Steelers’ Lynch taking what they give him
It was the sunnier of the two scheduled practice days this bye week. The fair October day was indeed a masterwork of comfortable weather.
Still, I was the only reporter along the sideline.
“The few, the committed,” Mike Tomlin remarked as he walked toward me.
“Nice day to watch some ball,” I replied.
“Nice day to watch some Paxton Lynch,” Tomlin said as Lynch stepped behind center with the first team.
I agreed, and told Tomlin I figured it was the only day of the year I might get to watch Lynch in a truly competitive setting.
“My thoughts exactly,” Tomlin said.
An all-day soaker moved in the next day to wipe out Wednesday’s practice, so that Tuesday really had been the only day all year — ever? — that anyone in Pittsburgh could watch Lynch play some real ball.
“I know he can read a card,” Tomlin said before moving on to continue watching his bye-week troupe of reserves and young, healthy starters mix it up.
Last year at this time, Tomlin had walked over to complain about the lack of available time for young quarterbacks following an ugly Mason Rudolph pick six. Little would we know that one year and one day later Tomlin would tell the assembled stenographers that, yes, Rudolph will return to the starting lineup next week.
That’s why I considered watching Lynch to be a day of service for readers. I mean, you never know, right?
For what it’s worth, Lynch fared well Tuesday. He took his checkdowns and moved the team during the 1-minute drill. He’s big, mobile and can whistle the ball around the yard. He probably has the strongest arm on the team, injured reserve included.
But as we learned from the various savants questioned last week, as Duck Hodges prepared to start in place of the concussed Rudolph, that fitting snugly into a system is more important than having the kind of hose that can send the ball up over them mountains, like Uncle Rico.
Yes, the joke is played, but Lynch got it. He liked it. Kind of looks a little like Rico, too.
Does Lynch have a sense — after his only day with the first team — that he fits this system?
“Not really, not up to this point,” he said. “Still trying to learn what I can just by seeing the playbook. I think it’s easier to go out there and practice and play and get those reps, so you learn faster. But up to this point, not really. It’s kind of hard to get a feeling without being out there practicing it.
“I felt good today. It felt good to throw to some of those guys and throw to Tevin (Jones) again, so I’m excited to get this work in these two days and get something from it.”
At the time of our interview, Lynch thought he had one more day of practice this bye week. But the weather — and Tomlin’s distaste for putting his resting players on a hard indoor surface — wiped out that second day, and Lynch’s enthusiasm for it.
But, in this one day he moved the team against the starting — or what wasn’t resting — defense. He did it the way Rudolph and Hodges have been doing it — by taking what they gave them.
“Yes,” Lynch said. “I think game-planning-wise you attack defenses where they’re weak and that’s been the game plan going into the last few games, attacking those guys underneath in the flat and getting J.C. the ball and letting him run with it and break tackles and see what he can do with it. But you’ve just got to take what the defense is going to give you. There’ll be opportunities to take your shots, but today I think that there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to take the shot.”
And he knew that would make his coaches happy, which is all he can do, because he’s tried everything else.
Lynch has tried to come in as the first-round pick who’s going to save the franchise, but that didn’t work in Denver, where he busted out.
Lynch had just watched Hodges attain near-sainthood status in Pittsburgh last week, because nobody gave him a chance, nobody drafted him, nobody even signed him until he won a tryout at rookie minicamp, so no one expected him to lead the Steelers to a huge upset on the road in prime time.
That all adds up to a love affair with a fan base that loves debating the order of backup quarterbacks almost as much as it loves debating whether/when to fire the head coach.
Does Lynch wish he had been able to sneak up on his first city the way Hodges has?
Does Lynch wish the curse of high expectations had instead been the love of the nobody underdog to start his career?
“Yeah,” he said nodding slightly as he gave the question a bit more thought.
“I think everybody’s different, obviously,” Lynch continued. “I think everybody’s got their own chip on their shoulder. For me, it was hard just because I had never been in that situation where I was considered anything like a first-round draft pick. Coming out of high school I didn’t have any offers, and then in college I didn’t start right away. So it was different for me. It was a learning process, and being on the other side of it has taught me a lot.”
Lynch came out of the Daytona Beach area (Deltona) of Florida as a three-star recruit, but that was only after he had recovered from a preseason injury to light up a December all-star game. And still, only a couple of smaller Florida colleges offered him as he awaited the rumored offer from the University of Florida.
That offer never came, so off Lynch went to Memphis, a team that had won only 5 of its previous 36 games.
Lynch sat out his first season at Memphis with a redshirt and then started the next 38 games. He completed 63 percent of his passes with 59 touchdown passes (only one to Jones) and 23 interceptions. All of it fits the “Bill Parcells Rules” for drafting quarterbacks, but the Steelers had Ben Roethlisberger, Landry Jones and Bruce Gradkowski and passed on Lynch for Artie Burns. The Broncos took Lynch with the next pick. Apparently, that thwarted a move-up attempt by the Dallas Cowboys, who had to settle for some guy named Prescott in the fourth round.
Lynch was the third quarterback drafted that year, and he started weeks 5 and 13 for the Broncos. He injured his shoulder the next preseason but returned to start in week 12. He injured his ankle in that game and had to wait until week 17 for his fourth and final start with the Broncos. He was released after the next training camp with stats that weren’t too bad: He completed 62 percent of his passes with four touchdown passes and four interceptions. The Broncos won one of those four starts and lost the other three by a combined 17 points.
Did they give up on him too soon?
“I don’t know,” Lynch said. “I’m not going to say they gave up on me too soon, or it should’ve been this way or that way. I think there were things that could’ve been done differently from my side. From their side, I don’t know. I’m not a hundred percent sure. I wasn’t up there talking to them. That’s just how I felt about it, but I’ve had another opportunity in Seattle and another opportunity now, so I’m not looking back and worrying about what did or didn’t happen there.”
Lynch played this past preseason for the Seahawks and completed 18 of 37 passes for 180 yards, rushed 11 times for 43 yards. He was waived at the final cutdown and signed with the Steelers practice squad when Roethlisberger went on IR.
Lynch was promoted to the 53-man roster last week and was the only backup for Hodges in Los Angeles. With Rudolph coming back, Lynch returns to the No. 3 spot. And since the Steelers lost rookie OG Fred Johnson during the process of activating Lynch, they may just keep him on the active roster for now.
In his one true practice with the first team this week, Lynch did what the coaches asked. He completed a bunch of short throws to open targets. And he’s still believing in himself.
“Absolutely,” Lynch said. “There was obviously a team that still believes in me or I wouldn’t be here right now. I have confidence in that, and I can hang my hat on that, and come into work week in and week out.”
He’ll take what they give him. It’s the game plan for now.