Hey, everyone. It's Thursday here on the Locked on Steelers podcast. I'm your host, Chris Carter. The Steelers got through another practice, but the offense won for a second day in a row. We'll talk about how Aaron Rogers and the offense is improving in the elements of the offense that we haven't seen for a long time. They're starting to show up. We'll talk with the offensive line. If they're improving or not, what I'm seeing in them. And also, Juan Thorne Hill making a bold claim about the defense that I don't think is too far off if he just toned it down a little bit.

That's next year on the Lockdown Steelers podcast.

Let's get into it.

You are Locked on Steelers, your daily Pittsburgh Steelers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcasts network, your team every day.

Hello, welcome to the Locked-on Steelers podcast. I'm your host, Chris Carter,

big a daily dose of all things on the Pittsburgh Steelers. As always, you can find a show on your favorite podcasting apps and on YouTube like this shit if you enjoyed. Subscribe to this YouTube channel to get all of your daily Monday to Friday episodes as well as our bonus content. We thank you for making us your first listen every day because we're a team every day. All right. If you're getting some of that bonus content, by the way, that I'm talking about, you've been seeing my daily recaps from training camp. I do. I put them on YouTube, on my TikTok, and on my Instagram, at Car Cretiques for all my social media is. But the thing that I think is really cool is you're starting to see the offense take a step up. This is now two days in a row. The offense has won seven shots that's's the first time they've won seven shots in a back-to-back days, all training camp. And also, you're seeing in general, Aaron Rogers, just looking a lot smoother with throwing the ball at different levels of the defense. But it's not just that he's throwing the ball. It's where he's putting the ball and how he's getting it there. And I think it's really impressive when you see what he's putting together and how it's going to open up things in the Steelers' offense you really haven't seen for a few years, for several years now. And particularly, he's using the middle part of the field a lot, not just shallow, short, short, shallow crosses like we've seen at the beginning of the kit where he'd hit Roman Wilson or Calvin Austin on a shallow crossing route.

And then they take off for a bit, but also deep down the middle part of the field, the intermediate part of the middle part of the field.

He's opening that up and he's doing it with play action.

And that's something that we've been talking about the Steelers need to be able to incorporate into their offense for the past few years.

I saw one pass that was really impressive where he did, he called play action, drop back, fake the handoff, quick turn, snaps the ball, gets it right to D.K. Metcalf as he passes the interior defender on the zone.

And it was a nice catch and run that basically was a 10-yard

throw turned into what could be a 20 or more yard game. That's going to be a big part of the Steelers offense this year because that's something that Aaron Rogers loves to do. And I think that's going to open up a lot of things. But it's taken time to get there. As we said last week, when the defense was dominating every practice, we said, hey, it's going to take time for this office to gel.

It's going to take them time to find their chemistry. get there. As we said last week, when the defense was dominating every practice, we said,

hey, it's going to take time for this offense to gel. It's going to take them time to find their chemistry. And to be honest, they're still finding their chemistry, even with some of these wins. To be fair to the defense, the last two days that they've won these, their starting cornerbacks have not been out there, not Joey Porter Jr., not Darius Lay, and definitely not jalen ramsay and though it's not because of injury for the most part there are everyone's just

kind of just resting because they want to make sure people are fresh going not Joey Porter Jr., not Darius Lay, and definitely not Jalen Ramsey. And though it's not because of injury for the most part,

everyone's just kind of just resting because they want to make sure people are fresh going into the season and they don't want to overwork them at this part of the year. But all that being said, it's still good for the offense to complete their passes, to show that they're able to find that timing and build that chemistry. and you're starting to see it, especially with Roman Wilson,

who I think has had a second good practice in a row with the Steelers in that he's able to get open. He's able to catch the ball, get catch the ball and run. He's showing improved chemistry with Aaron Rogers, as we talked about on yesterday's show. It looked like Roman Wilson was getting death glares in the first week and a half, training camp. Now he's getting more out of boys from Aaron Rogers. And I asked Aaron Rogers, we got a chance to talk to him Wednesday before practice. I asked him what he thought about Roman Wilson and how he's approached it. I thought it was interesting how he answered that. And also how he talked about how the offense is going to kind of be run, basically saying it's not a dictatorship,

it's not just what Aaron wants or what Arthur Smith wants.

He wants input from everyone so that they can put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make up a really good offense.

Here was Aaron Rogers answering my questions and questions from several other people,

some of whom you might recognize from being on the show on,

we were talking to him before Steelers practice.

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