1-0 to start the preseason.
I’m not saying that I’m not the smartest man alive, but I’m also not not gonna not not say that.
We started off strong. Last week we crushed the Under and won. We listened to what coaches said in the press conferences last week and we reaped the benefits. It was easy because Mike Tomlin and Mike McCarthy are two simpletons, which is great. Simple people are very easy to understand.
This week though? Hooooo buddy. This week is gonna be a hoot.
We get Mike Tomlin v. Nick Sirianni. Quite the predicament. QUITE THE PREDICAMENT INDEED.
Tomlin is the easy one. In his press conference, he said they were gonna essentially do the same thing as last week. Keep it simple and get guys reps and find out who’s worth keeping.
That makes sense, especially with the new roster cutting rules where they only gotta get rid of like, 5 guys on the first cut.
Cool, great, fantastic. Low caliber play from the Steelers.
Nick Sirianni? You couldn’t get a straight answer out of this guy if you asked him the correct order of the alphabet. Holy moly. Listening to his press conferences gives me the same exact experience as when I do expert level crossword puzzles in pen: I get debilitating anxiety, I cry hot tears, and there’s a considerable amount of involuntary piss.
You’re not reading what I write for exact quotes from the presser, but it went something like this:
“Is Jalen Hurts gonna play on Thursday?” - Question Guy 1
“Yeah, he’ll start maybe” - Nick Sirianni
“Okay, but how much playing time will he get?” - QG1
“If he plays, it’ll be fluid” - NS
“What will that ‘fluidity’ depend on?” - Question Guy 2
“It might depend on the amount of plays he has in a drive.” - NS
“So how many plays would a drive have to be for him to only play one drive” - QG2
“Well if it’s a 12 play drive and he goes down field and scores, It’ll just be the one drive. Maybe. We need to stay fluid.” - NS
“What if it’s a 3 play drive?” - QG2
“Then that won’t be a 12 play drive.” - NS
Nick. Nick Nick Nick. Honey, what is you doing? Do you gotta pee or something? Why the fluid talk? You’re a professional football coach. You should know that you’re supposed to go to the bathroom before you sit down at the microphone.
It’s still better than Doug Pederson’s pressers though. He just had the emotions of a sociopath.
“Doug, your offense has underperformed for the past 9 weeks. If they don’t start succeeding on 2nd downs, I’m going to sneak into your family’s house and scalp them all while wearing your face as a mask so they think you did it.” - Question Guy 1
*Smiling and looking around to show his faux-confidence*
“I mean if that’s what you want to do, then do it. I won’t change anything or push the panic button” - Doug Pederson
The man was batshit.
Sirianni is a rookie head coach who is so preoccupied with not giving away with his game plan, that he might actually not have a game plan at all. I mean, he has a game plan though. Probably. Hopefully. Right? I don’t know. His only experience with calling plays was with the Colts in some of their preseason games, and those were only passing plays. I don’t have high hopes for his performance on his first time out.
The Eagles’ offense has been underperforming during practice too. Maybe it’s because they’ve really stepped up their defensive talent, but I doubt that’s the only variable.
I think that if you pair up what is sure to be a clusterfuck of first time coaching and this sub par offense, this game is sure to be a low scoring affair for the Eagles.
On the Steelers side, Dwayne Haskins and Mason Rudolph are fighting for a 2nd string position. I’m not gonna lie to you, I typed that sentence and deleted it 3 times because I had so much fun writing it. What a preposterous world we live in that those 2 talentless idiots are vying for a position that the Steelers will, in all likelihood, end up having to rely on at some point throughout the season because Ben Rothelesberger is built like a K’NEX crane covered in Crisco then wrapped in cellophane.
Anyway, here’s the equation for this game: Bad Steelers offense + decent Eagles defense (with depth) + bad Eagles offense + good Steelers defense (with depth) = low scoring, borderline unwatchable game.
The O/U is set at 35. That’s 5 touchdowns for those of us that have to use a calculator to do simple division. That aint gonna happen. We’re taking the under.
Go Birds.
-JB