CLEVELAND -- I asked Marcus Gilbert to take a look at my iPhone screen.
He'd been sitting at his stall inside the Steelers' locker room here at FirstEnergy Stadium, still suited up, still sweaty and still additionally soaked from four hours of football in a relentless rain. And he was barely budging. Even as cameras and microphones surrounded talkative teammate Ramon Foster at the adjacent stall, big No. 77 stayed planted. Completely silent.
I wondered if maybe this wasn't the best time. Or if maybe there might be some better way to present him with this information rather than just jamming a thumb onto my Twitter app and pushing it into view.
Nah, I thought. He's a straight shooter. Reciprocate. Show the man.
So here it was:
?
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) September 9, 2018
For any novices to emoji-speak, that little face up there on Le'Veon Bell's tweet is intended, in the most common usage, to be pondering something. As in 'Hmmmmmmmmmmmm ...' From there, it's open to interpretation.
Except when it's published at 4:57 p.m.
Except when that publisher purports to be a teammate of professional athletes who'd just competed in a wild, weird, exhausting, exhilarating and ultimately deflating 21-21 tie with, of all teams, the bleeping Browns ... in a game that ended at 4:57 p.m.
Yeah, really. That was Bell's first thought, his reflex: Let's share with the world how much those guys must miss me. Let's stick it in their faces, for everyone to see.
Gilbert took a look at the tweet. A long look. Then, after fully processing what was there, he took a deep breath. Not through the mouth but through the nose, making his nostrils flare like a bull about to blow through a wall.
He didn't speak a solitary syllable.
I shared the tweet with two other offensive linemen. They did pipe up, but none of their responses were for attribution, and precious little of that would be printable on a family website, anyway. Suffice it to say that, between F-bombs and a stream of other invectives, they aren't happy.
As one of the two put it, "And people think something like this gets patched up just like that?"
Oh, people do. And people will.
They shouldn't. Not on the outside and, now more than ever, not on the inside.
A ton went wrong for the Steelers on this day: Ben Roethlisberger committed five of the team's six turnovers. Randy Fichtner called offensive plays as if he were still trying to impress the coordinator on the other sideline. Chris Boswell shanked a 42-yard kick late in overtime. A dozen penalty flags were thrown against the Steelers, half of them handing the Browns a first down. And most dispiriting, possibly, a Mike Tomlin team was poorly prepared in so many demonstrable ways for a lesser opponent, resuscitating a meme he'd only begun to bury the past couple seasons.
But here's one thing that, just as demonstrably, didn't go wrong: The Steelers ran the ball beautifully.
Specifically, James Conner did so in his NFL starting debut, carrying 31 times for 135 yards, a 4.4 average, and two touchdowns, one on first-and-goal, another of 22 yards. He also caught five passes, adding 57 yards for a total of 192.
And he did so against a markedly upgraded Cleveland front seven, as well as within a setting where the Steelers' passing game never found a beat of rhythm.
“I thought he played well," Roethlisberger would say of Conner. "Ran hard. Caught the ball well. Made plays for us. I’m proud of the way he played for this team.”
“He did some really great things," Antonio Brown would essentially echo. "He ran well and brought great energy all day. I was excited to see him make some plays, not only in the run game, but in the pass game as well.”
Even Tomlin, who seemed loath to discuss much of anything with reporters, perked up for at least a split-second when I asked his impression of Conner:
Characteristically, Conner wanted nothing to do with any praise.
On his performance: “Wasn’t enough to win. We had some good runs and stuff like that, but it wasn’t enough to win.”
On his lone lapse, the fourth-quarter fumble punched out from behind by Cleveland dynamo Myles Garrett: "It came from the back side. I felt it late. ... Can't let that happen anymore."
On his first touchdown: "I walked in untouched. I normally don’t do that unless the line upfront is making a hole for me. As soon as I got in, I turned around and looked at those guys who made it possible.”
Conner won't get away with all that humility here: His 192 yards were better than any rushing performance for the Steelers last season. His touchdown run of 22 yards put him within two of Bell's 2017 total for runs of 20-plus yards. And in the season opener last season, also here in Cleveland, Bell totaled 32 yards on the ground, 15 through the air.
I'm not about to lose my mind and suggest Conner's a better back than Bell. Don't interpret any part of this column that way, in pieces or collectively. It would be silly, certainly at the natal stage of one of those players' careers.
But I will suggest -- no, state flatly -- that Conner's contributions were meaningful beyond this game. He showed the Steelers toughness and tenacity with all those touches and the nature of most of his between-the-tackles rushes. He showed them good-enough blitz pickups. He showed them Bell-like versatility, too, in offering Roethlisberger a reliable safety valve, such as this 19-yard dump-and-run in overtime:
He also showed up. That counts.
• Bell would later try to walk back his tweet with this load of passive-aggressive hooey:
no shade, just never witnessed a tie before... https://t.co/5xdKGlk1Hi
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) September 9, 2018
Yep, it was the tie.
• After that first Conner touchdown, by the way, several national media hot-takes types went into groupthink fuss over the celebration that followed, presuming it was some message-sending to Bell:
James Conner TD...and he was very happy hugging all his OL. Hidden message?
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) September 9, 2018
Pittsburgh’s o-line’s euphoric over the top reactions to James Conner TDs are high comedy.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) September 9, 2018
James Conner celebrating as hard as he can with the O-Line was a brilliant little troll to Lev Bell #Respect
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 9, 2018
One of countless advantages of covering a team on the scene is that one can ask enough questions -- or in this case, the same question of several people -- to find the truth.
As Conner explained, he'd just scored his first NFL touchdown and, as the video below illustrates, he was the one who whirled around in search of his offensive linemen who'd blown out a hole the breadth of Lake Erie. He called them "the guys who made it possible." If anyone wants to accuse Conner of lying about what had to feel like a momentous achievement in his career and life -- cancer, major knee surgery, remember? -- go nuts, but go it alone.
Watch for yourself:
As for the other dastardly co-conspirators ...
Foster, who pulled hard to the right side for the key block, was the first there: "James ran great. He's been through so much. I was so happy for him."
"I'm so proud of the kid," Gilbert would say.
"We were happy for our brother," Maurkice Pouncey said.
• Roethlisberger was terrible.
The entire column could have been condensed to those three words or, for that matter, these 15 from the franchise quarterback himself: "You can’t win a football game if you turn the football over that many times.”
Nope. Three interceptions -- one thrown into triple-coverage, another on gross miscommunication with AB, another that should have been caught by Jesse James -- came with two lost fumbles on sequences where he held the ball too long. Maybe he got a little too happy with some early, old-school Ben-being-Ben improvs/scrambles, but it was a high price to pay.
Get this: After the Steelers took a 21-7 lead late in the third quarter, their final 11 possessions ended as follows: Punt, punt, fumble, fumble, punt, punt, end of regulation, punt, missed field goal, fumble, end of game. And in that span, Roethlisberger was 9 of 18 for 90 yards.
The analysis needs to go no further. And yet ...
• This 67-yard rapid-fire release from Roethlisberger to JuJu Smith-Schuster was equal parts wonderful ...
... and maddening. Because that play was there to be had all afternoon. And whoever's scripting/calling the plays between Roethlisberger and Fichtner will need to be more adaptable in the future. Cleveland defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' scheme for years has been to dog the quarterback at all costs. Well, that leaves a layer open behind the barking.
• A dozen penalties is a dozen too many. Tomlin and the Steelers deserve the criticism they'll hear over this.
But here's the thing: Shawn Smith, a fourth-year NFL official who made his debut as a referee, and his crew were so flag-happy that the Browns got 11 of their own and prompted Hue Jackson, their coach, to fume: "I complained half the game. There were quite a few times I talked to the officials about things I saw and calls they made."
Some of the calls were awful in both directions. When it's that bad and it's both ways, I tend to look the other way. Let's see if it changes in short order.
• I would say that I'm speechless over T.J. Watt's four sacks in the game -- something even brother J.J. has never pulled off -- plus his game-saving blocked field goal in overtime ... except that I'm evidently not:
• Other than Watt, I'm wishy-washy on what I witnessed from the rest of the defense, if only because the Browns, although better on defense, remain a disaster on offense. The Steelers' penetration through that discombobulated Cleveland offensive line was like taking a number to record a sack or tackle for loss.
"We didn't protect well. We have to do better," Jackson said. "Give Pittsburgh credit."
Eh. Not yet.
• In his group interview session, DeCastro was asked about the Steelers' running game and brought up Bell on his own: "I'm tired of Le'Veon. I'm so tired of Le'Veon. I know you guys have stories to write, and I love Le'Veon, but we have to win with the guys who are here. Those are the only people that matter to me."
Not playing mind-reader here, but I took that specific statement to mean he's tired of talking about Le'Veon.
Trust me when I tell you they're also tired of Le'Veon. And I can promise you they're all looking forward to the sound that will accompany Conner running out that tunnel next Sunday at Heinz Field.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers at Browns, Cleveland, Sept. 9, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS