Kovacevic: If Steelers stronger, why not favored?

Jan 21, 2017 • 9:46 pm

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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It's as simple as one, two.

All these remarkable, resilient Steelers need now is two wins.

"No, it's one," Artie Burns snapped back when I'd mentioned that this week.

"One," Darrius Heyward-Bey would say.

"One, one, one," Maurkice Pouncey would say, say, say. "Just this one."

Well, OK, gentlemen. Have it your way.

Just this one.

Just beat the Patriots in this AFC Championship Game on this Sunday, 6:40 p.m. at Gillette Stadium, and deal with two Sundays from now if and when it matters. It's certainly the more tried and true approach to professional sports, and it's easily explained, as David DeCastro illustrated:

Look at that smile up there. Listen to that casual tone.

Hey, it's hard to argue the stance, impossible to argue the results:

It hasn't been "pretty," to borrow from Mike Tomlin, and it sure hasn't been easy. Five of the nine wins in the streak have come by a touchdown or less, and a couple required a flurry of Chris Boswell field goals. But the stance has entirely emphasized the micro over the macro from the moment this group disembarked the bus in Cleveland following the bye week, and the stance has led to the results.

From one game to the next.

From one play to the next.

From one man to the next.

I know all of that sounds cliched, even hokey. But hang with me here, please. Because it's this patient mental approach and, above all, a powerful sense of physical superiority that ultimately should lead the Steelers where they feel, with great cause, this season should finish.

One, then two.