really part of why we're going about tomorrow the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: way we're.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Going about it.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Cause we need to clean our own house. Our house
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: is not clean right now. And I, and I get it. It's,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: it's week, week five. So you're hard pressed to find
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: a team or two that, that feels really good about
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: where they are right now. So, and that's the norm.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: So we're going to stay after the, you know, the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: focus of what we need to work on. So that's,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: that's what this weekend was about for, you know, for
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: me and, We've been working on it as a coaching
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: staff and we'll have clear factors of what we need
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  Speaker 2: to do as far as cleaning our house and then
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  Speaker 2: we'll get ready to go beat Indianapolis. That's the plan.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: Alright, those are the words of Mike McCarthy yesterday during
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: his weekly press conference. We thank you for being with
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: us in the locker room along with Willie Colon and
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Max Starks. I'm Rob King and we're going to spend
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: some time talking about this. This is a big item
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: I think for the Steelers and a big reaction here
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: from Mike McCarthy. Willie, first of all, I hope you're
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: doing well on this fine Tuesday. I hope the weather
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: is good where you are. It is incredible here. Another
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  Speaker 5: incredible day. So your thoughts on those comments from Mike McCarthy,
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  Speaker 5: and is this a sort of normal.
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  Speaker 6: Sort of self-evaluation four weeks into the season?
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  Speaker 7: Hey, Rob.
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: Hey, Max.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the weather is actually– Outstanding here too, Max and Rob.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: It's clear skies and everything's going well. However, the weather
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room is dark and stormy.
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  Speaker 3: I have to listen to Mike McCarthy's statements.
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  Speaker 8: And first, you know, like I've said before, we all
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  Speaker 8: can be emotional.
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  Speaker 3: And now that we're kind of a couple of days
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  Speaker 3: removed from this game, We have to remind ourselves that
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: the Steelers are 2-2, not 1-4, right?
• 2:30
  Speaker 8: Or whatever it is. So we have to breathe.
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  Speaker 3: I think what's the issue right now, what's going on
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  Speaker 3: in Mike McCarthy's words, he's doing some self-reflecting. This is
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: kind of like a mini-bye for the Steelers, considering that
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: they played on Thursday night. So he has a chance
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: to look under the hood and really dissect what's going
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: on with the team. And I think there's a couple
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of things that, he now understands that once I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I talked about this yesterday, this isn't so much a
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: schematic issue.
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  Speaker 8: This is a fundamental issue.
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  Speaker 3: When you see guys failing to block the right guy,
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  Speaker 3: when tackling's poor, when the operation is sloppy, those are
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  Speaker 3: things that have nothing to do with your opponent. That's
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: simply you not doing what's best for you. And so
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I think that's what he's talking about. I also think
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: when he, he's also looking at both sides of the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: ball offensively, you know, I think, And you can clean
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: me up, Rob and Max. I think through the first
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: two games, I think they only had 16 points, right?
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  Speaker 3: And then, you know, obviously the last two, they've been
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: able to, you know, score more points and be better
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: in that regard. Defensively, they started off well, but they've
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: also now regressed over the last two weeks. So he's
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: seen the offense kind of pick it up schematically and
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  Speaker 3: put points on the board, but also the defense kind
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: of trend backwards.
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  Speaker 4: So, there's an unbalance and there's an imbalance.
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  Speaker 3: And I think the only way to, once again, to
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  Speaker 3: correct some of those things is to look in-house.
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  Speaker 4: And also understand this, guys.
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  Speaker 3: You know, one of Mike Tomlin's superpowers was his ability
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  Speaker 3: to put out small fires before they became big fires.
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  Speaker 3: And some may say he was good at it. Some
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: may say he was god-awful at it. But I know
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  Speaker 3: during my time as a Steeler, when we had issues
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  Speaker 3: like this where the team seemed like it wasn't, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there was little miscues and everything that was kind of
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  Speaker 3: trending in the wrong direction. He had a way of
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  Speaker 3: altering practice. He had a way of pointing our eyes
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  Speaker 3: to a direction that we can hold ourselves accountable and fix.
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  Speaker 3: There were things that he was saying meetings to kind
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  Speaker 3: of say, Hey, to kind of whoop us back in shape.
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  Speaker 3: So there were all little things and tools he had
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  Speaker 3: as a head coach that really kind of, kind of
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  Speaker 3: allowed us to reset in season.
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  Speaker 8: So this is a big test for Mike McCarthy.
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  Speaker 3: You know, as much as we sit here and we
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: talk about his offensive mind and, how he's kind of
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  Speaker 3: a genius in that regard. This is where we have
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  Speaker 3: to now step in and evaluate him. We get a
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: chance to evaluate him as a coach because, yeah, it
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: was a tough loss against the Browns, a game they
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: should have won, but they did get roughed up in
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  Speaker 3: that game. Now he's had ample amount of time to
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  Speaker 3: go into this Colts game, and people want to see adjustments.
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  Speaker 8: People want to see changes.
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  Speaker 3: People want to see his hands on his team and
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  Speaker 3: really cultivate a culture in a team. that can produce
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  Speaker 3: and win in a positive manner. They just want to
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  Speaker 3: see a team that's going to compete for all four
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  Speaker 3: quarters and play hard and be good at the fundamentals.
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  Speaker 3: You're going to get, you're going to get beat scheme-wise
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  Speaker 3: as football. The guys on the other side of the
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  Speaker 3: field are just as smart and as equipped as you.
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  Speaker 3: We understand that. But there's some things that you just
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  Speaker 3: got to, they got to be pillars and fundamentals to
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  Speaker 3: who you are as a team.
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  Speaker 8: And the Steelers have failed at that over the last
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  Speaker 8: two weeks.
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  Speaker 3: So, With all that said, man, I like that Mike
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: McCarthy has said, hey, man, it's not a them thing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: It's a we thing. We got to clean it up.
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  Speaker 3: We got to be better. We got to understand what
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  Speaker 3: we're doing and what we're not doing and move forward. So,
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  Speaker 3: once again, still the 2-2. It's a lot of ball left,
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  Speaker 3: but this is a good opportunity to self-reflect and move forward.
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  Speaker 8: Max.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm in agreeance with you, Willie.
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  Speaker 9: I think, you know, it's sobering to have a coach
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  Speaker 9: that's so transparent and right and kind of give you
• 6:11
  Speaker 9: these you know very stark very cold sobering type of
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  Speaker 9: words but at the end of the day you know
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  Speaker 9: you're a 500 team you can win at home you
• 6:24
  Speaker 9: cannot win on the road that's all we know right
• 6:26
  Speaker 9: now from this first quarter of the season you're a
• 6:29
  Speaker 9: home team not an away team you know your defense
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  Speaker 9: does not travel you know in in respects to what
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  Speaker 9: to what the old acronyms go.
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  Speaker 4: But at the same time, it's not the worst world.
• 6:43
  Speaker 9: You're at a position where you can still change and
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  Speaker 9: right the ship, and you have a quarter of the
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  Speaker 9: season's down, but you've still got three-quarters of the season
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  Speaker 9: left to go. And you have some tests, and yes,
• 6:55
  Speaker 9: it's going to get tougher, but pressure makes diamonds or
• 6:59
  Speaker 9: burst pipes, right? And so I think when I listen
• 7:03
  Speaker 9: to Mike McCarthy.
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  Speaker 4: This is very sobering.
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  Speaker 9: You're pissed you lost a division game, one that you
• 7:09
  Speaker 9: thought you probably should have had, and it's football. But
• 7:13
  Speaker 9: at the same time, Hope Springs Eternal, you got a
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  Speaker 9: little bye, you had a little extra time to be
• 7:17
  Speaker 9: able to review. Now it's trying to focus in on, okay,
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  Speaker 9: what do teams think of us? What is the issues
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  Speaker 9: that we need to clean up on how we present
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  Speaker 9: ourselves in public?
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  Speaker 4: Is my shirt tucked in?
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  Speaker 9: Is my tie pulled up all the way to the
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  Speaker 9: top of the collar, right, type of stuff that you
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  Speaker 9: need to do, and then go out there and present.
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  Speaker 4: You know, the one thing we see, we see board
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  Speaker 4: meetings every Sunday.
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  Speaker 9: Every game is that public viewing consumption moment, but what
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  Speaker 9: are you doing behind closed.
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  Speaker 8: Doors, right?
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  Speaker 4: That's what matters.
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  Speaker 9: What are you toiling, you know, away at when the
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  Speaker 9: cameras are off? And I think this is a moment
• 8:02
  Speaker 9: to kind of take that sobering moment. We talked about
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  Speaker 9: this the last couple of days about what you can
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  Speaker 9: and can't do, what.
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  Speaker 4: You should do, what you should focus on. And we
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  Speaker 4: won't get a test.
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  Speaker 9: We won't know if they studied the night before they've
• 8:18
  Speaker 9: been studying all week, um, until we get to Sunday
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  Speaker 9: one o'clock against the Indianapolis Colts in action, sure stadium.
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  Speaker 9: But in the meanwhile, you know, it's, it's good to
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  Speaker 9: hear him talk so frankly, but at the same time,
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  Speaker 9: you know, coaches coach players play so what are the
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  Speaker 9: players talking about in the locker room what are the
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  Speaker 9: players doing after practice what are the players doing when
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  Speaker 9: they get home what are they doing how early they
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  Speaker 9: get into the facility in the morning like that's that's
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  Speaker 9: on them and you know i hope that this yields
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  Speaker 9: a good result that they had this kind of mini
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  Speaker 9: buy to reset after the first quarter of the season
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  Speaker 9: but we won't know but i'm not sitting here hitting
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  Speaker 9: the panic button Um, just yet I'm, I'm, am, am,
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  Speaker 9: am I disappointed?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 9: I mean, I think, I think you can go take
• 9:04
  Speaker 9: a poll right now of a hundred Pittsburghers and you'll
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  Speaker 9: probably get 99 of them. And the hundredth guy is
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  Speaker 9: probably still hung over. So he, he, he doesn't know
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  Speaker 9: which button to hit, you know? Um, but yeah, you
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  Speaker 9: can be disappointed. You could be annoyed, but I don't
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  Speaker 9: think this is at a point. Where, you know, you're
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  Speaker 9: hitting the eject button and a lot of people on
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  Speaker 9: social media, oh.
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  Speaker 8: We got a 42-year-old quarterback, 43-year-old quarterback.
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  Speaker 4: It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Let's not go
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  Speaker 4: there yet. I think, you know, when you have.
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  Speaker 9: The circumstances that the Steelers have, and I said this
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  Speaker 9: from day one of Camp Rob, it's not a matter
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  Speaker 9: of if, it's a matter of when injuries happen in
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  Speaker 9: this game.
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  Speaker 4: And how are you going to atone yourself? How are
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  Speaker 4: you going to prepare.
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  Speaker 9: Yourself for those unfortunate things that do happen as a
• 9:54
  Speaker 9: as a byproduct of playing competitive gladiatorial sports so you
• 10:00
  Speaker 9: know it's great that he kind of has this mea
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  Speaker 9: culpa type moment but not necessary yet let's talk again
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  Speaker 9: in another three to four weeks let's talk after paris
• 10:10
  Speaker 9: and then let's see what type of team we.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: Have okay so let me follow that up because after
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: week two against the patriots Mike McCarthy said, it sounded
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: to me, my interpretation of what he said is, playbook's
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: too wide. We have to get back to what we
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  Speaker 5: do and do well, right? Is this the same sort
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  Speaker 5: of vein? We got to get back to fundamentals. We
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: got to pull things in a little bit. And in
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  Speaker 5: your experience, Max, is this something you've gone through where
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: a coach has said, okay, let's trim up the playbook. Okay,
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: let's spend this You know, you're always self-scouting. I understand that.
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  Speaker 5: But do you also maybe pull back a little bit
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  Speaker 5: and say, okay, forget whoever we're playing this week. In
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: your day, maybe, hey, forget the Browns or forget who
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: we are. We've got to concentrate on what we're doing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: I imagine this is not out of the ordinary that
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: something like this would happen, a self-evaluation at this point
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: of the season.
• 11:10
  Speaker 9: No, you're always taking stock, you know, especially at any–
• 11:16
  Speaker 9: milestone marker of the season, right? And for them, this
• 11:18
  Speaker 9: is the first quarter. So you're going to look at
• 11:23
  Speaker 9: what can we do better? Who are we as.
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  Speaker 4: A team in this moment?
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  Speaker 9: And who do we want to be as a team?
• 11:29
  Speaker 9: I mean, that's the natural inclination that you get. And,
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: you know, we've gone through it a couple of times.
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  Speaker 9: I remember going through it, you know, my second year
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  Speaker 9: and we had that come to Jesus moment before the
• 11:44
  Speaker 9: Chicago Bears game. you know, on a couple game losing streak.
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  Speaker 9: And we calculated, hey, we got to win out. You know,
• 11:51
  Speaker 9: we brought Jerome back here and we had to have
• 11:53
  Speaker 9: that players only meeting to figure out who we were
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  Speaker 9: going to be that year. And of course, that year
• 12:00
  Speaker 9: ended in one for the thumb. And I think also,
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  Speaker 9: you know, for us, it wasn't the coach saying it,
• 12:06
  Speaker 9: but not necessarily the coach saying it, but it was
• 12:08
  Speaker 9: us saying it. Hey, man, we're down some guys and
• 12:11
  Speaker 9: Willie knows this. We lose Kendall Simmons. We lose Marvell Smith.
• 12:15
  Speaker 9: It's me and D-State now starting on the offensive line.
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  Speaker 9: And we're like, hey, what can we do to make
• 12:22
  Speaker 9: ourselves better prepared for Sundays? And then it was a
• 12:25
  Speaker 9: player thing that we talked about as a line. And
• 12:29
  Speaker 9: we said, we need to watch more film together. Let's
• 12:33
  Speaker 9: continue to bond with each other and let's make a
• 12:36
  Speaker 9: night of it. And then that ultimately became the moment
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  Speaker 9: that galvanized that unit that year for what we wanted
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  Speaker 9: to be. And that's just from a microcosm perspective, like
• 12:48
  Speaker 9: the players only meeting with Joey and them, that was
• 12:52
  Speaker 9: a whole team thing. And then on the smaller level,
• 12:55
  Speaker 9: it was an offensive line thing when it came after
• 12:59
  Speaker 9: that during the 2008 season. And those are just specific
• 13:02
  Speaker 9: moments where it's two different types of, you know, self-reflective
• 13:07
  Speaker 9: moments where, from a team perspective and then, of course,
• 13:10
  Speaker 9: from a group perspective where we just rallied and good
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: things happened because of that. So they can be solved.
• 13:18
  Speaker 9: They can be solved. You know, I go back to
• 13:21
  Speaker 9: Wolf saying, all the answers that you need are in
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  Speaker 9: those four walls of the locker room. You can figure
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  Speaker 9: it out as a team. It doesn't take a coach
• 13:28
  Speaker 9: to do it. We had player leaders that led the
• 13:30
  Speaker 9: way back when we played, right? There was a Seabatch.
• 13:33
  Speaker 9: There was a Hines. There was a Jerome. There was
• 13:36
  Speaker 9: a James Ferrier. There was a Joey Porter. You know,
• 13:40
  Speaker 9: there were these different leaders at different levels. Alan Fanica,
• 13:43
  Speaker 9: Jeff Hardings, right?
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  Speaker 4: There were guys who could rally the.
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  Speaker 9: Troops and get guys back on page, but it took
• 13:51
  Speaker 9: somebody stepping out there and actually acknowledging. You know, as
• 13:53
  Speaker 9: they tell you, 12-step program, right? First way to solving
• 13:58
  Speaker 9: a problem is admitting you have a problem, right? I
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  Speaker 9: think they've gotten step one down. Now it's time to
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  Speaker 9: go through step two and step three.
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  Speaker 6: Willie, have you been through this at this point of
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: the season?
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, I mean, Max hit on a lot
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of different aspects that have impacted us when we're kind
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: of going through slumps like this.
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  Speaker 4: And I don't even necessarily think this is a slump.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's just a necessary– you're looking at a team.
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  Speaker 4: That's still trying to find its way.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: You know, the question that lingers is if there still
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: is one in this game, would Mike McCarthy still take
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: this same type of approach, right?
• 14:33
  Speaker 8: Good question.
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  Speaker 3: Because it's– The matter is because, you know, I've said
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: this before, and I'm a true believer, winning is the
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: ultimate deodorant.
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: You can win games and still stink.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And a lot of times it takes a loss like
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: this to realize, like, man, no, we really stink. We're
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: losing in a manner that we don't even recognize ourselves.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: And I think when you look at Mike McCarthy right now,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and I listen to his presser, it sounds like, he
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: realized that there's a fundamental problem in his offense and
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: his issues on defense.
• 15:07
  Speaker 7: But on top of that, they need to prep harder.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: He said, you know, the only way I know how
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: to fix this is to dig harder and get lost
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: in my work.
• 15:15
  Speaker 8: That's great.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: And I think one thing that Max has said that's
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: relevant is the guys have to now be accountable for
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: what they do and their input and their output, right?
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: How much tape are.
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: They taking in?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: How much are they diving into what's asked of them?
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: How much are they really going out there on the
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: field and executing what's asked of them? And it starts
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: from an individual standpoint and as a unit. What's going
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: on with the Steelers right now is what's going on
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: with a lot of teams right now.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of teams that are kind of in limbo.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: They understand they have the roster and the personnel to
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: be effective and get what they want.
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: But there's discourse.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Along the way, and they're trying to figure out where
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: does that come from. I'm an advocate right now for
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: the Steelers to reset this offense. They got to run
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the ball more than they throw the ball. I'm going
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: to be quite frank with you.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: Max talked about this earlier.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Young Big Roethlisberger did not throw the ball 40, 50
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: times a game until later in his career. When he
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: was younger is when he was like, hey, man, we're
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: going to put the governor cap on you. We're going
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: to run this thing. We're going to control the time possession.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: We're going to play behind our defense. And when we
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: start pounding it up front, then here comes a play action.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: That's when we're going to unleash you. Now, it's hard
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: to do that with a 43-year-old quarterback in Aaron Rodgers.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad Aaron has held himself accountable today. and saying, hey, man,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: I got to be better. We need to better. That's
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: all good. But Aaron Rodgers isn't mobile anymore, right? Like,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: that's not what he is.
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: Yes, he's an operator.
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: He's a facilitator. But with being an operator, you need structure.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And I think part of that structure has to be
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: leaning on our running backs and leaning on our tight
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: ends who seem to be the most productive for our offense.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And with all that said, man, we can find our
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: way out of this kind of murky feeling because I
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: think a lot of people– There's two sides, right?
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: A lot of people are saying the same old Steelers.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Here goes with the BS.
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: And then some folks on the other side are like,
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: this is what we want.
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: So we can have a.
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: Bad season and get rid of the quarterback and reset.
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: You know what I mean?
• 17:09
  Speaker 8: Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of naysayers and a lot of
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: ugliness going on.
• 17:16
  Speaker 7: But I lean on one thing.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: During my time as a Steeler that I always take
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: with me in life.
• 17:23
  Speaker 8: Nobody cares.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: This comes from my talent, so this isn't me saying.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Nobody cares that you have problems. They're just happy you
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: have them. And that's where the mindset has to.
• 17:34
  Speaker 8: Be right now.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Nobody cares about you having an old quarterback. Nobody cares
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: about your defense kind of unraveling. Nobody cares about X, Y, Z.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: It's your problems. You got to deal with them, and
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: you got to fix them because everybody around you, including
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: the Ravens, the Bengals, and Browns, X, Y, and everybody,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: you know, extended to the rest of the FC, if
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: you will, are happy that the Steelers stink. Then that's
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: just the way it is. So I take motivation from that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: I don't take, oh, woe is me. I'm saying good.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Because get me while I'm on my knee. But when
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I stand up, I'm knocking people out. So that would
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: be my mindset going into the Colts game. And that
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: should be everybody in the locker room's mindset as well.
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: Love it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you what, we're going to take a break.
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: But as far as fixing things and some of the
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: things that Mike McCarthy addressed yesterday, there's one thing I
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: get and there's one thing I really don't get. And
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: I'm going to ask the guys about that when we
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: continue in the locker room here on the Steelers Audio Network.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: This is In the Locker Room with Rob King, Max Starks,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and Willie Colon on Steelers Nation Radio. Brought to you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in part by the Steelers Pro Shop. Get it direct
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at shop.steelers.com.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And by your neighborhood Ford store. The F-150 is the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: official truck of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: Watson gets a snap. Blitz coming. Watson steps up, throws left.
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: There's a man wide open.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: It's caught.
• 19:08
  Speaker 10: It's Denzel Boston racing down deep into Steeler's territory just
• 19:13
  Speaker 10: outside the left numbers and finally wrestled down at the
• 19:17
  Speaker 10: 13-yard line by Gale and Everett. He was wide open
• 19:21
  Speaker 10: and picked up 61 yards.
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that was tough.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So that was the last we saw Max of– Rayshon
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: Jenkins for a while. And so here's what I get.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: I'm going to get to what I don't get.
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: In a moment.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: I get that you need to clean up things like communication. Again,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: I don't know whether they were in a cover three
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: look or a man look, and then they audibled out
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: of that. I don't know why Rayshon Jenkins, but it
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: was pretty clear from what Mike McCarthy said, pretty clear
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: in the actions of the game, that Rayshon Jenkins was
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: supposed to be the deep safety, deep half, cover two look.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: and didn't get over there and didn't recognize that. I
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: understand that. I understand communication on the offensive line. They've
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: had trouble, it appears to me, picking up stunts and blitzes.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: So you come into practice and you clean that stuff up.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's the kind of stuff that you can
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: clean up with just repetition and repetition and repetition, I
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: would assume, yes?
• 20:33
  Speaker 9: Yeah, it's something you clean up on reps and communication
• 20:36
  Speaker 9: and Um, definitely because it's just a guy out of place, right?
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: A guy not knowing what to do in the moment.
• 20:42
  Speaker 9: It wasn't like Ray Sean Jenkins got beat off the
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: line and he's in trail and they were in man coverage, right?
• 20:49
  Speaker 9: You know, that's a skill thing, but when you're playing
• 20:52
  Speaker 9: zone and you aren't in the zone that you're expecting,
• 20:55
  Speaker 9: especially for a young rookie like Dalen Everett, you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 9: he's thinking his zone and then Ray Sean Jenkins thinking
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: is possibly man.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: That's why he didn't come over the top and cover Boston.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: those are the things.
• 21:08
  Speaker 9: You know, it's bad eye discipline potentially by Jenkins not
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: looking in the backfield, but we don't know exactly what
• 21:13
  Speaker 9: the play call was.
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: That's right.
• 21:15
  Speaker 9: It's tough to postulate, but I can tell by what
• 21:20
  Speaker 9: Daylon Everett did that he thought it was zone, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 9: because he backed off and played the inside.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: And Mike McCarthy said it wasn't his fault. So now
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: we know.
• 21:31
  Speaker 8: That's right.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I hate that he openly admitted that because it just–
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: you're talking about keeping a defense together.
• 21:40
  Speaker 8: That's how you start finger pointing.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: The only people that need to know whose mistake is
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: it are the people in that room. And this is
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: why it's important for Mike McCarthy moving forward as he
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: continues to try to patch his team together and get
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: this operation going forward. He's going to have to protect
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: the locker room by not answering questions like that because
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: that just gives more, I guess, ammo for the media
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: to kind of dig and pry on why the Steelers
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: aren't performing to the expectations of.
• 22:09
  Speaker 8: The fan base and theirs.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: So those are things that you can't let seek out.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: I think Max alluded to it. If you're a student
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: of the game and you watch what happened, you know
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: what happened, right? Max just articulated what happened. But as
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: a head coach, this is how you eliminate small fires
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: by 19. answering those type of questions because as much
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: as we can sit here and talk about Jenkins giving
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: up pretty much a mental error, we can now, there's
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: another question as to why was Mason McCormick's eyes all
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: over the place during pass protection, right? When they were
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: filling up the double A gaps, instead of looking inside,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: he has a D tackle to the left of him.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: He's taking the line back in the A gap. The
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: D tackle comes free and leaves, and he's now one,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: that D tackle is one-on-one with the running back. So
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: if you're going to answer that question about the defense,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: now you're going to have to answer that question about
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Mason McCormick.
• 23:02
  Speaker 8: You get what I'm saying?
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: So you unlock a box that necessarily you don't have
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: to when simply saying, listen, this is why we're resetting.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: This is why we're going to clean up our house.
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: This is why we're going.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: To do the necessary things that we can't continue to
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: talk about going into week five, six, and seven because
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: only bad teams continue to have those conversations late in
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: the season, especially in the thick of the season. So
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: he has to be careful from a head coach standpoint
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: that he's not– that as much as he's trying to
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: be transparent and honest about what's going on out there,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: there's still a locker room.
• 23:38
  Speaker 8: He has to protect.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: So I know I was perturbed that he answered that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: Does it matter to you that– so first of all,
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: we all saw that Rayshon Jenkins didn't play after that.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Robert Spears Jennings played. He was asked about Dillon Everett.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: I think that's where– And, hey, what about that play
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: he gave up the sideline? And that's where he said, well,
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: it wasn't his fault. So I don't think he was
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: quick to jump in and point his finger. I think
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: he was just trying to say, hey, listen, we believe
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: in Dale and Everett. And, you know, you might have seen–
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: because it's a tricky situation for a coach, isn't it, Willie? Because,
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: you know, you want to defend one player. Hey, wait
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: a minute, that wasn't Dale and Everett's fault. But you
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: don't want to throw another player under the bus. It's
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: kind of a– Kind of a tough spot to be
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: in on a question like that.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Right, but also understand, Rayshon Jenkins is not a young man.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: He's 32 years old.
• 24:31
  Speaker 8: He's been in the league, right?
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: In reality, it was a play that was a significant
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: play that kind of, you know, unraveled in defense and
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: things kind of spiraled out of control and they were
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: able to rebound in the second half to some degree. Nevertheless, man,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: you also, you have to continue to keep, what I
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: mean by protect, yeah, I get what you're saying, Rob. Like,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: all right, you protect the one guy, but you're leaving
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: the other one out to hang.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Those type of questions right now when the locker room
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: is sensitive and our eyes are on the Steelers and
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: the ears are up and guys are looking for ways out.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Because that's part of it too, Rob. You have to understand.
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: Not everybody is committed to the journey because they've never
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: been on a journey.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: You get what I'm saying?
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: They don't know what to expect.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: So when they see the leaders and when they see
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the people in power start to leave other guys kind
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: of out to pasture, whether they mean it or not,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: then you worry about guys– not holding themselves accountable, but
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: also at the same time looking for excuses. When you
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: really kind of have to huddle up, you kind of
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: got to brace. I've never seen 300 when the arrows
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: are all in the sky.
• 25:37
  Speaker 8: What do they do?
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: They all put up their shields and they're high. That's
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: kind of the mindset you have to take right now.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Let's all put up a shield. We know the arrows
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: are coming. They're all coming for us. But we're all
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: we got right now. So we all got to protect
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: each other as one. And that's the mindset. So when
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: you answer those questions, any coach from Mike McCarthy, Patrick Graham,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: on and on and on, it's not a unit thing.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: It's not an I thing. It's a we thing we
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: now have to protect. You've got to protect the continuity
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: and the sanctity of that locker room. That's what makes
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: a strong team, being able to survive these storms, because
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: he's going to get asked questions about individual players, coaches.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: There's still questions about why TJ Roth decided to rip
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: off a headset, put it on, and yell at Patrick Graham.
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: Patrick Graham said, hey, man, I welcome that passion. You know,
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: that comes with the job.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: No defensive-minded head coach wants to hear their star guy
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: on Thursday night ring his neck, right? Because now, like,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: we've never seen that happen with Mike Tomlin. You get
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying? We've never seen Dick LeBeau go through that.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And Dick LeBeau coached the best of the best ever
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: to do it. And I'm pretty sure Troy Palomaro or
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: James Harrison or Lamar Woodley or Casey Hampton or whoever,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: James Ferrer, some of the most elite that ever played,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: the best that played a game or wore the Steelers uniform,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: never clapped at a Dick LeBow. And Dick LeBow was
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: on the sideline right next to those guys. And by
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: the way, Dick LeBow was calling games without a play sheet.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: So none of those guys questioned his judgment or challenged.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: Him in that manner.
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: So... Optics matter.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: We look at social media every day, and there's viral
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: clips and all this. So those viral clips tell a message.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Whether it's out of context or not, there's still a
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: message sent out there. So this is, once again, when
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: you start seeing, and I said this before, I was
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: the most unhinged I've seen the Steelers team before. I've
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: never seen a Steelers team that unhinged, rather. And they
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: have to understand the arrows are in the sky. So
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: it must be shields up. It's not a unit thing.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: It's not an I thing. It's a we thing. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: we got to put our shields up, hot underneath our shields.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And then when the shields fall to the ground, let's
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: go eat.
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: Let's go hunt. And so that has to be collectively
• 27:48
  Speaker 7: what the Steelers have.
• 27:50
  Speaker 8: To do moving forward into the Colts game.
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: Awesome. Well put. A quick aside.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: Max and I, during one of our broadcasts, brought– I've
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: never seen the movie The 300th. But the thermopoly and
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: the hop lights and all that stuff, that came up.
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: That was mentioned on the air, Max, in the middle
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: of a play-by-play.
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: I'm just proud of Willie for making his first movie reference, really,
• 28:15
  Speaker 9: in this conversation.
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: I've never seen it.
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: Is it a good movie?
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: Should I see the movie?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: It's a great movie.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: Excellent movie. All right.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 28:22
  Speaker 9: If you watch that the night before a football game,
• 28:25
  Speaker 9: you're ready to go.
• 28:26
  Speaker 8: Okay. All right.
• 28:28
  Speaker 9: You're ready to go fight King Darius, right? You know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 9: you're ready to go hit the hot gates one time.
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: So let me ask you this, Max, and just to
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: clean up. So, again, my premise going into this break
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: was there's something I get about cleaning up your own
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: house and there's something I don't get. And so I
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: get that you want to clean up the coverage on
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: the back end, Max, I get that you want to
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: clean up the pass protection, and I think a lot
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: of that is cleanup. Some of it is guys getting beat, sure,
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: but a lot of it is cleanup, and then, hey,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: if you got five on five, who's going to be open, right?
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: If you got five guys blocking, I get all that, right?
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's something you can fix, right, Max? I mean, here,
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: you go to practice, and the defense, you know, the
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: scout team runs a bunch of twists and stunts on you,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: and You keep doing it and doing it and doing
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: it and doing it until you get better at it, right?
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's kind of what happens. And I understand that, correct?
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: That's what's going to happen here, right?
• 29:26
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's the standard operating procedure, right? We need more reps,
• 29:30
  Speaker 9: which is crazy to say that when we watched training
• 29:34
  Speaker 9: camp and it looked like you know, it looked like
• 29:36
  Speaker 9: you were staring at a live ant farm.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:38
  Speaker 9: Because everybody was going everywhere. There was so many drills
• 29:41
  Speaker 9: and I was getting stuff done. But it comes down
• 29:45
  Speaker 9: to maybe you made it too simple in the beginning.
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: And then you and then you kind of hit warp
• 29:51
  Speaker 9: speed into the regular season and kind of miss some steps.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Along the way.
• 29:56
  Speaker 9: You know, football is foundational like math, right? Like you've
• 29:59
  Speaker 9: got to have a steady foundation in order to build
• 30:02
  Speaker 9: upon that, right? To build the more intricate equations, you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 9: when you get into more of calculus, right? But you've
• 30:09
  Speaker 9: got to have a strong, firm foundation, addition, subtraction, multiplication,
• 30:14
  Speaker 9: division before you can even get to geometry. You know,
• 30:17
  Speaker 9: there's just so many steps along the way. And maybe
• 30:22
  Speaker 9: you do have to just make it simple because these
• 30:23
  Speaker 9: are high-level athletes and And that want to communicate and
• 30:27
  Speaker 9: you had to do it in an instant.
• 30:29
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 30:29
  Speaker 9: You know, the one thing, you know, and it's funny,
• 30:31
  Speaker 9: I talked to this, I talked about this with my
• 30:33
  Speaker 9: wife a couple of times, you know, she's like, you
• 30:37
  Speaker 9: guys move slow out there.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: I was like, what do you mean you move slow?
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: She's like, I don't know.
• 30:41
  Speaker 9: It's like, cause you guys know what you're doing. And
• 30:44
  Speaker 9: it just, I said, yeah, because you know, we've repped this.
• 30:48
  Speaker 9: So when we walk to the line of scrimmage, we're
• 30:50
  Speaker 9: diagnosing and taking in information in a three, four or
• 30:53
  Speaker 9: five second span and that lets us know multiple things, right?
• 30:58
  Speaker 9: Three technique in the ground and we're running counter. We
• 31:01
  Speaker 9: know it's a deuce block. So I now know it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 9: a deuce. Okay, so now that I've eliminated that, now
• 31:05
  Speaker 9: I'm looking for where? Backside backer. You know, where's that
• 31:08
  Speaker 9: backside backer?
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Is he plused? Is he minused? Is he actually in
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: the spot where I need?
• 31:13
  Speaker 9: What's the angle that I'm going to have to take
• 31:15
  Speaker 9: to get to that guy? And then also if this guy,
• 31:18
  Speaker 9: you know, loops across the face, I got to take
• 31:20
  Speaker 9: him and I got to bump Willie off. So Willie
• 31:22
  Speaker 9: goes to the backer. How are we going to communicate that? Okay,
• 31:25
  Speaker 9: my footwork is here. And then boom, you know, the
• 31:28
  Speaker 9: quarterback's calling the play count. And I had to take
• 31:30
  Speaker 9: in all that information. And I have to go out
• 31:34
  Speaker 9: there and perform. But that's repetition. It becomes a reaction.
• 31:38
  Speaker 9: And right now it's still not a reaction because you
• 31:40
  Speaker 9: got your right side still trying to put things in
• 31:42
  Speaker 9: their head.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: That is the left side offensively.
• 31:45
  Speaker 9: And then you have two new guys that are understanding
• 31:48
  Speaker 9: which way is up and trying to figure out how
• 31:50
  Speaker 9: do I do my job within this? Okay, I don't
• 31:53
  Speaker 9: remember this. Can I communicate? Do I trust the guy
• 31:55
  Speaker 9: next to me to ask it? Hey, I don't know
• 31:57
  Speaker 9: what I'm doing. Willie talked about it yesterday, right? You know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 9: he had Kendall Simmons and Darnell Stable. Hey, what do
• 32:04
  Speaker 9: I do here?
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: You know, I forgot.
• 32:05
  Speaker 9: I blacked out, you know, and you have to try
• 32:08
  Speaker 9: and eliminate those breakages in communication of breakages in knowledge
• 32:13
  Speaker 9: and try and work on a way to where we
• 32:15
  Speaker 9: all can run the same play. 11 guys have to
• 32:18
  Speaker 9: be on the same page because all it takes is
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: one to break it down.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Like we played on that play.
• 32:23
  Speaker 9: Rayshawn Jenkins not being in the right spot, you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 9: those are the things that happen, but also Mason McCormick, right,
• 32:29
  Speaker 9: not knowing his rules, so he's sitting there, I got
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: to still tap the guy, I seen shotgun, we're away,
• 32:34
  Speaker 9: it's loud as hell, I got to tap the guy
• 32:36
  Speaker 9: on the butt to let him know, but I'm still
• 32:37
  Speaker 9: trying to figure out, well, what am I supposed to
• 32:39
  Speaker 9: be doing, where was that mic point again, you know, okay,
• 32:43
  Speaker 9: and if the mic walks all the way to the outside, okay,
• 32:45
  Speaker 9: Am I kicking out? Am I giving a fan call?
• 32:47
  Speaker 9: Am I giving an out call? Or am I taking
• 32:50
  Speaker 9: a squeeze call because now it's double mug? Does the
• 32:53
  Speaker 9: back know?
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: What am I doing? Am I tapping the inside of
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: my butt to let them know?
• 32:56
  Speaker 9: Am I putting a hand behind my back to let them.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: Know where I'm going?
• 32:59
  Speaker 9: I need to know these things so that I can
• 33:02
  Speaker 9: be better prepared so that we can all do our
• 33:04
  Speaker 9: job together.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: There's just so much, but it takes reps. It takes time.
• 33:07
  Speaker 9: That's why I said the offensive line is one. It
• 33:09
  Speaker 9: takes time because that's five guys working as one. You know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 9: as I talk about the precision of the temptation, Steve
• 33:15
  Speaker 9: Harvey said this, five guys, one mic, right? Five dance routines,
• 33:21
  Speaker 9: one mic. You come back to one mic. And that's
• 33:24
  Speaker 9: kind of how it is. We all come back to
• 33:26
  Speaker 9: one rule, one call. And that's what sets the rest
• 33:31
  Speaker 9: of the line play off of that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we could have a temptations discussion, but I'm going
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: to veer away from that.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: We do use the temptation role, though. I do.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: Because they're a two-career type of, you know, they're the Motown,
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: and then there's the, you know, psychedelic shack, that era
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: of the temptations, which I'm more inclined to enjoy. But anyway,
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: we'll push that for another day. When it's raining out
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: and the sun isn't so shiny. Because I want to
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: get to the question. So I get all that stuff, Willie.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I get it. I get you have to work through stuff.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: We talked about this. Max said give him five or
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: six weeks on the offensive line. Now you've got two
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: new guys. So now it's going to take a little
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: bit longer.
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: I get it.
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: I get the breakdowns happen. You don't want them to
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: happen on the back end. We've seen them happen. There's
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: been years for this too. A few years ago, guys
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: were running free all through the secondary.
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: I get it.
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: I get that part of it. Here's what I don't get.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: You know, somebody asked about the tackling. We've got to
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: go back to the fundamentals of tackling. And I understand
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: that even pros are trying.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: To get better.
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: Hit somebody.
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: You're trying to get better at catching the ball. You're
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: trying to get better at keeping your hands inside or
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: whatever I'm blocking. How can you not be– this is
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: what I don't get. How can you not be a
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: good tackler?
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: You're in the NFL.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Because they don't practice it. They don't practice it enough.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: They don't hit somebody. That's just not a– That's not
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: a stealer problem. That's the league problem. You see bad teams,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: good teams, mistackles all the time. The problem is we
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: just don't practice it enough and dummies don't hit back.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you need to feel the blow to understand how
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: to attack a blow.
• 35:18
  Speaker 8: When you're going against some of these premier.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Backs who are big leg, big butt, wide calves, who
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: are built like mini juggernauts, coming to the party isn't
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: just about wrapping your arms around a guy and rolling
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: and hoping he goes down. There's a science to it.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Tackling.
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: And, you know, tackling is.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: The ability to get your head, neck, body, your torso
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: across with force and bringing a guy to the ground.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: If you're simply... Like, I don't know how much Junkin
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: weighs or whoever. Like, Derek Henry's the probably biggest back
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: that comes to mind right now. Derek Henry's 6'2, 6'3,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: 220 pounds, 245 pounds, but.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: He's built like.
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: He's built like Evander Holyfield.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? So.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: If you're a linebacker, if you're a guy who has
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: to get him down one-on-one, it's about leverage, wear your
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: hat placement, and bring your hips and your butt with you.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: And one of the best tacklers I've seen in my time,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: and there was a lot of them, but I can
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: only speak for my house, along with James Ferry.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: James wasn't a big linebacker.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: He didn't have a daunting figure, but he was a
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: damn good tackler because he understood speed. leverage and how
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: to run his feet on contact. All those things you
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: have to work with against a body. You can't work
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: against a dummy and sure you can tackle a ring.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: You can tackle a wheel that rolls and you can
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: work on how to fit up and all that stuff.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: But essentially you got to somehow incorporate live tackling and
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: we're in, and really honing on the details, what it
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: means to bring a guy down to the ground. With
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: all that said, we know what the league says about that.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: We know how science feels about that. There's a lot
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: of caution that comes with live tackling. Nevertheless, man, you
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: see the disjointedness when guys aren't practicing tackling. The guy
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: you're tackling is moving a million miles an hour. By
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the way, he's built like a Ford truck. If you're
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: not accustomed to you know tackling and doing what you
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: need to do to bring those type of guys down
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: to the ground you're gonna have missed tackles and collectively
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: you know me and max said this plenty of times
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: on the show you know game tackling is an attitude
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: um it's not just about getting one guy it's not
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: the guy at the bottom has to wrap the legs
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: nose all all hats to the party and i said
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: this yesterday and i don't want to keep being repetitive
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: but you see it throughout the league guys are kind
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: of doing this half tackle peanut punch type thing. Yeah.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Like, get the guy down first. You know what I mean?
• 37:55
  Speaker 8: Like, I get you want to, like, and I understand it.
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: T.J.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Watt has made a hell of a career doing it,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: and he has made some big plays doing it.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: But that's T.J.
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: Watt.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Leave that to T.J.
• 38:04
  Speaker 8: Watt, right?
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: And it's not like he's missing a bunch of tackles
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: out there, too. You know what I mean? He's doing
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: both at the same time.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: Listen, let's stop right there. I want to explore this further,
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: but we have to take a little bit of a break.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: We're also going to go around the NFL, look back
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: to last night's Monday night game. There's some major injury
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: news that could affect the Steelers as well. We'll get
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: to all that stuff when we continue in the locker
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: room here on the Steelers Audio Network.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: This is In the Locker Room with Rob King, Max Starks,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and Willie Colon on Steelers Nation Radio. Brought to you
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: in part by the Steelers Pro Shop. Get it direct
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: from the team at the Steelers Pro Shop at shop.steelers.com.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And by your neighborhood Ford store. The F-150 is the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: official truck of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: Julio McLaughlin is checked into the game. He is to
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: the left.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: And gets the handoff, moving to the right, has a
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: big hole.
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: Gets around the end, crosses the 20, steps out of
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: a tackle. Zips between two would-be tacklers. And you can
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: hear the roar of the crowd.
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: That is a touchdown for the Browns, a 28-yard run
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: for McLaughlin.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: It's not acceptable.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Everybody knows that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I think the players have been very accountable in the conversation.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: With the coaches.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Most importantly, we need to be accountable because We're going
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: to make sure they're demanding and to teach and in
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the emphasis and the time permitting um is is it
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: needs to be better you know we've been inconsistent um
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: so and you know we talked about this i think
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: last week or the week before but you know really
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: um if you look at the old The old training regimen,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: you know, it's really about the fourth week of the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: season where you feel like you're coming out of training camp.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: So training camp's over, and we're 2-2. So we need
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: to be better in our fundamentals.
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: Welcome back inside the locker room here on the Steelers
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: Audio Network with Max Starks and Willie Colon.
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: I'm Rob King.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: We've been talking a little bit about these, and we
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: understand some of the fundamentals, our communication.
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: You hope those things get sharpened up. It's not like
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: this is just this Steelers team. We've seen it in
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: the past. We've seen it. Again, I go back.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: It was a couple years ago where it just felt
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: like the Steelers were giving up huge play after huge
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: play down the field, and guys were looking around at
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: each other, shrugging, pointing, aren't you.
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: Supposed to be here? Get all that. That happens. That's
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: part of it. You don't want it to happen.
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: But this, again, Max, just following up for the final
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: time here on this notion about tackling, there are certain
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: fundamentals that I think you feel like should be part
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: of a guy's game. when he gets to the NFL level.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: And I understand he can get better at it. You know,
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: quarterbacks can hopefully get more accurate. Receivers can hopefully be
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: better at catching the ball. So, in this extra bye week,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: can you get better at tackling? Because tackling was definitely
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: an issue against the Cleveland Browns. Mike McCarthy mentioned it
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: at halftime, and he talked about it after the game,
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: and then he talked about it again on Monday.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: No, it is something you can get better at. I mean, listen...
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: A lot of these guys are veterans that.
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: Were making these tackles, so they know how to tackle.
• 41:12
  Speaker 9: It's just having a refresher. And, you know, I know
• 41:16
  Speaker 9: that there's injuries right now to the team. You know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 9: Jamel Dean, Derek Harmon goes on IR, and you have
• 41:22
  Speaker 9: all these injuries league-wide. But I think you have to
• 41:26
  Speaker 9: have those physical sessions. You just got to have them.
• 41:29
  Speaker 9: You would love to have them during training camp, but
• 41:31
  Speaker 9: I get it, Mike McCarthy. that wasn't a philosophy that
• 41:35
  Speaker 9: he believes. He's like, yeah, we've hit a camp and
• 41:36
  Speaker 9: we haven't hit a camp.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: Things have been good and things have not been good. Well,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: right now things aren't good. So it looks like you've
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: got to go.
• 41:41
  Speaker 9: Back to the drawing board and go against what you
• 41:44
  Speaker 9: think your philosophy was for this.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Season and retool it and rethink it just for a week.
• 41:49
  Speaker 9: It's not saying you need to come out every Wednesday
• 41:51
  Speaker 9: and go and bang your heads up against the wall.
• 41:53
  Speaker 9: Even though we did have five plays every Wednesday, and
• 41:56
  Speaker 9: Willie can attest to.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: This, Well, that's what I was going to say. I'm
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: glad you cleaned that up because I was like, we
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: did it. We made it a religion, and that's the problem.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: There's a brand of football that we was accustomed to playing,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: which made us the most physical outfit at times, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: other teams tapped because of it, and that's why I
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: understand McCarthy has his way, but there's a Steeler way,
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: and I understand the science behind the Steeler way, but.
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: And it comes with a cost.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: And so I'm aware of that. But right now, if
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: we're being honest about the fundamentals, this team isn't physical enough.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: And you're seeing a regression. And we watched it Thursday.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, we could talk about tackling. But tackling
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: is also not only a mindset, it's not only a
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: skill set, but it's also an attitude and a brand
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: in which you adhere to.
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: But you have to live that life.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: And so when you hear people, Rob, I know you're
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: not a part of the younger generation like BMX, but
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: you hear a lot of kids, the younger kids say,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I'm about that life. Well, being about that life is
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: living a physical life in practice. We had physical practices.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: So it was nothing for us to go against another team.
• 43:07
  Speaker 8: Who felt they was as physical as us.
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: And when they realized they weren't, they tapped. And so
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: we see it.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: It's not just a Steeler thing, too. Like, if you
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: watch the Bears right now, like I watched the Chicago
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Bears absolute kick the living dog out of the New
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: York Jets for four quarters, right? And it wasn't just
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: a scheme problem. They were just out-physicaled in every category
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: because you can tell Ben Johnson... is practicing and preparing
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: in a way where those guys only know one way.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: And that's how we and Max were brought up in
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: the Steeler culture. There's a method to the madness. And, yes,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: once again, the madness comes with a price. But when
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: you start to get thick and you're in the thick
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: of the season and it gets late and you've got
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: to have it games and you don't want your 43-year-old
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: quarterback throwing the ball 43 times to 50 times a game,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: you're going to have to lean on a run game.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: And in order to have a productive run game, you're
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: going to have to be physical.
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: Double teams, right?
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Double teams and zone blocking and all those things matter
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: so you can eat up the yards in between the 20s.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And on the defensive side, gang tackling and collapsing pockets and.
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: Opposing your will on your opposition matters.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: But you just can't turn it on. That's not humanly possible.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: You have to be accustomed to only one way. It's
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: not as complex as people like to make it, right?
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: A lion only knows how to be a lion. He
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: doesn't know how to be any other thing.
• 44:36
  Speaker 7: He lives a lion life.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: That's how the Steelers have to continue to that brand
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: that was set way before me and Max, way before
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: anybody else.
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: Joe Green and those guys, they set a standard on
• 44:48
  Speaker 7: how they play football.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: It was physical, nasty, and aggressive from one through four quarters.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: They may have gotten beat, but you went home limping.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: And so that's what we're not witnessing. That's what we're
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: not seeing out of this ball club collectively. And the
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: positive side to it is that you have an opportunity
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: early in the season to address it, fix it, but
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: also make proper adjustments. That's conducive to the team overall.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And so we'll see, man. I don't think this is
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: something that can't be fixed in a week. I think
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: it just needs to be a detailed approach and also
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: understanding that from here on in, If you want to
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: be positive, if you want to feel like you're trending
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: in the direction, then you're going to have to implement
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: things in practice that make sure you get what you
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: want on Sundays. And that's the bottom line. And Mike
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: McCarthy's been around this league long enough to know what
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: that looks like.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: There are two things. Max is nodding his head. I'm
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: nodding my head.
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: There's two things that I think the Steelers can do
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: to help that.
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: And I want to ask the guys about that. We're
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: also going to get.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: To some injury news, some Some pretty significant injury news
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: in the NFL, and that may be not long-term, but
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: certainly can shake things up in both the NFC and
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: the AFC.
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: We'll get to that.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: Look back to Monday Night Football because Steelers are going
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: to be playing that team that won last night in
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: a couple weeks in Paris. I beg your pardon, the
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: team that lost last night in a couple weeks in Paris.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: So we'll evaluate what we saw to the New Orleans Saints.
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: The Falcons' win is looking a little bit better now all.
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: Of a sudden too. We'll get to all that stuff.
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: We continue in the locker room on the Steelers Audio Network.