James Conner's been a great story, one of the feel-good stories of this generation in our town.
I dare say he needs to become a much greater story for the 2019 Steelers.
Because this has defined his story to date on that front: 21, 33, 43, 42, 55, 41 ... and 145. And yeah, you guessed it, those were his rushing totals through the season's first six games ... and then against the pathetic Dolphins. That one game brought 38 percent of his season's output. After which he missed two games to a shoulder injury in the latest of a long list of physical ailments.
That's not good enough, to be polite.
That's got little to do with Ben Roethlisberger going down, even less to do with a healthy, still-capable offensive line. Plain and simple, it's about Conner not rising above being ordinary when handed the ball. In 2017, he averaged 4.5 yards per carry. In 2018, he averaged 4.5 again. This season, it's 3.9 and, again, the bulk of that came at Miami's expense. In the other six games, it's been 3.18.
And no, I won't bring this up ...
... at least not verbally.
Mason Rudolph has an excuse in that he's new. JuJu Smith-Schuster has a partial excuse in that he's new to double-coverage. But, as I wrote Sunday night after the 17-12 victory over the Rams, the time for excuses there is over. Both need to be better individually, and the collective needs to do more to help both.
That starts with Conner and if, as expected, he returns to the backfield Thursday night in Cleveland, it needs to start right then.
"I'm making a lot of progress on it, and I think I'll be good to go," Conner spoke Monday at the Rooney Complex. "I can't make guarantees but, as of right now, I'm feeling very good and very confident."
Of his expectation, he added, "I just want to contribute to the run game when I get back. Mason's played well, and we won both games without the run. That doesn't mean we don't need it because we definitely do, and so, hopefully, I can contribute to it when I get back."
Uh-uh. Not contribute. Lead.
Like pretty much everyone else, I pulled for Conner to be Le'Veon Bell's effective replacement following that fiasco in 2018. And like pretty much everyone else, I applauded when he broke through -- beginning, I should add, with a big-time 135-yard opener in Cleveland -- in part because he'd lead the NFL in broken tackles through the season's first half. He couldn't, wouldn't be brought down. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
This season, he's hesitated at the line, he's swung left and right, and he's been brought down a little too easily.
Think opponents are gearing up for the run?
Think again: Last season, he faced eight-plus men in the box 27.9 percent of the time, 11th-most of any NFL running back. This season, he's faced eight-plus men in the box 12.4 percent of the time, less than half as often and 35th-most of any NFL running back.
Think he's running as hard as ever?
Think again: Although his average yards after the initial contact are virtually identical -- 2.1 last year, 2.3 this year -- he finished with 20 broken tackles last year, and he's got five this year.
Five!
Think he's a No. 1 NFL running back?
I did, too, but we'll see.
• Conner's got one more year on his four-year contract, for which he'll earn $3,161,523. No way he'll get extended if he remains in the bottom third or quarter of the league's players at his position.
• I'm all about Minkah-mania. What Minkah Fitzpatrick's achieved here in short order is nothing shy of generational. That's to his credit, as well as Kevin Colbert, Mike Tomlin and all involved in his acquisition.
As Vince Williams playfully barked in the direction of Colbert in the locker room Sunday at Heinz Field: "GM of the year! Thank you!"
But I also hope it isn't lost that this was going to be a very good defense with or without him. Not great, the way it is now, but very good. T.J. Watt's right there with him for team MVP. Joe Haden's performing as if he's a half-dozen years younger, in peak Cleveland form. Cam Heyward is eating people alive, even with Stephon Tuitt out. Bud Dupree's finally finishing his rushes. Javon Hargrave just produced seven tackles Sunday, including a game-altering strip-sack. Mark Barron, who was buried publicly within minutes of his arrival, led the team with 10 tackles, all solos, and one was a bone-rattler.
• Want to love Watt even more?
Watch his response when I asked if he welcomed the defense having the chance to take the field for a final stand Sunday:
• What a defense. What a joy they've been to witness, on and off the field.
• This just in: Fumbles are bad.
This also in: NFL defenses increasingly are prioritizing punching out the ball over the standard wrap and tackle, and the Steelers have been victimized by it far too often, including James Washington in this game.
This finally in: Mike Tomlin isn't -- and shouldn't be -- accepting any excuses. Find a way to hold the ball. Find a way to go down without forfeiting possession.
"I know sometimes losing a football is just born out of working extremely hard to make plays, particularly in regards to some of the young people," he said Monday. "But the reasoning is irrelevant. When you’re working in the fashion we’re working, missing a number of significant people in the offensive unit, we’ve got to do good, fundamental things, like take care of the ball. That has been a bug for us. We’ll continue to work in that area, it’s not like we haven’t placed an emphasis on working that area. Just hasn’t unfolded the way that we would like in stadiums."
• If Tomlin guides this team to the playoffs, he's NFL Coach of the Year without a split-second hesitation. And I don't just mean in my opinion. I mean he'll be honored as such.
• A year ago, it took 12 and 10 wins to secure the AFC's two wild-card spots. The previous year, both teams had nine. The year before that, it was again 12 and 10.
So that's basically the bar.
Now, with the Steelers at 5-4, good luck finding me three-plus losses the rest of the way to keep them out:
Yeah, me neither. Sweeping the Browns won't be routine, but the rest stink until the trip to Baltimore. And don't bother, please, building up Buffalo because of the 6-3 record. The Bills' next W over any opponent currently over .500 will be the first, and they barely squeaked by the Jets, Giants, Bengals and Dolphins with a cumulative victory margin of 30 points in those four games.
• By the way, I wrote in Tuesday Takes three weeks ago that both of Buffalo's big-league franchises were off to grossly inflated good starts, and all that's happened since then is the Bills losing two of three and the Sabres losing six of seven. It's like I borrowed Devin Bush's crystal ball or something.
• For anyone obsessing over Ryan Switzer after an uplifting outcome like the one Sunday ... my goodness, that's complaining for complaining's sake. He's not good at what he does. But what he does isn't all that important.
• The bulk of discussion/debate about the Browns these days seems to have disintegrated into a referendum on Baker Mayfield. That's neither fair nor accurate. He's middle-of-the-pack or just below in most passing categories, even with the 12 picks against nine touchdowns, considering he's been sacked 25 times and rushed relentlessly.
He isn't the issue. Never was. It was always going to be about the offensive line in Cleveland, as I was writing last summer, and about yet another new head coach. Sure enough, both of those proved to be high atop the list.
Can't win in the NFL without an O-line.
• Definitely can't beat these Steelers without one. They'll devour this dude.
Sidney Crosby, Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• Presuming Sidney Crosby's got a groin injury, which is what I was hearing Monday, the longer he's out the better, believe it or not.
Not all injuries are created equal, of course, and that goes for groins, too. But there've been countless cases in hockey of players rushing back from those, only to have recurring setbacks -- remember, this happened to Jaromir Jagr here for years -- or worse, to have it affect their skating. Things feel fine, the player takes a few spins on the practice rink, and clearance comes ... but not full healing.
There's no rush. After the game tonight in New York, there's a back-to-back this weekend, in Newark, then home against the Maple Leafs. Forget 'em all. That'd buy nearly 10 whole days to get it right.
• To repeat, our staff saw Crosby walk out of PPG Paints Arena the other night and, though there was a slight limp, it was one we couldn't even really describe if we had to.
• It says so very much about Evgeni Malkin's personality that, even with Crosby out tonight, the forward lines that list him as still centering the No. 2 unit wouldn't offend him in the slightest. And that's exactly how they were listed at practice yesterday in Cranberry, by the way, with Jared McCann first, Malkin second.
His respect for Crosby and, thus, his own standing within the franchise has no parallel in modern sports.
• That said, there's no need to shuffle lines. Malkin needs to stay with Bryan Rust, and Jake Guentzel's creating plenty of offense on his own, so the group can benefit from their being spread out.
Where there is a need: Alex Galchenyuk, Nick Bjugstad and Zach Aston-Reese need to start producing. Because Sam Lafferty's return to the lineup is about to turn the heat back up on everyone, Sid or no Sid.
• Shoot it like you mean it.
• I've cited more times than I can recall the philosophy of John Schuerholz, the longtime architect of the Braves, that the most important talent any general manager has to evaluate is what's already within the fold. And I'll cite it yet again as it applies to John Marino. Because someone in Edmonton had this young man in their fold -- playing at Harvard University, but their property -- and thought it'd be fine to accept a sixth-round pick from Jim Rutherford to give up his rights.
• Henrik Lundqvist was popped for five goals on 35 shots Sunday night by the Panthers, which provides yet another convenient excuse for the Rangers to not start him against the Penguins tonight, right?
Really, how much more obvious can that be at this point?
Last time it happened was Jan. 2 at the Garden, and the Penguins for the gazillionth time chased Lundqvist on six goals over 18 shots and 44 minutes. Otherwise, the Rangers have started someone else in five of the past six meetings.
We'll see about this one.
• I don't delve into politics here, so I sure won't delve into Canadian politics. But I will offer that the Rogers Sportsnet TV network's firing of larger-than-life commentator Don Cherry -- who recently criticized immigrants to that country for, in his view, not properly honoring military veterans -- marks a spectacular day for hockey. The sport's most vocal dinosaurs are going extinct, and the sport will be that much smarter, safer and healthier for no longer having to hear his neanderthal views on checking, fighting, even outright assault on the ice.
Bryan Reynolds. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• Bryan Reynolds finishing fourth in the National League's Rookie of the Year voting, announced Monday, reminded me that ... you know, Reynolds is awesome. And the Pirates are lucky to have him.
Neal Huntington was eminently deserving of his firing, but acquiring a young player of Reynolds' pedigree within the pressure-packed trade of a franchise icon -- Andrew McCutchen to the Giants for Reynolds and Kyle Crick -- will forever be a feather. Excellent work by everyone who was part of it, but the GM first and foremost.
It's also to Huntington's credit that his successor will have at least the exo-skeleton of an everyday lineup heading into 2020, provided the plunger isn't pushed on some grand rebuild. (Which wouldn't offend me if it were explained truthfully and verifiably, I should add.)
An outfield of Reynolds, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco is a very good one. An infield of Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, Kevin Newman and Insert Third Baseman Here can be a good one, at least offensively. A third baseman is needed, especially if Ke'Bryan Hayes fizzles, and another catcher is needed in addition to -- or in place of -- Jacob Stallings and/or Elias Diaz.
Marte will be 31, but everyone else will be younger than 30. So a retool option would appear to be available.
Two problems:
1. Starting pitching is needed.
2. The farm system is barren.
Both of those are extremely expensive, whether via money or baseball capital, and so there aren't shortcuts to either.
• The field of three finalists for GM doesn't excite me much just yet: Ben Cherington, former GM of the Red Sox and now a VP with the Blue Jays, Matt Arnold, assistant GM with the Brewers, and presumably the interim GM here, Kevan Graves, all have backgrounds with a sound mix of both analytics and scouting. That's ideal. But more ideal, as I see it, would be if the scouting came with a capital S, meaning that there'd be real history of evaluating talent in the rawest sense. That's what's needed here now above all.
• Baseball's economic system is beyond broken. Brian Cashman, the Yankees' GM, couldn't have made that clearer than he did Monday by cavalierly blurting out that he plans to pursue not one but both Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg once free agency opens.
Hey, why not?
Only a couple other teams could conceivably spend at their level, so it's not like they're raising the market or anything.
I hope it happens. I hope both wind up in the Bronx, and I hope they win the next half-dozen World Series with a payroll approaching half a billion dollars. Because honestly, that's what it'll take for the teams in the bottom half to finally get fed up.
• The 49ers, the NFL's last undefeated team, finally lost late Monday night, in sizzling finish with the Seahawks:
THE GAME WINNER.
42 YARDS.@SEAHAWKS WIN! #Seahawks #SEAvsSF pic.twitter.com/FdijK2Nueb
— NFL (@NFL) November 12, 2019
The perfect '72 Dolphins popped champagne over this, as they always do, which I've always found pretty cool. Seeing all those Super Steelers from that decade at Heinz Field over the weekend brought back to mind how important it is to respect history, but especially while those who made that history are still with us.
Also this: Joe Greene is the greatest of all Steelers, just as Honus Wagner is the greatest of all Pirates, just as Mario Lemieux is the greatest of all athletes in all of Pittsburgh sports. There are no other acceptable answers from this perspective when it comes to football. Mean Joe is, was and always will be the embodiment of the greatest dynasty our city will ever see.
• Parting shot: These Steelers have four losses. The current record of those four teams -- Patriots, Seahawks, 49ers, Ravens -- is now a cumulative 31-6. Three of those losses came by a combined nine points, one in overtime.
Maybe even the bad wasn't so bad, huh?
