Kovacevic: Fumble, fumble, and a fantastic find

"Seven days, my man. Seven days."

That's what Steve McLendon spoke in his standard soft tone to Cam Heyward in Seattle seven days earlier. I wasn't eavesdropping, mind you. It's just that the room was so silent otherwise you could have heard a playoff hope drop.

"Seven days. We've got seven days."

That's what Will Allen spoke to William Gay. This was across the room and several minutes later, but the reaction was the same and the sense of sting was the same.

No, not quite this sense of sting ...



That, of course, was Antonio Brown's instantly infamous, if not exactly, uh, inspiring celebration Sunday night following his 71-yard punt return in the Steelers' 45-10 crushing of the Colts at Heinz Field.

And no, this poor man's Peter Parker apparently had no desire to go privates first into the goalpost, though it remained wholly unclear -- maybe not even to him -- what exactly he'd hoped to achieve without the aid of a radioactive spider.



"There was no flip intended," AB attempted to explain afterward to a roomful of reporters. "There was just a lot of excitement and passion, and I tried to stick the landing with the goal post and ... it didn't work out well."

Suffice it to say, as I couldn't help but remind the man later as one of his four young children tugged at daddy's pantlegs, it's a good thing he'd already partaken in the parenting process.

So yeah, that stung. But here's betting it didn't touch Seattle. Certainly not for the defensive secondary that was scorched by the Seahawks, nor for the front seven that found only air when grasping at Russell Wilson. On a day when the offense did more than its share, the defense was emasculated. Embarrassed. Sent right back to square one.

Or, as Allen succinctly summarized, "We sucked."

They sure did.

Which is why, if you ask me, it's impossible to embrace all that happened Sunday against the Colts without first embracing the suck of seven days earlier. Because the connection could be seen and heard everywhere on this night, beginning with what should have been two defining disasters in the first two minutes and change.

First, there was this gem from the return artist formerly known as Jacoby Jones ...



That was the opening kickoff, as well as the opening kick to the Steelers' privates. Given their defensive inconsistency all season, and then Seattle, and then Mike Tomlin throwing it into further flux by threatening jobs, this handed the Colts the ball 11 yards from the goal line, and the beginning easily could have been the end.

But it wasn't.

First down, Frank Gore was put down after 1 yard by a visibly emotional Allen.

Second down, Heyward's hard push on Matt Hasselbeck forced an incompletion.

Third down, Jarvis Jones made maybe the biggest splash of his not-all-that-short career ...



"We talked about being ready," Heyward was recalling. "Even before the fumble happened, we were ready. We had our helmets in our hands, our eyes out on the field, totally focused. Heck, we'd been that way for seven days."

There's that line again. I reminded Allen of that line, as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2DjuDiLNew

If one instance wasn't convincing, the sequel was a killer.

DeAngelo Williams, who otherwise was outstanding again, fumbled on the third snap of the Steelers' second series. The Colts recovered, this time 25 yards away.

First down, Gore poked through for 9 yards.

Second down, Gore was slammed backward 3 yards by Bud Dupree and the healthy player formerly known as Ryan Shazier.

Third down, Gay chased down Matt Hasselbeck after a 2-yard gain.

Field goal. And that was it.

"We needed that," Allen said. "Not going to lie."

Neither did Vince Williams, with a similar sentiment.

"Man, the way this season's gone, we needed to do something right then and there to make sure they didn't get any momentum," he said. "It seems like when we've given up big plays before, we've let it affect us."

Like Seattle?

"Like Seattle. You saw it. And you saw what we were like after the game, too. Nobody wanted that. We went out on the field like this was our chance, and we wanted to be the ones to do something for the team."

Others appreciated it, too.

"We stood up in the face of adversity," Mike Tomlin said. "And there was some adversity. We turned the ball over there early."

“I credit the defense for stepping up early and getting us going," Ben Roethlisberger said.

"After all that and they only get a field goal?" Ramon Foster said. "Yeah, we were ready to take over after that."

Laugh at the lopsided score, but the Colts entered with an average NFL offense -- 17th in average points per game in a 32-team league -- and had won three in a row since Hasselbeck was forced to replace injured Andrew Luck. They're banged up, particularly on the offensive line, but they're no pushover. Heck, they had the same 6-5 record as the Steelers.

It's entirely plausible that Roethlisberger would have thrown for 364 yards and four touchdowns, that Williams would run for 134 yards, that Brown would catch eight passes for 118 yards, that Martavis Bryant would catch four for 114, and the offense would have done what it's always expected to do.

But the primary reason I've been focused on the defense from the first drill in Latrobe is that, for these Steelers to rise to the head of the AFC -- and don't look now, but the Patriots have lost two in a row and the Bengals are next on the Steelers' schedule -- the most significant leap would have to be made by the defense.

Well, in this one, the oldest set the tone: James Harrison, age 36 going on 26, delivered three sacks for 21 yards in losses, two other tackles for losses, two other quarterback hits and a forced fumble.

"I have some football left in me," Deebo was saying to what surely was no argument.

Lawrence Timmons wrapped up everything in sight, Heyward was once again most responsible for a rapidly deteriorating pocket, Williams had one of his finest NFL showings with seven tackles and a fumble recovery, Ross Cockrell and Brandon Boykin each had two passes defensed and ...

Hey, wait ... Boykin?

Oh, yeah, he actually played. And did this ...



He savored it, too, as was so easy to tell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ZuD0JzGWc

Maybe the defense will regress all over again next Sunday in Cincinnati. But maybe not. Maybe the combination of all those 'details' that Allen described will dovetail with the 'long way to go on actual execution' that Heyward described, and all that will keep this arrow pointed upward. And with Tomlin and Keith Butler finally knocking off the stubborn act with Boykin, maybe even the beleaguered secondary has a bit of upside now, too.

This much holds firm: The Steelers' defense doesn't need to be great. It doesn't even need to be very good. It just needs to do enough to support an offense that apparently can only be stopped by large metal poles.