In the League: Special guest host, NCHSAA alums lead Jets past Browns, strong defensive performances
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Kyle Morton and Joel Bryant are joined by a special guest host to talk about another big performance by NCHSAA alumni on the Jets and a huge number of big defensive performances by NCHSAA alumni on other teams.
Show Transcript
Hello, everybody. Welcome to high school OT in the league. This is the weekly show we do here at high school OT, where we recap the most recent week of NFL action, specifically breaking down the performances of the players who played their high school football right here in North Carolina. As always, I m Kyle Morton joined by Joel Brian Joel. Did you have a good holiday break? Weekend, week, so to speak. I did. I miss the Saturday Games. I went to see Wonder Woman 1984 which was a mistake. It was not good, but yeah, I mean, on Sunday we had some big stuff happened for Me
Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images
James Conner played only 23 snaps from the start of the Week 12 game against the Ravens through the Steelers Week 15 game against the Bengals. The four worst offensive games of the Steelers season he was largely uninvolved in. Conner played 23 snaps against the Bills, ran the ball 10 times for 18 yards and was never targeted. The Steelers are undefeated in games where Conner catches a pass.
Am I saying James Conner is the most important player in this offense? No. Far from it. He isn’t the reason the offense succeeds or fails, but he is a part of that reason. Conner isn’t a great running back, but he is a good one, largely because of his versatility.
Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images
This week we are previewing the contest between the Indianapolis Colts (10-4) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (11-3) at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. The Colts come into the game having won five of their last six while the Steelers have lost three in a row, most recently to the
Belhaven Middle School JV teamCincinnati Bengals.
The state of the Steelers
The state of the Steelers has been diced and sliced ad nauseam the past few days. Here at BTSC, Geoffrey Benedict chronicled Ben Roethlisberger’s ugly Monday night performance against Cincinnati here. I broke down their broader offensive woes here. And Anthony DeFeo opined on the general state of the team here. There has been no shortage of coverage chronicling the ills of your favorite football team.
The
Steelers offense is dead. Their first half performance against Cincinnati on Monday night marked its official passing. In one of the worst stretches of football from a Ben Roethlisberger-led unit ever, they went three-and-out on seven of eight first half possessions, turned the ball over three times and made two first downs. By halftime, they had gone three-and-out on 22 of their last 37 possessions. It was an amazing stretch of futility. Though they showed signs of life in the second half, the damage was done. Pittsburgh lost, 27-17, marking one of the worst setbacks in the Roethlisberger era.
The stunning loss to the Bengals makes three defeats in a row for the Steelers after a thrilling 11-0 start to the season. Some of their struggles can be attributed to a schedule interrupted repeatedly by league-wide Covid outbreaks and a rash of injuries on both sides of the football. The real culprit, however, is the corpse of an offense that at one point seemed vibrant and promising.
Photo by Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images
The Steelers lost their 3rd game of the 2020 season, falling to a two win Bengals team. Snapping an eleven game win streak that survived Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges in 2019 doesn’t just happen, and the snap counts show the amount of turnover involved in the Steelers’ losing streak.
Offense
The Steelers had four of their offensive lineman healthy and playing the full game this week. Matt Feiler’s absence led to J.C. Hassenauer making his first career start at guard, and setting a career high for snaps playing somewhere other than center. The Steelers rotated Derwin Gray in for Hassenauer on 16 plays, setting a career snap count high for Gray. While the Steelers have seen worse offensive line situations, it was clear from the start of the game that Ben Roethlisberger wasn’t comfortable in the pocket.