A relieved Mike Tomlin was finally in a good post-game mood after the Steelers' offense snapped out of its early-season funk, showing a balanced attack in the 27-19 win over the Broncos.
"I just thought we played better, more efficiently, like we'd been talking about," and then he chuckled. "If you could pinpoint one thing we'd have solved this problem weeks ago."
Obviously, to borrow one of Tomlin's favorite words (even though he doesn't seem to say obviously much anymore), football games are made up of many moving parts but Sunday reinforced one of the sport's oldest adages. It all starts up front.
The offensive line was tagged as the team's weakest link going into the pre-season and had done nothing to dispel that notion. There were some small steps taken in Green Bay but not enough to prevent a third straight defeat.
However, Tomlin and his coaches did see signs that the line was getting closer to achieving the cohesion they felt was coming so they started really challenging the linemen. Both Ben Roethlisberger and Najee Harris who had his first 100-yard NFL game, mentioned it Sunday afternoon.
"I seem them get challenged every day, I see them get challenged all the time," Harris said, presumably meaning the coaches, but then he laughed. "What's really challenging is the media; you guys kill 'em!"
Of course, to NFL players, our words are mere annoyances (or at least they should be). For the Steelers young linemen, the words that do matter come from veteran guard Trai Turner.
"My words carry through weekly," Turner said. "I don't really change my words because what I speak is what I believe. That's preaching 'let's keep pressing, when you feel someone on your heels, keep going, when you feel you have somebody on their heels you need to push harder.'"
Yet not push so hard that it's counterproductive. "It's never playing outside of yourself and it's never doing more than you can do," Turner explained. "I don't try to play for the center, I don't try to play for the right tackle, I play right guard. I think as a line when you play your position and you play within the confines of the team (then) good things happen."
Even though the arrow is now pointing up for the line, don't expect the head coach to stop poking his head into the OL meetings from time-to-time; and maybe singling out a plyer or two if he sees fit.
"That's the art and science of what we do vocationally as coaches," Tomlin said Tuesday. "You've got to have intimate relationships where the individual man knows that you're challenging him or holding him accountable or encouraging him or congratulating him. At the same time, you have to have that same approach and intimacy with a collection of men."
Meanwhile, Turner says that while the offense's improvement speaks for the line's progress there is a still a ton of work to do. "This is an ever-evolving league and we put some good stuff on film this week and now we've given opponents a way to look at us and attack us," he cautioned. "We have to figure out another way to go out and attack them. It's something to build upon but it's a weekly thing. It's about keeping our foot on the gas pedal and getting better."
