PHILADELPHIA — It’d been three full months before the NFL season began that Mike Tomlin already, apparently, foresaw all this.
He’d been asked by one of his old players, Ryan Clark, in a podcast interview what kind of coach he needed to be for these Steelers in 2022, based on the premise that they’d be younger, particularly on offense. And the response might as well have been spoken by Nostradamus.
No, seriously …
“I need to be what this 2022 team needs me to be," came Tomlin's unflinching reply. "That’s leadership, right? It doesn’t mean being inauthentic. It doesn't mean not being myself, but I’d better be sensitive to the needs of the group, and I better work to meet that. And that's what I mean when I say, ‘I better be what they need me to be.’ "
He paused a bit, then added, “And so it's going to be different things at different times, man, and I'm open to that. Day to-day, I don’t know what they need me to be. I better have my ear to the ground. I better get a feel for it.”
Well, hello, 2-5.
And hello to the NFL’s last undefeated team, the 6-0 Eagles, on this autumnal Sunday at the wrong end of the commonwealth, where only everything’s expected to go wrong for Tomlin’s Steelers, maybe within minutes of the 1:02 p.m. kickoff at Lincoln Financial Field.
Latest betting line: Eagles by 11.
More realistic outlook, when further weighing no T.J. Watt and now no Chris Boswell: Umm …
Look, let's not pretend this won't end up the way it'll end up. These two teams are on totally different trajectories, with or without injuries, and that won't be wiped away within a single weekend. This has a far greater chance of being a sequel to the Buffalo debacle than to the upset of Tampa Bay, and I might be generous in that assessment.
In the same breath, though, I'm comfortable saying that there's a ton of value to be had here.
If ... Tomlin's as good as his word regarding that ear-to-the-ground thing.
See, when I'm around these younger players on the offense, what I see, hear and sense is mostly this:
1. They want to succeed.
2. They've got the talent to do it.
3. They aren't there yet.
Now, we can take that third one and throw it into Matt Canada's face, and we might even be correct. His playbook wouldn't fill the front side of an index card, and his imagination in utilizing wouldn't extend much further. He's a spoof, a satire of an NFL coordinator, and he's got to go ... like, a month ago.
But even once he's gone -- and he'd do well to recheck his seat for the flight home tonight -- the process won't be anyone's snap. Least of all Tomlin's because, as he seemed to preemptively acknowledge in that above interview, building a team from the bottom up is nowhere to be found on his resume. And what's maybe more ominous, it might not be a fit for his 'Winning is our business' personality, either.
Really, can anyone anywhere conceive of a version of Tomlin that prioritizes a developmental decision over the game being played that Sunday?
If so, please cite the precedent?
Can anyone picture, say, Tomlin starting DeMarvin Leal over Larry Ogonjobi once both are back to full health? Even though the defensive line needs an infusion of youth more than any other facet of the roster? Even though Leal's arrow was rocketing upward with each passing week before getting hurt?
Nope. Me neither. All that'll matter is scoring one more point than the Falcons or whoever.
Or, maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe Tomlin will embrace having already made the most seismic such decision he'll make all year -- Mitch Trubisky out, Kenny Pickett in -- and go full-bore toward making everyone a better player, a better teammate, a better winner for 2023. Maybe he'll strand Canada here tonight, then fly into the bye week with a fresh perspective on where these Steelers are and where they ultimately need to be and, rather than having the whole football world's wind to his face, he'll have his players back to full belief in the coaching, and he'll benefit from the fans getting behind this more pragmatic approach, as well.
Put it this way: Name the young player who's likely to get booed in Pittsburgh for the rest of this season.
Rebuilds don't take long in the NFL, which is why they're seldom even described that way. Free agency's just too prominent a factor. And with the Steelers having relatively little cap space tied up at quarterback, unlike most teams, they'll be freer than most to add what's needed.
But that's best executed by having the best possible information on the players at hand. So put 'em out there, applaud those who rise up, bury those who don't, highlight the holes remaining and get busy in the springtime.
The lower the fall down the standings, the lower that ear needs to go.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia.
• Always nice to be on this side of the parking lot. Lincoln Financial's probably the prettiest stadium in the NFL, and it easily could've been ours. Or something similar. Same funding stream. But then, design is everything, and the Rooneys cut every corner on that front.
• That said, this lot's long been wanting on a lot of other fronts when it comes to the behavior of many of the citizens. Which makes it excruciating to see this city reveling not only in the Eagles but also the Phillies in the World Series and even the sorry Flyers off to a stunning start. It's an absence of justice on a universal scale.
• As long as I'm mixing sports: One fear Pittsburgh fans will have to overcome is the one that all rebuilds are akin to what the Pirates do. Or even just, in general, the ones seen in Major League Baseball or the NHL. This isn't that. In the NFL, the entire NFC East was a dumpster fire, like, yesterday. Right now, the Eagles are 6-0, the Giants 6-1, the Cowboys 5-2, and even the Washingtons are 3-4.
Heck, looking at the Eagles alone, 10 of their 11 current offensive starters were part of their own 2-5 start a year ago.
• Congrats to whoever instilled common sense into not activating T.J. today. Talk about not keeping an eye toward the future, never mind the ear to the ground. Should never have come up.
• This Boswell injury might not be short-term. Don't shoot the messenger.
• For all the fuss about throwing deep, only Pickett correctly pointed out -- publicly, anyway -- that the offense's primary shortcoming has been the lack of splashy yards after the catch, regardless of how far the ball travels by air. That's mostly because of Canada's mindless curl routes, of course, and it's resulted in the Steelers averaging 2.2 yards after a catch.
That's not a typo. It's the equivalent of just falling forward.
Still and all, deep balls will be a must, or the receivers won't ever have the open grass they need to pull off those extra yards on underneath routes.
• I'm getting tired of Najee Harris' perceived or propped-up leadership. He's a great story and a great kid, but what's needed on this team is a great running back. Let's see leadership via 100-yard outputs.
• Dan Moore and Kevin Dotson have individual shots at a statement game against this formidable Philadelphia front. What a victory that'd be for the beleaguered left side of the offensive line. And I mean that. This is the stuff that now matters most.
• A source close to the Eagles was telling me a couple weeks ago that they couldn't believe the Steelers failed to wrap up Javon Hargrave. They weren't alone. Ask anyone who played alongside Hargrave. He doesn't leap off a stats listing -- one sack, nine total tackles -- but he's unmovable in the middle, and that frees up the wreckers around him to run wild.
Philadelphia's price, for anyone who forgot, was three years and $39 million, and no one here regrets a penny of it.
• Q: How is it plausible to trade a seventh-round pick for a sixth-round pick and get ripped off?
A: When Malik Reed's the throw-in.
Man, does this dude even exist?
• Chase Claypool isn't getting traded.
Nor should he be. Can't keep investing high picks in wide receivers. That ought to go to the trenches in 2023 and probably 2024, too.
Ask me more about that after this one.
• Thanks for reading my football work. I'll have another after the game, obviously.
• Obviously.
