GLENDALE, Ariz. -- OK, so Mike Tomlin's either being a protective papa or not telling the truth.
And after talking to a ton of folks following the Steelers' 23-17 victory over the Cardinals on this Sunday at State Farm Stadium, I'm boldly betting on it being ... um, both.
And yes, of course I'm talking about the fake punt. Just like everyone else is back home, I presume.
Here we go again: It's the fourth quarter. Fourth-and-6 at the Pittsburgh 40. Ten-point lead. And Jordan Berry's back, awaiting the long snap from Kameron Canaday when this unfolds:
It looks horrendous. No, it actually is horrendous. Because the Cardinals would pounce on this premature Christmas present for an eventual touchdown to pull within three.
"So bad," Berry would tell me later. "Just so bad."
OK, but whose bad, exactly?
Before I get to the various explanations, look back up there and watch again. In particular, spy Berry's personal protector, Jordan Dangerfield. He's the one lined up dead-center between Canaday and Berry, flanked by the two up-backs. And it's his responsibility -- no one else's -- to check out of any ambitious call such as a fake.
Which, by every account I got, Dangerfield did. Including from Berry himself.
"I thought we were clean," he said. "I thought I was getting ready to run up there, and then they all shed off to go cover. And that's when I knew."
Meaning he was in deep desert doo-doo.
"It's one of those plays that, if the look is there, you take it. Yes, I thought we were good, and the guys in front called it off for some reason, which I'm not sure of. I haven't spoken to them. It was just some miscommunication, that's all. I'm 15 yards away. I can't hear what they say."
It's heavily supported. Dangerfield, as is plainly evident up there, joined pretty much everyone else in bursting off the line and gunning downfield. No one pauses for a split-second to even try to block anyone. That's how Arizona's Dennis Gardeck and Darrell Daniels emerge so freely to plaster Berry.
OK, so, again, whose bad?
I asked Tomlin, point-blank, if the call came from the sideline.
"It was a call by me," he replied with full eye contact and zero hesitation, as he was clearly ready for the question. "They had a six-man box. They had one gun in vice. They had two returners deep. We had decent numbers. We worked it during the week, but they executed better than we did. Kudos to them."
Couldn't Berry have called it off?
"Jordan doesn't have latitude. I make the decisions, and I assume the responsibility."
Well, there it is, then. Plain as day.
Or not.
Because Tomlin's use of "Jordan" clearly is referencing Berry, not Dangerfield, who does have that latitude. And while it's always Tomlin's modus operandi to take the blame, the more precise reality is that Danny Smith, the special teams coach, would make the initial call, subject to Tomlin's approval.
Berry stood tall at his stall afterward and, in the spirit of the seriously upbeat scene around him, was smiling and seemingly at ease in fielding countless questions on the same sequence.
"It was a big miscommunication, and I'm honestly not sure what else to say," Berry told me. "Our guys up front were running one thing, and I was running another. You never want to see that, obviously. We're all just glad it turned out well."
Berry, like Tomlin, acknowledged that the play had been practiced all week and with good results.
"If we're all on the same page, that's a first down, no doubt in my mind," Berry added. "Everything we wanted was there."
Trying to piece all this together as best I can, based on all of the above:
• Because the Steelers had been practicing the play all week -- and certain forms of it for a month -- this was the default formation unless it'd get canceled out. Which could only be done by Dangerfield, and which was done on Berry's first two punts.
• Berry, as he conceded, never heard Dangerfield cancel this one. Everyone else, all of them in front of Dangerfield to a degree, did. So they all ran.
• Tomlin felt comfortable telling me the call came from the sideline because, in essence, it did since it was the default. But he also felt comfortable taking the fall for Berry so his punter doesn't get publicly destroyed in the days ahead.
Make sense?
Fine, but that doesn't let people off the hook, so here are three more bullets:
• Tomlin and Smith have no excuse for not making it excruciatingly clear that this shouldn't have been anyone's default. That needed to happen before the first cleats stepped off the sideline. Both should have their judgment questioned for this alone.
• Dangerfield has no excuse for not making it excruciatingly clear that his punter knows his call. And doubly so in a road stadium, even one where the visiting team's fans dominate. He's on the roster for this reason more than any other, and he blew it.
• Berry ... I mean, come on, man. There's got to be at least a sliver of common-sense awareness. He gets the ball in ample time to boot it away once he sees the two bad guys breathing down his neck. And he, like all others, needed to be drop-dead certain of the situation before taking the field.
Oh, and hey, while we're on the topic, two more by-the-way bullets:
• Major credit to Trey Edmunds for alertly retreating and leaping onto that loose ball, even though he curiously wasn't credited with a fumble recovery by the hometown scorers.
• Arizona's Daniels should've been flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Berry, which would've negated everything.
• No single facet of this play was dumber than Daniels proceeding to dance behind Berry while the loose ball sat idle on the grass.
David DeCastro might've offered the healthiest perspective on it all.
"Look, it was what it was. I don't really care," he told me. "Bottom line is we bounced back from that and we won. We're happy about that. We're proud of it. On to next week."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers at Cardinals, Glendale, Ariz., Dec. 8, 2019 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
