Scout’s Eye with Matt Williamson: Earned respect

In this episode, Matt Williamson talks about how teams play against you, shows how they treat you, and the Bills treated Joey Porter Jr. with respect.

#HereWeGo #Pittsburgh #Steelers

Watch former Steelers guard Ramon Foster’s show LIVE every weekday at 4 p.m. Eastern! Hear award-winning columnist Dejan Kovacevic’s Daily Shots of Steelers every weekday morning!
And much more!

SUBSCRIBE ► https://youtube.com/@DKPittsburghSportsSteelers

CHANNEL MEMBERSHIPS ► https://DKPS.net/join

MERCH ► https://dkps.net/ramonshop

APPS ► https://dkps.net/apple | https://dkps.net/android

WEBSITE ► http://dkpittsburghsports.com

PODCASTS ► https://linktr.ee/dkpghsports

FACEBOOK ► https://www.facebook.com/DKPittsburghSports/

THREADS ► https://www.threads.net/@dkpghsports

INSTAGRAM ► https://www.instagram.com/dkpghsports/

X ► https://x.com/DKPghSports

Matt Williamson on X ► https://x.com/WilliamsonNFL

ABOUT US ► DK Pittsburgh Sports is the proud, pioneering, fully independent venture begun in 2014 by award-winning columnist Dejan Kovacevic and featuring a professional staff covering the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates year-round and everywhere they go! This is where it all started!

Well hello everyone I am Matt Williamson how is everyone doing this fine Blustery Day pretty chilly out there um I kind of lied earlier in the week I I’m going to do this will probably be my last Bills Steelers uh podcast for you know for the

Season but still a lot more notes that I dug up that I want to talk about so something we talked about yesterday was I wanted to see the snap count on the Georgia rookies and I I feel like both have kind of hit a wall that they’ve been asked to

Do a lot more at the NFL level which is case for all rookies but especially for them than they did in college and it’s definitely true so here’s what I found was Jones Roger Jones played the most preseason snaps of any Steeler player he played 141 snaps in the heat in the preseason

And that was on purpose they knew he wasn’t going to start the season they wanted to give him as much experience or reps as possible to get better I understood that I mean I’m not being critical I just think that these guys have both hit a rookie wall so he played

141 preseason snaps then he played 766 regular season snaps and the entire game on on Monday so that’s about double what he would have play that’s like double a Georgia season give or take and the same is true for Washington if you paid attention to him as a draft

Prospect Brock Bowers and him split time so he wasn’t even on the field all the time plus plus with both these guys at Georgia when they’re winning 50 to nothing they put the freshman in and you know so they don’t play every snap of every game against Bad teams too so the

Workload that these two have had is basically double what they were asked to do at any point of their college career let alone high school but Washington Washton played 72 preseason snaps which is a lot 509 regular and a playoff game so both these guys have been on the field a

Lot since being drafted and it doesn’t worry me so much that their performance particularly blockers well I mean that’s all Jones does but his past protection and you know dwindled as the season went on I think that’s to be expected and not such a terrible crime um I don’t have the percentages but

Rewatching the game this I we talked about going into the game that I would not have blitzed Allen very much I would have dropped eight a lot well they disagreed with me they blitzed him quite a bit and I understand that they didn’t have Watt and they wanted to get home

And you know rattle them and all in all through the air he didn’t torture you but it’s not the approach I would have taken I said that last week but they did Blitz him a lot this you know we talked about it coming in that the bills used a

Sixth offensive lineman the second highest rate in the league in this game onethird of their snaps was in jumbo had had six offensive linemen on the field that is a huge number like they were second with 8% let alone 33% and some of their most successful

Like if you just look at success rate you know like how successful they were play after play their best personal groupings were in 12 you know with one back two tight ends or 12 jumbo with one back two tight ends but one of those tight ends is the extra linan so what

Does that tell you they didn’t want they know the Steelers are either a base team or a dime team well they wanted the base you know they they don’t they want those frankly bad linebackers on the field they you know with the depth the Steelers were getting at safety back for

This game they didn’t want a bunch of defensive backs on the field they wanted the big heavy guys and it worked um I don’t know if we talked about this but they they highlighted it on the broadcast and I thought it was good stuff and just I did mention that

Cam Hayward played looked like cam Hayward for that final game which makes me sleep easier for the offseason to be honest with you but I did like that their their onoff splits that they talked about on the air that if Cam’s on the field throw it if he’s off the field run

It now this isn’t revolutionary this isn’t Reinventing the wheel but I think it’s something we need to be conscious of looking back at games as well as you know you don’t want that to be the case going forward it’s kind of like the whole don’t play nickel enough situation

Like if you do this and we’re going to do this and if you do this we’re going to do this and neither one you really have an answer for you know that’s not ideal one thing they did that I thought was also why I’m having these

Conversations is I love teams tell you a lot about the Steelers by how they game plan around them so one thing that they did is they had him not only in the slot Diggs but they had two people outside him so he was the third guy in from the

Sideline and you know a lot of tight ends and Shakir were lined outside of digs well why’ they do that to try to get him away from Porter I mean because they fear is a strong were but they wanted to avoid Porter I mean that’s great respect for the rookie Corner

That’s exactly why they did it from their perspective they got hit hard real hard by linebacker injuries and you know as Steeler fans over the last 6 months you guys saw how bad it could be when your linebackers are decimated with injuries and you’re pulling dudes off

The practice squad or off the couch in Miles Jack’s case well it was a huge problem for the bills and the Steelers did exploit it well as this as that game went on and I’m curious you know just for the Chiefs game will they have these

Guys back but the term I heard the term term I was using was their defense was kind of holding on for deer life you know that the longer that game go went the Steelers were ripping their linebackers apart been there done it it’s a helpless feeling of course give

The bills credit they were outstanding in this game efficient not mistake prone at all on third and fourth Downs I thought was a key should have brought up you know right after the game but you know money Downs or weighty Downs as Tomlin likes to say um the Steelers

Greatly won the Special Teams battle but got crushed in the turnover battle um batted passes they were a big deal you know they they hurt the Steelers quite a bit I tend to think that’s fluky but maybe it’s a Rudolph thing maybe it’s you know the pitcher

That’s been around the league you find out some of his tells you know maybe there’s something that they caught on to for batting down passes for him something just to keep an eye on um I’ve told you yards per route run is one of of the most telling receiver stats and

If you’re over two yards per route run as a wide out you’re doing really good work you know Tyreek was unbelievable year I think he was like at four which is like historical but tight ends obviously don’t have that same high standard but Fri MTH was at 2.6 yards

Per route run in this game which is extremely high for a tight end cancade was at 2.7 so big day for the two tight ends in terms of their effectiveness their efficiency that showed up um the the numbers Pro Football Focus puts out some things you know like

Weighted box you know those type of things and their numbers as does the the tape show that the bills really stack the box I mean almost no matter what the down and distance was I told you they’re a two high team but they played a lot of

Single high just because they tell you what they’re worried about and that was a Steelers Run game still they managed a 43% pressure rate on Rudolph for the game so on 43% of his dropbacks he felt some sort of pressure which somebody’s saying that’s a pressure that’s not but you get the

Idea that’s a lot and along with the stack box things I took I think it took the Steelers way too long or maybe they’re just too set in their ways or quarterback dependent to realize you got to throw against the heavy boxes you know especially on early Downs

I if they’re putting eight in the box and you can only block six of them or whatever don’t run the ball you know I mean I don’t know how much Freedom they have at this point or we’re just going to run it no matter what and I mean I

Understand that but running into heavy boxes just isn’t a winning formula [Applause] Obviously with NFL playoffs here and the NBA season Rolling Along bet online has you covered with all the up to the second odds news and scores with additional odds lines Trends and info from both desktop and mobile you can access the world’s best wagering information anytime head there today to

Get into the action and see all the updated odds remember to use our promo code B leave B A all one word all cap to receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit bet online where the game starts we’ve been saying this for weeks and it

Just really showed in a playoff game against a good team the the back seven of the Steeler defense horrific tackling old slow I mean Michael Walker and Peterson and KY and I mean not Porter not Fitz you know not M obviously I love Al Landon Robert s but as a whole

Just too old and slow on the back seven and it gets exposed against the Canad and Diggs and Josh Allen uh Benton watching him again was really really good in this game I mean he was a stud again mostly against Mitch moris their their starting center who’s

Certainly a you 10th best center in the league he’s a longtime Pro a really good player Benton beat him up also thought it was a really good game from row I think you need to bring him back in some capacity maybe not as a starter but you want him on the

Team the Steelers left side of the o line was really good in this game too calu and Moore did quite well Cole was unbelievably bad I mean he was horrific just one of his maybe his worst game which is saying a lot and Jones who we talked about to open in the

Show I thought he had a real tough day as well mostly against Leonard Floyd FL who’s also a high quality player but the Rook got beat up on pretty good Allen was clearly the best player on the field and it really wasn’t even close I mean it’s kind of that simple at

Times you know like they got Michael Jordan you know um and we’ll La put a bow on this bills thing here with some snap count stuff they snapped the ball 66 times on offense the receiver distribution was 59 for pickings 56 for Johnson 28 for Austin remember Robinson

Got hurt Robinson was there for 26 though boyin for 10 who took over some of the Robinson blocking tight end duties um speaking of tight ends Fri MTH played 44 Washington just 23 Hayward 16 Williams 2 Harris out snapped Warren 38-28 defense they only played one more

Snap than they did on offense 67 snaps cam was out there for 55 of them you know talking about the Run pass well the the run or not run when cam was out there really good game from him again I’m going to sleep a lot easier this off season with hayward’s last performance

Ogen Joby 50 Benton 33 probably should have more in hindsight you could say that about every game Watts who’s I’m a fan of I thought he played well again I thought he had a really good year 13 Adams 11 louder milk just four high Smith played 65 golden played 51 herbig played 20

Only had nine pass rushing snaps though from what I gathered think you need to get herbig out there more Roberts played 41 Walker played 28 26 for Jack 23 for Robinson the safeties Minka played every snap row only missed 10 KZ only played

20 KZ is not a very good Player Pro so I mean he’s a third or fourth safety Peterson only miss one snap at corner Porter as you remember got injured but he was out there for 49 of them Wallace for 30 6 Sullivan for 20 and Pierre for

Two so that’s a wrap on Steelers bills I have a new article should be up today go check that out and we’ll talk about all kinds of good stuff going forward over and Out