Welcome to DK Sports Radio and a new Daily Shot of Steelers, my every-weekday, half-hour program on the local football franchise. Today's episode: This offensive line's problem is a lot simpler than anything related to coaching.
Also, hey, just below, you'll find a full transcript of the opening segment:
Subscribe to our channel on one of our many platforms:
• Apple
• Google
• iHeartRadio
• Spotify
• Stitcher
The more devices are set to auto-downloads, the healthier this venture will be, so thank you in advance!
TRANSCRIPT
Steelers Nation has spent the better part of this week fussing over an offensive line coach being promoted, when in fact, the coaching really wasn't the issue.
I have more respect than I can begin to try to quantify for you for Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Alejandro Villanueva, all of whom are going to get ripped here pretty good. Because the offensive line performance that we witnessed in 2020 was abominable, especially when it came to run-blocking. I don't want to go all the way and say that these guys checked out. It's a very real thing that they were conditioned to pass-blocking, two-point stances and all that other stuff. That's been the way they've performed for the better part of their careers. But I also was there when these guys loved -- and I mean loved -- run-blocking. Especially Maurkice and Dave, right up the middle. I watched these guys, when they were blocking for Le'Veon Bell, DeAngelo Williams when he arrived, all the pulling that they were doing, but also just the straight-on knocking guys backward. They took such pride in it. They enjoyed it. After the game, you'd ask them about this or that or whatever, and they would keep coming back to the run-blocking and how much fun it was, big smiles and all. They were just so into it.
I don't know what happened in 2020. Everybody gets older. Everybody gets a little bit tired of getting beaten up, worn down, you know. And maybe that's it, maybe that's what happened. With all three of them.
Whatever it was, it couldn't have been any coincidence that as soon as Kevin Dotson would come onto the field, you'd notice it. Not a little bit of a difference. There was a huge difference. Dotson was taking guys downfield. And I'm not taking anything away from Dotson -- he was really good -- but he shouldn't have stood out anywhere near that much. And he did. And that's because these other guys just weren't into it. I don't have another explanation. I can't accept that all three of them were, you know, just, that they just all hit their career walls at the same time physically and just couldn't block anybody anymore. I can't buy that. That's way too convenient. I just think they reached a point where they just didn't want to do it anymore. They were ready to stand there and protect Ben Roethlisberger, all day and all night. That's been the No. 1 thing that they've been conditioned to do, in fairness. That's the way they've always been trained. That's the reason that you always saw them in the two-point stance instead of the three. But that became the only thing that they wanted to do. And when you have your head coach saying offensive line's not being physical enough, you have the offensive coordinator saying the offensive line's not being physical enough. And they're throwing these messages out to the public, which is something that the Steelers never do on any front ... it wasn't exactly some deeply guarded secret.
So what do you do?
Adrian Klemm, the new offensive line coach, isn't going to be able to walk into that classroom. depending on who's still there -- I mean, Villianueva's a free agent, Maurkice is a good bet for retirement, so let's say Dave is still there -- what do you say to Dave to get him going?
"Hey, Dave, now that I'm the main offensive line coach instead of the assistant offensive line coach, mind if I ask you a question? What the heck was that? What were you doing last season? Do you not want to do this? If you don't want to do it, please, by all means, just let me know. I'll find somebody."
If I'm the Steelers, I'm looking very, very hard at a total transfusion of that offensive line. And I know that's dangerous. I know that's risky. I know the value and the importance of an offensive line no matter how talented is no matter how hungry it is. Finding chemistry of working with each other of communicating properly. Because again, their principal assignment is to keep the franchise quarterback upright. To which, one more time, give these guys credit that he didn't when we all were sure he would. But I don't care because the hunger has to be there. It has to be there. And if that means a total transfusion, go nuts.
I can build an offensive line right here that has Zach Banner at left tackle. Or Chuks Okorafor, however you want to align these guys based on their individual strengths and histories. I don't really care which one's left, which one's right. You have Dotson on the inside. Matt Feiler's a free agent, and I forgot to even mention him. I wasn't crazy about his play on the interior. He never should have said yes when Mike Tomlin asked him to move inside. He was an effective right tackle, he would have gotten paid a lot more in free agency if he insisted on staying at right tackle. He took one for the team, and it didn't go well for him or for the team either. But I've got now three offensive linemen. It's three young guys and I trust them to come through with that hunger and passion and everything else that you need. And in the case of Chuks, certainly, you now have a body of work. Something to build off of.
All of that's good. All of that's important. But you obviously need a lot more. You do you need a lot more.
I don't know about Dave, I really don't know what to say about Dave right now. It's a hard read. And there's just too much that he's done in Pittsburgh too well for too long for me to hold this position too strongly, if that makes any sense. But I saw what I saw in 2020, and I don't accept that it was all injury-based or the fact that he, you know, missed some of training camp and then was in again, out again. There's just something that wasn't right there. And it couldn't have been just physical.
This team needs a real makeover on the offensive line and, from there, that's when Klemm will either earn his dollars or not, because that's when you have to infuse that chemistry and cohesion and communication even as your new offensive coordinator is supposed to be running all kinds of clever schemes to make your running game less predictable.
Oh, man, you know what?
We could talk about a million other things related to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2021 that are a whole lot sexier than this, you know, but the truth is, this will probably matter more than all of the rest of them put together. I'm not kidding. Like, I could sit here and talk to you about, you know, JuJu Smith-Schuster's TikToks and get everybody's blood flowing and whatever else. None of that is gonna matter anywhere near as much as what I just mentioned. And remember that I said that.