OFFICIAL PRESEASON GAMEDAY 3 THREAD - Steelers @ Panthers

GO PANTHERS!  Get at least ONE win this preseason!

Yeah, or at least play better than last week. Should be a win because several of our #1s are starting against their #2s.

Show me something starters!!! I’ll b on the shoutbox, as always.

Overall, that felt really good. I wonder how long it's been since Sam Darnold has spent a half thinking "We've got this game in hand." It's nice that, while we wait the two-plus weeks for Game 1, we've got a very good overall performance fresh on our minds.

Still things that I would've liked to see go better. I know we're going to struggle with a receding O-line but I thought they should've at least held up better against the #2s. It was also frustrating that we started out with the same redzone woes. That was solved later, but was it us solving it or did the Steelers put in their 'next step down' defense? It could have also been early game jitters.

I hope Shi is OK . . . Still, I have to think this may be perfect if we can stash him on IR.

It was painful to watch Slye and the Family Receivers work themselves out the door with all the drops and misses. (Odd. We saw Darnold to Arnold, then lost Shi and Slye.)

One last thought: This was supposed to be a gimme; our 1s against their 2s. But I wonder if that might still be what we face in quality against the the Jets. Sure would be nice to have a confidence booster game 1 that went like this game.

The first half of the game left me with one disturbing thought, "Sam Darnold has PTSD".

He's going to need a bunch of therapy to recondition himself to playing quarterback.

And I don't think our O-line is going to provide much of that therapy. Pass quick young man.

Hopefully there will be some meshing of the line once it's stabilized a bit.

Agreed, Coffee. I'm hoping with all hope that he can learn to relax back there and realize his lunch isn't about to be stolen the moment the ball is snapped.

While the O-Line has struggled somewhat, he still had decent amounts of time to throw the ball and make a play. I kept wanting him to throw a deep ball, but we never saw it. He missed a couple of very wide-open receivers downfield by throwing it short on Friday night.

But I'm sure they will look at that in the film room and make necessary adjustments.

As much as they are trying to get him to calm down and check down, I wonder if they might let that go a bit for now. Aren't they trying to get him out of the "OMG WE'RE GONNA LOSE UNLESS I GO DOWNFIELD!" mentality?

I wouldn't mind the old Fox/Henning strategy of slowly moving the chains with the sudden surprise bomb downfield. Fox did it more with running, but I think we're pretty well set up to move the chains with short, consistent passes to CMC, Marshall, Arnold. Seems like it would help SD's happy feet and minimize turnovers. When the D is leaning forward, he'd have a better opportunity to shock them/keep them honest with a 20+ yarder to DJ or Robbie.