BALTIMORE -- "I'm looking forward to Ben hopefully coming back healthy. So it can get back to the way it used to be and whatnot. ... You know what I mean?"
Oh, I did. Though it was still neat to hear it, innocent hesitation and all.
I'd been speaking with Diontae Johnson in a corner of the locker room about a bunch of stuff, this after the Steelers were eviscerated by the Ravens, 28-10, and eliminated from the NFL playoff picture on this already sour, soggy Sunday evening at M&T Bank Stadium. But when we got around to the moribund offense, if it sounded as if Diontae might have been violating protocol by merely mentioning Ben Roethlisberger, for fear of offering up an excuse ... well, it'd been that way in this little world for a while.
But now it's done. All of it.
And it couldn't be clearer why.
"You know, there's a reason they pay him a lot of money," David DeCastro came back with a slight smile when I brought up Ben, a topic he wouldn't touch a week ago in New Jersey. "Let's hope he's all healed up for 2020, that he's got a good physical therapist and is ready to go. We all saw how much we missed him."
There was a lot of that. All thoughtful. All fair. They missed their franchise quarterback, on and off the field, in every conceivable capacity. And ultimately, they couldn't overcome that.
Then there was this from James Washington. I hadn't yet brought up Ben, just the offense.
"We missed Ben, no question," he began. "I look at this offense, and I see tons of potential. Tons of it. Yeah, we've got a lot of experience that'll be back at an important position. But this offense ... "
He motioned across to Diontae a few feet away, buttoning up to head for the bus.
"It's a young receiving corps, and I think everybody knows that. But we're just a young offense all around. We learned a lot of lessons this year, myself included. Hard lessons. And if there's one thing we did take away from this season, it's that there was a lot of that. And we'll be stronger for it."
Hm. Now that got me thinking.
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Yeah, it was fun. Overcoming the 0-3 and 1-4 starts. Winning seven of eight. Perched on the precipice of the unlikeliest of all postseason berths. Minkah magic. T.J. for D.P.O.Y. Duck-mania. Coach of the year. All of it wound up far, far more than anyone could've expected or should've expected.
But again, now it's done. And worse, it came in the form of a crashing collapse in the final three games, all losses that'd be largely defined by an offense that couldn't handle the relentless blitzing of the Bills, Jets and now the 14-2 class of the NFL.
It was that collapse, regardless of circumstance, that was most commonly reflected upon around the room.
"The season wasn't the outcome we wanted. The game wasn't the outcome we wanted," Cam Heyward would say, seated at his stall, still wearing his crusty cleats and grass-stained No. 97. "I'm appreciative of the fans for supporting us, but we just didn't get it done."
"We had a tough hand dealt to us, but we fought hard all through the season," Minkah Fitzpatrick essentially echoed a row away. "We just didn't finish the way we wanted to finish."
Those two and the defense did their part. Heyward, the old vet at 31 and the vocal captain, was a bulldozer in compensating for Stephon Tuitt's loss up front. Minkah's addition through the magnificent trade with Miami brought his eight takeaways and a critical cog that'd been missing. And T.J. Watt was nothing less than the league's premier defensive performer, as he'd punctuate on this day with a forced fumble, half a sack and two QB hits.
Collectively, headlined by a league-leading 38 takeaways, they were brilliant. And if Bud Dupree's kept from free agency -- "I'd love to be back, but I'm leaving that with my agents," -- as he'd tell me -- there's an excellent chance at a sequel, bearing in mind Tuitt will be back, too.
So will Ben.
Ben Roethlisberger on the sideline Sunday in Baltimore. - APTake it to the bank, no matter what kind of nonsense gets stirred up on the Sunday morning shows in the interim. As he authoritatively stated himself just last week in response to an erroneous ESPN report, he's anticipating a full recovery from elbow surgery and a full return.
Good for him. It was the right time to say it, the right tone in which to say it. If he faces reporters Monday afternoon at the Rooney Complex for the Steelers' open-to-the-media locker cleanout -- it'd be his first such session since the surgery -- so much the better.
But back to what Washington said: Is Ben really all that'll be needed?
No, that wasn't his intended emphasis. I'm taking that liberty myself. Because, as I look across all 11 starters and into the depth, I'm left, candidly, with more questions than answers. And none of those have a thing to do with what kind of upgrade Ben would bring over Mason Rudolph and/or Devlin 'Duck' Hodges, which would make for a colossal waste of column space after all we've just witnessed.
Start with the positive: A total of two players, Johnson and DeCastro, really rose up on offense. That's it. And of those two, obviously, the only surprise would've been Diontae as the third-round rookie out of Toledo.
With this 21-yard sideline route among his four catches in this game ...
... the kid finished with 59, most among NFL rookies and second-most by a rookie in franchise history. To boot, he ran up 650 yards, an average of 11.5 per catch, and five touchdowns. With most of that coming in a breakout second half, coinciding with his emergence as a dangerous-with-each-touch punt returner.
One would call that a breakout, right?
"Oh, definitely," he replied without hesitation. "Coming here from college, I didn't expect to play as early as I did. But opportunities come around, and I just made the best of it. I feel like I progressed every week. And I'm going to come back next season even better."
There can't be any doubt. Full credit to the late Darryl Drake for identifying him for the draft and to all concerned.
But hey, anyone else besides him and the world-class right guard?
Sure, Maurkice Pouncey was selected for another Pro Bowl, but that's a cumulative honor. Within this context, I'd rank his work on a line maybe a little above that of Matt Feiler. And below that would be ... everyone else. In some cases, way below.
Ben can make all facets of the offense better in 2020, and he can even make the defense better by staying on the field for more than three snaps at a time.
But Ben wasn't the one who made James Conner too brittle to contribute yet again. A strong, sturdy starting back should rank close to the top of the front office's wish list for the coming offseason. And with all due apologies to Benny Snell, who showed well again here with 91 yards and this 19-yard gem before a dogged touchdown ...
... on 18 rushes, he probably isn't it. Conner will be back, but he's got to be a depth option. Same with Snell.
Get Ben a feature back.
Ben also wasn't the one who rendered the tight end position a permanent relic of the Steelers' past. Vance McDonald did that, first by being as brittle as Conner, second by barely producing in any facet, including a critical whiff here:
That's a tight end screen, but McDonald's got to at least say hello to Matthew Judon on the way by. A shove to the inside only accelerates the rush and all else that followed.
McDonald's become a bust. And with a $7.1 million cap hit next season, that's a pricy bust. If it takes the top pick in the draft -- and bear in mind, that's a second-rounder -- a top tight end is a must.
Get Ben ... not necessarily another Heath Miller -- that's tough -- but another reliable big target.
Ben also wasn't the one who shoved Ramon Foster over the hill. There can't be a better human in the NFL than Ramon, and he might be my favorite among all the teams I cover, but business is business. And the Steelers need to get about the business of moving Feiler inside to left guard and giving real chances to Zach Banner -- my choice -- and/or Chuks Okorafor at right tackle. That'll mean Foster's 12th season in Pittsburgh will be his last.
Ramon seems to realize this, as well, saying after the game, “I know the reality of this. If they're going to release me, just tell me when I’m home in Tennessee. Don’t wait. That’s all I say. Don’t waste my time. I know they’ll give me that common courtesy, and I’ll do a farewell."
Get Ben to forgo the concept that he has to keep the same O-line intact forever. And yeah, the Foster extension is partly on Ben because he and Pouncey tag-teamed the Steelers hard to push for it.
And saving the biggest bomb for last, Ben also wasn't the one who reduced JuJu Smith-Schuster to a virtually irrelevant element to the offense. By season's end, the dialogue about JuJu had sequentially disintegrated from replacing Antonio Brown to simply being the best No. 1 receiver, then to why he can't produce while Diontae can in the same setting, then to his social-media escapades while being too hurt to play, then finally, the sudden spate of drops.
In this game, he was targeted six times, caught two. For a total of 6 yards.
And get this: Of the final 37 times he was targeted this season, he caught 18.
I mean ... I thought it'd be fair to ask if the knee trouble that had kept him out hindered him through these past two weeks.
"No, no," he replied with pronounced head shakes. "I'm healthy. I'm fine."
And when I asked if the knee would need surgery, he replied, "No, no, no."
To repeat for the bazillionth time: I couldn't care less what JuJu does away from the field ... until it affects what's on the field. No one can dispute that he wasn't the best he can be and, as invariably is the case in any walk of life, that tends to be accompanied by a lack of focus and/or commitment.
It'll be fascinating to see how that plays out, but it can't be optional. He's too important.
Get Ben a receiving corps with more than 1 1/2 options. Maybe a bona fide burner to stretch the field, too, assuming that isn't already Deon Cain with the 4.4 legs.
Am I missing anyone?
Oh, right: Randy Fichtner. Well, I've been tough on him, brutally so at times, and I'll maintain that his disorganized, often-panicky playcalling contributed to a complete lack of offensive rhythm in Ben's absence. The Steelers were bound to regress without Ben, but they didn't need to become the NFL's very worst offense.
Turning that around, though, the same coordinator who finished dead-last in red-zone efficiency this year was also responsible for the league's best red-zone efficiency in 15 years in 2018, albeit when he had both Ben and AB. And since Ben's coming back, and Ben's earned the right to work with the coordinator of his choosing ... it just feels like debating Fichtner's future would be fruitless.
He needs to be better, too. Maybe he'll also have learned some of those "hard lessons" Washington referenced.
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Not to be the total downer here.
This was Week 17, and the Steelers stayed in contention probably about a dozen weeks longer than most of us had imagined they could. That's a testament to all concerned, from Art Rooney on down to Kevin Colbert, Mike Tomlin and their staff, as well as the players themselves.
The standard definitely wasn't the standard into perpetuity, but buying into that in the literal sense requires accepting that a future Hall of Famer can be routinely subbed out by an undrafted rookie from some FCS school in Alabama. That said, the standard that the Steelers won't just throw a season away because of early adversity, that's never been held higher. And Tomlin, more than anyone, deserves credit for that.
That won't come, of course. Tomlin's now got three playoff victories in his past nine years, and that'll be plenty enough for his haters -- and I do mean haters, in a few unfortunate cases -- to rip through all this fresh red meat over the coming offseason.
My stance is simple: 2020's a big deal.
Ben will be 38 in a couple months. And as Heyward elegantly worded it from the perspective of other older players, "It's tough. Three weeks ago, I thought we had a real shot. This hurts. The hourglass is getting smaller and smaller for a lot of guys."
He's one of them. He isn't alone.
But that's all the more reason that 2019 could be of value to the 2020 process, particularly on offense. Because, as Washington underscored, this was a younger offense. Because a couple players rose up. Because others were exposed. Because the decisions Colbert and Tomlin make will have been crystallized through that, not least of which will be reallocating cap space such as Foster's $4 million, McDonald's $7 million and others.
And when a competent offense is combined with a defense that's already at a Super Bowl level, as DeCastro put it, "We don't need to give them much. That's the beauty of it. And I think we will give them a lot more next season, so that's exciting."
Then this from Foster: "That defense is really special. You get Ben hopefully back next year -- I don’t want to fall on that, but that’s the reality -- when you have a Super Bowl-winning, franchise quarterback and that defense, if they can keep everybody intact, it'll be something really nice moving forward."
I ran it past JuJu ...
... and funny, but he mentioned Ben, too.
PHOTO GALLERY
Steelers vs. Ravens, Dec. 29, 2019, Baltimore. - AP