"We'll be all right," one veteran was telling me in the Steelers' locker room late Sunday night. Kind of casually, too. With half a smile.
And yet it wasn't the tone that struck me. It was the tense. The future tense.
It was as if this especially emasculating loss, by 26-14 to the rival Ravens, was just another sloppy start to be overcome. And as if this 1-2-1 start to this season of alleged Super Bowl contention ... that this, too, was something to be shrugged off with some scintillating second quarter. You know, just reach back for a little extra. Heave one up and hope for the best.
We'll be all right?
No, just no. Not like this. Because this team's already firmly in the not-all-right column. And not just because of the standings.
Let's dig right into the dirtiest trench here: These Steelers just took to Heinz Field, in front of their home fans and a national TV audience, looking up at literally everyone in the AFC North ... and they didn't try as hard as the other team.
That's it. That's really it.
Oh, they tried. But the Ravens visibly, vibrantly tried a hell of a lot harder.
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Anyone who wants to fuss over specifics, from individual performances to formations to personnel decisions to Xs and Os, go nuts. Ben Roethlisberger stunk. James Conner and the cumulative running game stunk worse. Both lines, offensive and defensive, stunk. The linebackers, apart from a couple plays by Bud Dupree, stunk. The secondary, aside from continued excellence from Joe Haden, stunk. Randy Fichtner's offensive game plan was predictable to the point of boredom: A run on first down, then two passes. Keith Butler's defensive game plan mindnumbingly ignored that the only pluses came with blitzing Joe Flacco, and all the minuses came when he pretended he had people not named Haden who can cover. The schemes stunk, too.
And yet, all that's fixable. Or much of it, anyway.
This, my friends, might not be:
That up there is Javorius Allen wearing No. 37 in white. He's Baltimore's backup running back, and he's a 27-year-old journeyman who's got no business out-sharping anyone with that clever cutback in the first sequence above. And at 6-feet, 218 pounds, he's got absolutely no business shoving Javon Hargrave, T.J. Watt and half the Steelers' defense a dozen yards into the red zone.
If these were isolated, they'd be problematic but not symptomatic. As it was, this stuff went on all night.
I mean, the defense got the big pregame introductions to a rousing ovation, the coin toss was won but the Steelers deferred, both clear shows of support for the side of the ball that's been most beleaguered. And all concerned responded by allowing the Ravens to pluck them apart for 75 yards over eight plays and a 33-yard touchdown flick from Joe Flacco.
Balloon, meet pin.
And again, if it weren't so painfully clear that only one team was executing at peak level, as if it had prepared itself to the fullest both physically and mentally, it might be understandable. As it was ...
"You know, we've just to come out and play harder faster," Vince Williams was telling me afterward. "We've got to play smarter faster."
Wait, 'harder?' Since when, I couldn't help but ask, is 'harder' an issue that gets breathed by someone associated with the Steelers?
"It's not harder," Williams clarified. "We've just to come out and play. We've got to be ready faster. We can't be letting people beat us to the punch. You can't keep spotting people points."
He's right, and the clarification's fair. It's not like these guys are lazy. It's certainly not like they don't care. But way more goes into football intensity than giving a damn. There's also carrying themselves with confidence, structure and faith in each other to be in the right place at the right time.
I don't know about you, but I'm seeing so little of that from this defense, and the season's a quarter done. There are still too many penalties, including yet another 12th man in the huddle, and they're still hemming and hawing rather than attacking. Look back at that first run by Allen and watch the community-wide hesitation, in particular of Jon Bostic as he falls flat on his face after a one-arm block.
The offense, of course, bore the brunt of blame for this one. That's as it should be. Le'Veon Bell or not, any huddle that breaks with Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster and one of the NFL's most experienced offensive lines has zero excuse for putting up 14 total points and, in the second half alone, three first downs and 47 yards.
That's beyond belief.
But it came with some of the same symptoms described above, and that's no less disturbing in this context.
Seriously, what are those?
The top one is the most terrible of Roethlisberger's many misfires. It's actually among the ugliest interceptions I've seen come off his fingertips. But what's also worth watching there is how the Ravens' secondary passionately, collectively flocked underneath AB's route, as they had relentlessly through the game in running up 10 passes defended to the Steelers' one.
Put another way, Roethlisberger's final three plays on that drive were incomplete to AB, incomplete to AB, and intended for AB but easily picked off.
Ben dismissed it as "a bad day at the office," and AB wouldn't really address another blah output on his part -- five catches on 11 targets for 62 yards, albeit with a fine touchdown -- other than to repeatedly say the Steelers "just need to find a way to win." But the problem is real, and it's now officially atop any and all lists. Without these two clicking, this team's got no chance.
But then, Roethlisberger also spoke the truth on this topic: "You know, I don't think I'm on the same page as anybody right now. I'm not playing well enough."
The second scene up there is a lot more straightforward, with Alejandro Villanueva essentially escorting the Ravens' Tim Williams toward a sack. That would be the only time Roethlisberger was brought down, along with just two hits, and that's normally an A-grade showing by an offensive line. But there's still no bite here, best evidenced by hardly any push from Conner.
No, he isn't Bell, but not a single carry for more than 4 yards?
That's on everyone.
"We have to play better, all of us, and that starts with me," Villanueva told me. "We have to see where we're failing. We're out there coming out of halftime with a tie game ... and that happened. We have to figure it out."
Don't question Villanueva's valor, obviously. Or that of Roethlisberger, Brown or any of the rest.
At the same time, question all you want, as with the defense, their confidence, structure and faith in each other to be in the right place at the right time. Because they're every bit the mess the defense has been all along.
Why?
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Favorite stat so far this season: The Steelers have outscored opponents, 66-3, in the second quarter.
No kidding.
That's telling, too, partly because it illustrates that they've still got what it takes to succeed, but also because it illustrates that they've got it when they feel they really, really need it. And that need, naturally, arises because they've now been outscored, 42-6 in the first quarter. So by the time the game wears on and they've played all this catch-up, the fourth quarter sees their defense fatigued and they get outscored in that one, 44-9.
I asked Mike Tomlin at the start of his press conference if he could explain these slow starts:
Man, that's lousy.
Couple that with a later response in which he declined to lump this flat start with any other in the young season -- "I'm not looking for patterns," he said -- and you've got the head coach basically boiling this one down to Vance McDonald's early turnover and needing to be "better at defending the short field" after such a turnover.
McDonald could have done better than to allow Tony Jefferson to steal his loaf of bread. It was a weird play, but one more reflective of Jefferson than anything on McDonald. Besides, McDonald would go on to do this:
You'd better believe that was Jefferson. Same guy.
Where was that fire from pretty much everyone else other than Haden?
Where's that been all season, for that matter?
Where's the flash shown by Eric Weddle, Baltimore's brash safety, after this one?
"THIS AIN'T THE SAME RAVENS. WHAT A FREAKIN WIN."@weddlesbeard is fired up. ? pic.twitter.com/e13MFwIHa4
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 1, 2018
Here's the deal: In any team sport, but particularly one with 53 nameplates in a locker room, there's always a ton of credit and blame to spread. But when it comes to preparation, to focus, the fuel for the confidence, structure and faith in each other that I've been reciting ... that rests on one desk at the end of the day.
It's on the head coach.
It's on Tomlin to either to create or to correct.
It's on Tomlin and, by extension, his staff and team leaders to concretely assure an awareness that there are only 16 of these games guaranteed, and that each of them -- even the first quarter -- comes with immeasurable meaning in the context of the broader work they do year-round.
It's on Tomlin.
I don't feel that's an oversimplification on my part, I definitely don't feel as though that's pandering to the increasing masses that want the guy fired almost unconditionally. It's just a fact of sports: Any team at any level of competition takes on the personality of the coach, for better or worse. And for most of Tomlin's tenure, it's plainly been for the better. Among his greatest strengths, actually, is that they've been resilient through adversity and gotten stronger as the season deepens.
But holes like this have been rare. And now, the next two games before the bye bring the Falcons and Bengals, who dueled on this same day to a 37-36 Cincinnati victory on the road, and who both come with accomplished quarterbacks and three bona fide wide receivers each.
So sure, it's on Roethlisberger as the quarterback and offensive captain to get his side of the ball squared away. And, as defensive captain, the same applies to Cam Heyward, as I confirmed with the man himself:
But ultimately, it's on Tomlin. He needs to set the proper tone. And yeah, the proper tense. Which is the present.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers vs. Ravens, Heinz Field, Sept. 30, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS