Hey everyone, Chris Carter here, the Locked-on Steelers podcast. It's Monday. We're back here for the week as the Steelers get ready to finish out the preseason. But I got to look at one of the bigger questions that was about this team going into training camp and the preseason. Are they becoming the bullies of the trenches that we thought that they could be going into this season? We'll answer that question. Look harder at the defensive line

and talk about their passing chemistry

all here on the Locked on Steelers podcast.

Let's get into it.

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

bringing you your daily dose of all things in the Pittsburgh Steelers. As always, you can read my work in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, but going to post-gazette.com.

You can find me here every day, Monday through Friday, on the Lockdown Steelers podcast, break it down the Steelers. We're happy to be your first listen every day because we're your team every day. All right, Steelers fans, we are through two preseason games, training camps over. And one of the biggest things we talked about all offseason was the Steelers needed to become stronger in the trenches and not just on one side of the ball, but both sides of the ball. Of course, towards the end of last season, Steelers run defense got trampled by the Ravens in a bad way. And big part of the reason when we looked at the film was the interior defensive line just wasn't strong enough. They were getting pushed around too much, which got to the linebackers and everything else crumbled around that. On the flip side, they needed this offensive line to finally step into being the group that they've been investing into. You look at the past few years, the Steelers have invested for two first round picks, and Broderick Jones and Troy Faltono at offensive tackle, a second round pick into Frazier and a fourth round pick into Mason McCormick.

And the big question is, are they any closer to being those bullies that we talked about than potentially being?

And on the flip side, also the defensive line needs to be that.

They've invested first round pick in Derek Harmon and a second round pick and Keanu Betton and fifth round

pick Y.A. Black. Normally, you don't think a fifth round pick would factor in, but he has. And I think

there's a mixed answer to this question because I do think the Steelers are getting pretty much the two

aspects of the three aspects that they really want to get down here from the guys that they've invested

into to make them the bullies or the goons, as Mike Tomlin has told his players, he wants them to beat. And I think the first thing they've gotten down is when it comes to past protection, this offensive line looks a lot sharper. They're picking up Blitz's Broderick Jones, I thought looked pretty good in that regard on tape for a second preseason game in a

row. That's encouraging. I thought Troy Faltona looked really sharp there. I thought Zach Frazier

managed the middle of the offensive line pretty well against Vita Vaya and Collaja Cancy,

one of my favorite defensive tackle pairs in the NFL to watch just because they're two

really talented guys and they're very diverse skill sets. I think they can throw a lot of different things at you.

I thought that they handled that well. But we haven't seen the offensive line be bullies in the

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