Didn't care then. Don't care now.
Didn't think he wants to play football anymore. Sure of it now.
'Fair' thee well, Le'Veon Bell. The only injury being risked now is that of a door to the derriere.
• The NFL's action yesterday cemented for me that the Steelers are the current class of the AFC.
Yeah, I know the Chiefs are 9-1, and that they won at Heinz Field. I also know they squeaked by the Steelers by five points back in Week 2, when they didn't have Joe Haden and when they were still a general mess defensively. Since then, in winning five in a row, they've allowed 17, 21, 18, 16 and 21 points, soaring to No. 9 in the NFL in total defense. The Chiefs are No. 31 of the league's 32 teams in that regard, with not even modest improvement along the way.
The Steelers are the more complete team by a big margin.
The Patriots?
Well, losing by 24 in Nashville yesterday doesn't define a dynasty, but there are plenty of indications it's finally nearing the end, not least of which was Tom Brady completing barely half his passes (21 of 41), with virtually no ground game, no receiver depth (No. 2 guy Josh Gordon caught four balls on 12 targets yesterday), and Rob Gronkowski being habitually slowed or forced out by a bad back.
No amount of genius overcomes all that.
Who's left?
The Chargers are in the conversation, for sure. They're 7-2, they've won six in a row, and they've got a franchise QB in Philip Rivers. I'm actually looking forward more to the Steelers' meeting with these guys than a certain other marquee matchup in December.
The Titans and Texans?
Surprising and stunning, in that order, but I don't shop in the AFC South for this sort of thing.
The Bengals?
The path to Super Bowl LIII is looking more plausible with each passing week.
• Disputing anything with David DeCastro these days is unwise, so heed the final few words from him in our conversation the other day: "This is special. This is getting special."
• By the way, I can't even bring myself to type 'Los Angeles Chargers.' It's been a long time since a franchise move bugged me this much, maybe since the Expos were stolen from Montreal. This team belongs in San Diego, not in some college stadium as the second citizen in a city that had been just fine without any NFL presence for decades. This is so stupid it barely requires a rebuttal.
From the broader perspective, the league needs to respect that each departure from a place like San Diego, Oakland or -- not that long ago -- Cleveland rips out a piece of football's heart. It cheapens the history. It cuts off generations.
It's too late for Oakland/Vegas, but it isn't too late to return to San Diego.
• The focus of the Steelers' practices this week will be preparing for the Jaguars, obviously, but here's hoping a little extra time is set aside to figure out a way for Ben Roethlisberger and James Washington to connect.
Not that Washington's been needed, of course, but that shouldn't mean he isn't wanted. This offense can still benefit from a bona fide No. 3 receiver, especially one capable of offering splash down the field. Washington did that in Latrobe and through the preseason. The skill is there. Presumably, so is the will. It's just a matter of finding the way.
• There's no way we should be done talking about Roethlisberger's performance from Thursday night. Not after he threw two more touchdown passes than he did incompletions, five to three.
If you were there, save the ticket stub and maybe attach it to a printed-out boxscore. No one will believe you witnessed such a thing otherwise.
• Since Mike Tomlin took over in 2007, the Steelers are 122-62-1 with eight playoff appearances, two Super Bowl appearances and one championship. That's a .663 winning percentage. Among active head coaches with at least 50 games, only Bill Belichick's been better. Mike McCarthy, Andy Reid and Sean Payton are all 40-plus percentage points behind Tomlin. No one else is even close.
For those who never let go of their wish to see Tomlin fired, I'll humbly offer the only two plausible scenarios in which the Steelers could then upgrade with their next choice:
1. Bring in Belichick himself.
2. Get outrageously lucky.
And for anyone devaluing regular-season success, I'll also offer a reminder that you can't win in the playoffs without participating. And the more of those in which a team participates, the greater the chance of a championship.
• Joe Haden's my team MVP to date. Don't respond to this. It won't be heard.
• Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt have combined for 23 QB pressures the past three games, tops of any defensive-line duo in the NFL in that span. Maybe more impressive, considering they play on the interior of a base 3-4 package, they lead the Steelers' defense in QB pressures for the season.
And if you want those stats split up between the two, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere. I view these guys, on and off the field, as close to inseparable. They're friends, they trust each other implicitly, and they're teammates without parallel. But they also push each other, in maybe the neatest way.
"We have to," Tuitt was telling me the other day. "We know that, to be at our best, we've got to bring out the best in each other. We've got to get after each other, challenge each other."
Heyward, the defensive captain, clearly takes that challenge to another level. He speaks of Tuitt, who's four years younger, as one would of a little brother. He sees Tuitt as being responsible for the next lineage of Brett Keisel, Aaron Smith and other D-linemen going all the way back to Joe Greene. They talk about that openly.
"Steph's getting to where he can be," Heyward said. "But he's not complete. I'm not complete. I don't think any of us can say that until we've won a Super Bowl."
• Ryan Fitzpatrick passed for 406 yards yesterday in Tampa. The Buccaneers managed only a field goal all day in a 16-3 loss to the Redskins. And once the game ended, Dirk Koetter, their head coach, confessed publicly that he'd been so exasperated he took over the playcalling from his offensive coordinator.
That's what I mean by getting outrageously lucky. These messes are all over the NFL, including when the occasional flavor-of-the-season emerges as Doug Marrone did in Jacksonville last winter. The Jaguars have lost five in a row, they're now 3-6, and they'll basically be playing to survive next Sunday when the Steelers are down there.
Anyone still drooling over Marrone?
• The only regret I've got with the Bell scenario is we're all now robbed of the civic spectacle that would have ensued when Conner so badly outshone Bell he'd have been sharing bench space with Stevan Ridley.
• I've got hockey duty the next couple days, including a trip to Newark. The NFL's 4 p.m. deadline tomorrow for Bell will come and go without my even realizing it, trust me.
