CINCINNATI -- "We're better than them. They're not better than us. They got the win, we got the loss, but they ain't better than us."
Dre Kirkpatrick is an idiot.
Vontaze Burfict is an idiot.
Winners will win, losers will lose, again and again, and let all the familiar refrains forever echo through the Ohio River valley, across the National Football League and, for that matter, into the conscience of anyone who doubted the resolve of these Steelers.
Because, honestly, I can't recall the last time these guys were tested like this.
Oh, not by this particular opponent, of course. If it wasn't Kirkpatrick committing defensive holding on the critical drive, if it wasn't Burfict trying to behead another guy from the blind side, if all other factors were omitted, this outcome has become virtually ordained.
As one veteran told me, "I don't know, but there's always something about these games where it feels like they know we have their number."
Pick a number. Any number.
Andy Dalton marches his boys 75 yards down the field for a go-ahead touchdown with 1:18 left?
Yeah, OK. It still winds up Steelers 28, Bengals 21 because Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster and the offense march their own 77 yards for AB's 31-yard touchdown catch with 10 ticks on the clock ...
... and the only marches left, of course, were the citizenry descending on the Esca-loser ...
... and Roethlisberger and Ryan Shazier walking -- yes, walking -- off the field, side by side in shared, if very different, victories.
Still don't like these Steelers?
Still?
Good. Don't. Because here's betting they're better that way.
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There are times I don't like them, either. Not individually. Not collectively. And not at all after that pathetically passive loss to the Ravens.
But let me share this, too: The most likable group of Pirates I ever covered was in 2010, when they lost 105 games and sent a middle reliever named Evan Meek to the All-Star Game. The most likable group of Penguins I ever covered was the Rico Fata children of 2003-04, when they lost 18 in a row and won nothing more than the lottery rights to Sidney Crosby. And the most likable I've ever found the Steelers to be was when they opened the 2013 season 0-4 in London. Heck, after that awful loss overseas, Mike Tomlin was standing outside the locker room, holding the door for reporters and thanking us for making the trip!
This isn't to suggest all losers are likable. I mean, the Bengals exist.
But the general rule in the realm of major sports, if you ask the people who build rosters, is that there's always a need for -- and please, pardon the semi-profanity here, but I can't conceive of a better term -- that badass element, that badass attitude.
That's in place, to put it mildly.
"We're not messing around," David DeCastro told me. "We've got guys who are hungry, guys who can be nasty. We'll do what it takes to get the W."
These Steelers do have issues, on and off the field. All of that still applies after winning a couple games and improving to 3-2-1 entering the bye week. As Tomlin bluntly stated, "We're the same team with the same warts, trying to get better." He didn't isolate any, but that might be because there are so many: The offenses' and defenses' warts in progress. The special teams are warts with extra growths in the form of two penalties committed by a long snapper and two long kickoff returns. The coaching, too, can't cover its warts any more than Vince Williams should be covering A.J. Green deep downfield, or Artie Burns covering anything other than his face.
Case in point on the coaching: James Conner ran 25 yards for an apparent touchdown in the third quarter. The ball was spotted at the Cincinnati 1, but replays indicated Conner might have broken the plane, so the call could have been reversed into a touchdown. Only we'll never know since Tomlin never challenged and, as karma would have it, the Steelers settled for a field goal.
I asked Tomlin why he didn't challenge, and this was the uncut response: "I didn't see it. You don't get opportunities at replay in visiting stadiums."
Huh?
He was referring, I'm sure, to seeing certain replays on the big scoreboard. But that makes it sound like the Steelers don't have some video dude monitoring this sort of thing who can contact Tomlin through the headset and say, 'Hey, uh, coach? Yeah, it's me, the video dude. I think we've got a chance at a touchdown here. Might want to throw that red hanky, like, real far.'
Not piling on here. Just pointing out that everyone and everything about the Steelers needs to get better.
At the same time, I'll also applaud an awful lot about what's happened since the NoDoz triggered against Baltimore. And it's only fair, I think, to do that in the same context for which so many of us -- myself included -- have been so critical.
AB can be a bad dude. And if he really did fling furniture out of his 15th-story window, he actually is a bad dude.
But show me the swell guy who takes a combo cheap shot to the head from Shawn Williams and Burfict -- the first with the helmet, the second with an elbow -- then had to exit for a spell, then returned to win the game in a sprint of brilliance.
"Moments like that," JuJu Smith-Schuster would beam, "GOATs come alive!"
That's GOAT, as in Greatest Of All Time, for anyone who doesn't speak social-media-ese.
No, AB isn't likable, at least not from this perspective. When Roethlisberger failed to find him despite being astonishingly open in the end zone, AB jumped up and down and flapped his arms as if someone had stolen his gingerbread cookie. All through the game, he was teasing and taunting Cincinnati fans, even dropping the odd F-bombs at them.
This isn't the look of likability ...
... but that doesn't mean it isn't the look of a winner.
JuJu's another who might rub some the wrong way. He's Mr. 'Lit' on social media, and he's adored, but some think that signifies a lack of seriousness or focus. Others -- and I'm among them -- see him doing one thing when everyone's watching, another thing entirely when few are.
This game, coming after his block crushed and concussed Burfict in the previous meeting here, was going to provide one titanic test of this kid's character. Because the Bengals were ... well, I'll let him tell it:
All that and probably a lot worse.
When he opened the game missing on a deep ball, then strikingly coming up alligator arms when he maybe heard footsteps -- and that's when the Bengals really began giving it to him -- it didn't bode well, to be kind.
But then, that badass emerged in a big way: He made a tumbling, stripped, standing-on-his-head catch near the goal line, another leaping catch on the winning drive, a running catch on the two-point conversion, and this, too:
That's a second-year player instinctively pouncing on a Vance McDonald fumble near the Cincinnati goal line to save a fourth-quarter drive.
"I was just in the right area," JuJu told me. "I was fortunate to be there."
That's not just lit. That's legit.
And when the clock hit all zeroes, it was JuJu, adult as can be, who sought out AB on the field and shared a 30-second, intense few words. Whether it was an expression of admiration or related to whatever tug-of-war for targets these two are now having, they'll go right back to dueling for reps at the next practice. And the offense will be all the better for it.
McDonald's been such a badass in his own right that his name might soon become a verb. You know, as in so-and-so got 'Vanced:'
And that's to say nothing of Conner, Rosie Nix, Vince Williams, Joe Haden, Cam Heyward, Stephon Tuitt, T.J. Watt and the entire offensive line -- all wonderful humans, mind you -- showing their own badass side in various forms. But those count, too.
Because what matters most in the equation is the talent involved and, from there, the spirit. Sometimes that talent comes with caveats. Great players can be a pain. But in almost every instance, they also come with the matching energy that helped make them great and, thus, it's tolerated. Or even embraced.
Kind of like the franchise quarterback himself.
Ben's forever come with a distinctive brand of baggage. Most recently, that was the back-and-forth with and about AB and their lack of connection. Ben would express empathy one day, disappointment the next, an apology right after. He'll go about such affairs in a less aggressive way, but he'll stir trouble, too.
Did you catch his unsolicited -- and hilarious -- line Sunday when asked about Conner rushing for 111 more yards and two more touchdowns?
"What a great game he had," Ben said, keeping a straight face as he proceeded, "but I know it's his last game for us because Le'Veon's coming back."
Le'Veon Bell. That circus is next, and this playful jab at the media will only heighten it.
???? been watchin L Bell tape ! https://t.co/Ha9ccFv48k
— James Conner (@JamesConner_) October 14, 2018
But that edge Ben's always had, that's not to be disregarded. Congeniality and competitiveness have next to nothing in common. And that first trait certainly wouldn't have compelled him, once he knew the Steelers were getting that ball back with 1:18 left, to strut up and down the sideline and bark at his offensive linemen, "Too much time! They left us too much time!" Or, right after that, approaching special teams coach Danny Smith and asking how close the coach would need his kicking unit to get for Chris Boswell to boot a winner.
Smith's answer: The Cincinnati 32.
Ben's answer:
"I told the guys, all the guys, 'This is what legacies are made of. Let's go take care of business,'" Ben recalled. "That's what makes this fun."
And talk about confidence or cockiness: How about not using a single timeout until 15 seconds remained? Or even hurrying out of the huddle?
That stuff drives people nuts, I know. I get it. A lot of it isn't easy to like.
But it's essential to understand that all those many irritants are also part of what impacts these Steelers so very positively. They came here with Shazier and, no doubt, renewed nightmares of last December. They came here facing a 4-1 division leader with all kinds of weapons and maybe even a little extra mojo. They faced a crowd that, at least among the partisans, was as hostile as ever. And maybe they faced elimination, too, if one ponders how they'd have dug out from a 2-3-1 hole chasing a 5-1 leader.
They're good like this.
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Want to know why these guys laugh when people like me and you discuss distractions?
It's not because they don't see it. They aren't ignorant, and they aren't willfully blind, either. Things get whispered. Things get talked about right in the open among them. There will be a ton more of that in the next few days, too, if Bell decides to report — even if he doesn't.
But what they discuss infinitely more than distractions are outcomes.
Check out this talk I had with Williams, when I didn't believe his assessment that this was "just another win:"
He means it. They're looking at the standings. That's how they're thinking now. Plainly, I'm as skeptical as anyone that beating the Bengals isn't special, but it was the same verbiage all over the room.
The Steelers want to win the AFC North again.
They want to make the playoffs again.
And they want to win a Super Bowl while this window's still letting in air.
"Everyone talks about this or that about our team, and we make all the headlines all over the country," Marcus Gilbert was telling me. "But we know what it's about in here. We know the goal. And we know it takes being together to make it happen. Trust me, we know that."
That's to their credit. And if any of the Tomlin-bashing portion of the Nation can stomach it, that's to his credit, too. It's easy to pick apart decisions, as I did above. It's easy to question his decisions, which I literally did at the postgame presser. But the greatest challenge any NFL head coach faces -- and there's not a soul in the football world who'd dispute this -- is keeping a team together through good performances and bad, good people and bad.
I find Bud Dupree to be as engaging and entertaining as anyone on the team. But I'm also aware that, when a fan recently ripped him on Twitter by asking where he was "all game long," Bud responded to this keyboard warrior thusly: "I was at your girl house laid up, wat u gone do”
My man Bud was not class valedictorian. But football isn't the Mensa society, and coaches aren't assembling church choirs.
The bottom line could be seen seconds after the game ended: When Cincinnati offensive tackle Bobby Hart grabbed Dupree "by the throat," as Bud was explaining to me, it wasn't one teammate who rushed to his defense. It was everyone. And it was everyone, in part, because there's a bunch of badasses on his side.
The punter was there, too, mate.
"Hey, we Aussies aren't afraid of a little scrum," Jordan Berry confided with a grin.
So, I asked Bud, what's the message that gets sent to Hart and the Bengals?
"Message?" he came back with one eyebrow raised. "I won. He lost."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers vs. Bengals, Cincinnati, Oct. 14, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS