Happy Friday to everyone and I hope all of you had a very prosperous week. The weekend is now upon us and that means another preseason game for the Pittsburgh Steelers with this one being at Heinz Field against the Atlanta Falcons.
The Steelers will break camp on Saturday and their final public practice just ended a short time ago. I hope all you enjoyed our coverage of camp again this year. Alex Kozora, as usual, did a great job covering all of the practices. Look for his final practice recap later on this evening. The support for Alex was amazing once again this year and we thank all of you who donated to the cause.
If you have any questions you would like Alex to answer during the Friday night episode of The Terrible Podcast, shoot them to me on Twitter @SteelersDepot and use the hashtag #McAlex so they will be easy for me to find.
With the Steelers preseason game taking place on Sunday, you can look forward to us bombarding you with preview content on Saturday. Matthew Marczi will once again be live-blogging the game and you can count on a ton of post-game content starting Sunday evening and rolling into next week.
As usual, I have five questions for all of you to answer on this Friday night and most of them are centered around what might take place Sunday night at Heinz Field. I hope several of you can take time to entertain me with your answers.
Peace and love, peace and love! Oh, and Go Steelers!
1 – Do you believe the Friday report by Ed Bouchette that Le’Veon Bell’s agent believed he had a deal in place prior to the running back nixing it?
2 – How many passes thrown more than 10 yards past the original line of scrimmage will Joshua Dobbs complete against the Falcons.
3 – Are you more excited to see Sammie Coates or Justin Hunter play Sunday night against the Falcons and why?
4 – At this point, do you consider cornerback Mike Hilton a lock to make the 53-man roster barring an injury and if not, why?
5 – Which Steelers player will be the star of the game against the Falcons?
Recap last week’s Friday night questions per David Orochena:
Question 1 – Readers evenly split, twenty-twenty on whether they would prefer signing Martavis Bryant or Le’Veon Bell to a long-term contract next off season if both had monster seasons & stayed clean off the field. Three wanted neither to be signed to long-term contracts. The Bryant supporters generally believe he has a longer shelf-life as a player and would ultimately cost less than Bell. So, they envision another franchise tag for Le’Veon next year before he goes on to some other team for ginormous money. The Bell backers recognize his unique talent that is impossible to duplicate and that we already have a Hall of Fame quality receiver in Antonio Brown. They see JuJu Smith-Shuster as a more than adequate salve if Martavis moved on. Great problem to have; hoping we can have both B & B’s for at least the next two seasons.
Question 2 – This question became moot since Bud Dupree did not play; his 18 votes were in vain. T.J. Watt did get two sacks. The twenty-four Watt voters and most Steelers fans were ecstatic about that though some would point out that his sacks were ‘gimmes’. But ‘gimmes’ or not; we would all be in awe if he averaged two sacks a game in the regular season.
Question 3 – Tyler Matakevich was the overwhelming favorite to lead the Steelers in tackles against the New York Giants with 28 votes. Seven other defenders were mentioned but none with more than three votes. Dirty Red was credited with two tackles out of 26 snaps (23 defense; 3 special teams). The Steelers show a tie between LJ Fort and Mike Hilton for total tackles with seven apiece. Fort played 48 snaps (36/12) and Hilton an efficient 32 (19/13). No one predicted Hilton’s production but Guillermo Garcia-Gomez was the one reader that picked a winner on this question by going with LJ Fort.
Question 4 – How many yards did Joshua Dobbs throw against the Giants? An even 100 after completing 8 passes on 15 attempts over nearly three quarters of play. He played 36 of the 54 offensive snaps for the Steelers. He would have had more snaps if not for the two ugly interceptions. Readers had higher expectations with a median prediction that Dobbs would pass for 172 yards though the range of answers went from 72-245 yards. The SteelerFaninMD was just one yard off with a 99-yard response.
Question 5- Fifteen different Steelers were named as the Steeler who would score the first touchdown against the Giants. Big White employed some reverse psychology and said that no one would score a TD: “None. Steelers kick 2 field goals, lose 24-6.” Great job, since his JuJu worked and it was the Giants who failed to score a touchdown. Speaking of JuJu; 15 folks believed he would be the man to do it. Fitzgerald Toussaint (5) and Knile Davis (4) trailed behind. After eliminating readers who responded after the game started; Deuce22 takes the prize for this question being the only one that prognosticated Cobi Hamilton scoring first. Kudos!
