The Pomp And Joe Show
1PM - Brian Batko joins and Should Hines Ward Be In the Hall of Fame - Austin Bechtold
30 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What are the highlights of the Steelers vs. Browns game?
Listen to the Pomp and Joe show every Wednesday to hear about Starkey's Car of the Week from the Baseball Car Castle in Cranberry tomorrow with Joe back in the saddle for tomorrow's show. Austin Bechtel from behind the glass in the big chair today and for the guys, contests run every Wednesday through Friday at noon.
at the 937thefan.com contesting page and we'll be able to say Happy New Year to the General. Happy New Year to Brian Batko. The Batconian Mongoose joins us now on the Fan Hotline presented by Sullivan Super Service. Pittsburgh's trusted plumbing and HVAC provider for over 50 years. Hello, Brian.
Do you think the Cleveland Browns are making their New Year's resolution to make Shadur Sanders their franchise quarterback?
I don't think so. I think that was a pretty rocky second half for him yesterday and Even the touchdown pass that he did throw was basically one guy blacking out and forgetting how to play safety and make a play on the ball in the air. Not really the greatest showing for Shador, although kind of a signature win, his first AFC North start.
He keeps the streak of beating the Steelers in Cleveland alive, but no, I think the Browns will have to do some soul-searching this offseason. I think they'd be a team that would make sense to go get a veteran and have him compete with Shadur and I guess Dylan Gabriel to some extent.
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Chapter 2: What challenges do the Browns face in their quarterback situation?
But maybe they just need to run it back with Joe Flacco for a third time.
The amount of wounded ducks made hunting season jealous, I think, Brian, that Shadur threw up there.
Maybe they should go get duck Hodges.
What veteran would the Browns go and get? Kyler Murray? Kyler Murray, Deshaun Watson. Oh, Mason Rudolph, throw him in there with Shadur and Dylan Gabriel.
And Miles Garrett. Could you imagine?
Miles Garrett playing quarterback?
Could you imagine that?
Playing both sides of the ball?
No, Mason Rudolph and Miles Garrett on the same team.
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Chapter 3: How does the Steelers' offense perform under pressure?
I could never imagine that. Okay. So Brian, what did you make of the game overall against Cleveland? Because there are multiple takeaways to take from it. For me, we built up this huge confidence that, hey, maybe this is finally different. Maybe this is a Steelers team that can go into the playoffs and can win a playoff game. Can maybe win two playoff games. It's a wide open AFC.
I still don't think they can win a playoff game depending on the matchup. If it's Buffalo, I say no thanks. It looks like the Chargers are going to be the seventh seed. They're just conceding and not starting Justin Herbert, I guess just for the extra rest and go play in New England or go play in Denver or however those chips fall.
So it's either going to be, if they win on Sunday, the Chargers or Buffalo or Houston, and I don't really feel good about any of those options.
No, it's hard to feel good with the way that they just played in Cleveland.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of missing key players for the Steelers?
And I say they, but I almost want to just keep it to the offense because, again, the defense's failing was basically one brain fart at the goal line. Otherwise, yeah, I mean, the Browns strung together some good plays. Like, a Kevin Stefanski coach team is going to do that at times. They're going to scheme guys open and have a good starting script and a good first drive.
They did that against the Bills as well the week before. They went right down and actually finished it in the end zone. The Steelers didn't even let them do that. Now, maybe they would have scored on that drive that Harold Fannin caught the touchdown anyway, but I sort of doubt it with the way that Schroeder played the rest of the day. So, it's such a
It's just a spotlight, a glaring blame game on the offense coming out of that one. And I just got the feeling, whether it was not having DK and having to operate for the first time like that this season for this group, or really being such a Miles Garrett-centric game plan, or just going through the entire week last week not knowing if you would have to win this game.
or not, or if it would just be one that you can play it very conservative, close to the vest. I think some combination of those three things were baked into the offensive struggles. They trickled down from Mike Tomlin to Arthur Smith to Aaron Rodgers, and it made for the very putrid display.
Chapter 5: What factors contribute to Hines Ward's Hall of Fame candidacy?
And the weather didn't help either. I don't want to make excuses, but I'll throw the weather in there too. That wasn't ideal.
Well, the weather wasn't bad in the second half, though.
True, but it was windy. It was still windy.
Okay, so you're saying that they might have taken the Browns lightly then offensively because they thought that they might just sit their guys.
Well, I think they might have taken the Browns lightly in a sense of, okay, we can have this very conservative game plan that'll not open Aaron Rodgers up to many hits. It certainly won't open Miles Garrett up to breaking the record and knocking our guy from NFL lore. And we can just kind of get out of this stadium with a, whether it's a three-point win, seven-point win, ten-point win.
Like, we'll string something together eventually. And the Browns came out fired up. I mean, from the very first play, Devin Bush forcing a fumble on Jalen Warren. If that's not a bad omen, I don't know what is.
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Chapter 6: How do the stats compare between Hines Ward and other wide receivers?
So people asked me in my chat yesterday on the PG site, like, what do you make of this four-game losing streak in Cleveland? Is there a through line? I don't know because as much as I came into that game Sunday thinking, for as much, you know, it's a, it's a gimme game to a lot of fans, but no, you lost the Dorian Thompson Robinson in Cleveland.
And yet that was with Kenny Pickett and Matt Canada. That should not, cannot happen with Arthur Smith and Aaron Rogers calling the shots now on offense. And yet it did anyway. And I say that to say, maybe there is something to the Browns either intrinsically motivated to beat the Steelers at home, whether they get a, an earful of it from Kevin Stefanski or, or,
It just sort of seeps into them from the fan base and being in that city that whole week. They always just seem to play inspired football when the Steelers go up there. That's no excuse, but that's just one thing that I've seen having been at all four of those games.
Regarding the Miles Garrett thing, Brian, and a lot of people tried to point the finger saying that, including Miles Garrett, of course, no surprise there, saying that they were focused too much on Miles Garrett than actually winning the game.
I would counter with that saying slowing down Miles Garrett, chipping Miles Garrett, which is what they've done to other edge rushers, and getting the ball out quickly, which they've done for a majority of this season, is something that is not just Miles Garrett-centric. That's something that is in the Steelers' identity.
Maybe they did it a slightly bit more, but I don't think that they lost that game because of them just being so scared to death of Miles Garrett.
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Chapter 7: What are the expectations for the Steelers against the Ravens?
Yeah, I think two things can be true here. I think philosophically and schematically, it was pretty similar to their initial game plan against the Browns and to your point limits, similar to their game plans most weeks because they have a 42-year-old quarterback who can make quick decisions and you don't want him trying to really evade sacks and putting himself in harm's way that way.
But I think it can also be true that just sitting there watching it from the press box felt like every time Miles Garrett got within a 10-foot pole of Aaron Rodgers, He was flipping that thing out to Kenneth Gainwell or Connor Hayward, sometimes losing yards.
I mean, that first matchup with the Browns, one of his signature plays in that one was running around in the pocket, scrambling, extending a play, running away from Miles Garrett and eventually flicking it out to, I think it was Gainwell, who made a great catch on sort of just a broken play that they turned into some yardage.
I don't know that he makes that same decision to try to avoid Garrett with consciously or subconsciously, however, they were approaching that game Sunday. Jim Nance and Tony Romo, if you want to take them at their word, they said, I think it was at the end of the first quarter as they went to break. Aaron Rodgers doesn't want to be in that picture on Miles Garrett's wall.
He told us that very clearly. So I think there's something to be said for it's kind of similar to the discussion we always have about, oh, the Steelers are avoiding the middle of the field. Well, OK, yeah, you don't want to turn the ball over. That helps you win games. But sometimes that also limits the ceiling of your offense when you're playing things so conservative.
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Chapter 8: How does the press conference reflect on the team's performance?
You don't let some of the big play potential big play potential develop.
Oh, you missed Nance and Romo. Mostly just Romo. Just salivating over Miles Garrett. Every opportunity that he had to try to get a sack. I listened to it.
I usually have the broadcast up in my headphones while I'm at the game. Also, seeing Tony Romo in person in the press box. I don't dislike him now. I think a lot of people... feel like he's become a bit of a parody of himself of when he first started. I would say this. It's now like he's Paul Rudd playing Tony Romo when he calls these games.
One thing that I wondered about the tush push, the one that they didn't run on that fourth and one go ball to Scottie Miller. So correct me if I'm wrong on this, Brian. Darnell Washington was hurt before that play, right? Not like the play before, but he was injured when they lined up in that formation. He was not out there on the field.
I believe so, yeah. He went down with that forearm injury pretty early on.
Is it fair to say that the Steelers did not run the tush-push in that situation where I think that they damn well should have because Darnell Washington was not there to push Connor Hayward forward and that the point of emphasis on that tush-push is actually Washington, not Hayward, and it screwed up the entire formation?
Yeah, I think it's fair to say because while you could come back with, well, how hard is it to just put somebody else back there and tell them to do the same thing? I think the margin for error on that play we've seen at times this season can be slim. We've seen them not get it once or twice or at least have some close calls. So Arthur Smith might have just figured, hey.
You know, the quick decision that I have to make here, do we risk doing it without, like you said, kind of the engine of the play behind there? Or do we just trust Aaron Rodgers is he's going to find somebody open on this play? And I know a lot of people have dissected it. The film watchers, the ball knowers have gone over the all 22.
It did look like Adam Thielen broke open pretty quickly on the fourth and one. But for whatever reason, pre-snap, Aaron Rodgers said, I don't know if it was like to prove a point like, hey, yeah, we don't have DK, but watch what Scotty Miller's about to do.
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