Behind the Steel Curtain
It’s been seven long months, but we finally have some real life football to talk about. Or at least as close to real as preseason games can get. The Steelers played the Jaguars over the weekend and gave us our first look at the roster in action. Several starters did not play, of course, but we got glimpses of several newcomers and the Steelers emerged from Jacksonville with a 31-25 victory.
This week, Read & React shares some observations from Week 1 of the preseason and takes stock of the roster battles to follow for the next couple of weeks.
RB: For some post-game snap reactions, I’ll plug my weekly takeaways column if you haven’t checked it out already. I had over 2,000 words worth of thoughts then, so I’ll try not to double down on anything I already wrote.
But now, the all-22 has been released from the game, giving me a chance to re-watch some plays and get a better idea of the Steelers’ trench play and schematics. And sure enough, I saw (or confirmed) some new things worth getting excited about.
But first, I’ll give the floor to Ryan, who hasn’t had the chance to publish his thoughts on the Steelers’ preseason opener yet. What stood out to you?
RP: Thanks, Ryland. When I look at preseason games, I mostly focus on individual performances. During these games, teams are mostly running vanilla concepts, and we don’t often see extended periods of play from expected starters. While we can pick up some impressions about position group battles and other team trends, there’s also a reason why the stars of the preseason are usually afterthoughts once the regular season is in full swing.
Saturday’s game left me with three players whom I wanted to discuss, in part because they should end up with important roles this season. We’ll talk about Brandin Echols a little later on, so I’d like to use this space to talk about a couple of trench players.
Let’s start with a Steeler we both felt optimistic about following the game: rookie fifth-rounder, Yahya (why-yay) Black.
From our pre-production discussion above, I think it’s pretty clear how Ryland and I felt about the former Hawkeye’s debut performance.
Black is a massive individual (6’6, 335 pounds), whose ability to stack and shed offensive linemen makes him an asset defending the run. That was clearly a point of emphasis for the Steelers this offseason when we look at the collective moves they have made.
However, what impressed me most on Saturday was Black’s ability to generate pressure with a combo of speed and power. Black isn’t winning any 40-yard dash contests, but his short-area burst popped on tape, revealing the rookie is quicker than he might initially appear. And when he wasn’t able to create pressure on the quarterback, Black did a good job of...
