00:05And did you think that Minka was starting to look shot to you last year?
00:12I don't know about shot, but he wasn't used the right way.
00:14He wasn't doing anything.
00:16Like I heard you talking before the top of the hour and largely I agree with a lot of what you said about his lack of productivity.
00:22I mean, I remember that first year he came in 2019 and he was a part of, I think it was eight turnovers in 14 games
00:29or whatever the final tally was.
00:31He had so much ball luck that year.
00:33It was unbelievable.
00:34I mean, I don't, you said you come back for all the games.
00:36I don't know if you remember that game against the Rams where Hargrave sacked Goff when he was still there
00:41and the balls bouncing around and everybody thought the play was dead and he picked it up
00:45and I think ran it back for a touchdown.
00:47I mean, like you can't go back in time and think about all the tip balls and fumbles that bounced into his hands
00:52the first couple of years, particularly that first year, it was inordinate.
00:56So there was obviously going to be a correction there.
00:59And it became an overcorrection.
01:01And I think for the Steelers, whether it's him being gone now, Ramsey coming here, Slay,
01:07whoever is in the secondary, they got to figure out a way to get the ball back
01:10because for all of his faults last year, Dante Jackson was part of six turnovers.
01:16Beanie Bishop was part of six turnovers.
01:19So they had something like 17 interceptions and those guys had nine.
01:23So whatever this reconstructed secondary is, however they roll it out, however they deploy these guys,
01:28they got to get the ball back because that's a big premise of the Steelers defense, as you well know,
01:33particularly if they can't get the pass rush going again.
01:35One thing I do like about it, they should be able to play a little bit more man-to-man now
01:39with those three corners out there.
01:41And maybe that can give them a little bit more creativity blitz-wise to get after the quarterback.
01:46Because I think they were down to something like 26% when it came to rushing with five guys or more last year.
01:52All right, so real quick, Elliott is the strong safety now.
01:56They gave him a deal.
01:58And will they give Watt the deal?
02:01I have said earlier today that I don't believe for one minute they're losing T.J. Watt.
02:05Now there's all this talk around the country today that teams are calling the Steelers trying to trade for T.J. Watt.
02:12Are you buying that?
02:13And Elliott, do you think he'll handle that safety slot for them the way Minka did it?
02:20Because Minka to me got boring last year.
02:22Did nothing like we talked about.
02:24Elliott will be fine.
02:25And your thoughts on Watt.
02:26All right, so I'll go with the Watt thing first.
02:28First of all, with T.J., I do believe people are calling.
02:31I do believe, though, still it's going to get done and he's going to be a Steeler.
02:35That's my belief.
02:36Me too.
02:37I think that people are inquiring.
02:39And I understand why when you make moves, everybody thinks you're going to make more.
02:42But I don't know if one plus one equals two here.
02:44You know, he's under contract for this year.
02:47And whatever they eat up cap-wise over the course of this deal, maybe if they add a number two wide receiver,
02:52they put John Smith and his contract on the books.
02:55The T.J. deal is not going to be made or lost because of what's on the books already this year.
03:00It just makes it a little bit harder, potentially, to dole out the money on the back end.
03:04But this is not a make or break in terms of getting the Watt deal done by any stretch of the imagination.
03:09Now, to your point about Elliott.
03:11I like Elliott.
03:12I think Elliott can and probably largely still will play the same role that he did last year.
03:17It's who plays the other safety role.
03:20Like, I don't think they're going to have Elliott patrol the deep third as much as Minka did
03:23because Elliott's very good near the line of scrimmage and made some plays there this year.
03:28So I think the big question is, you know, does Ramsey play some of that in sort of a corner safety hybrid role?
03:34Can Thornhill actually be better than what he was in Cleveland?
03:38He better be.
03:38He's going to be a lot better if he's going to play a lot.
03:41Otherwise, that becomes a vacancy that I don't know how they fix unless they're going to go out and try to get Justin Simmons and resurrect him, too.
