For every Kenny Pickett misfire, there'd be a corresponding missile. For every Najee Harris stuff at the line, a stiff-arm befitting a heavyweight fighter. For every missed Dan Moore block, a Kevin Dotson pancake. For every Devin Bush whiff, a T.J. Watt sack, a Minkah Fitzpatrick pick, a Cam Heyward demolition or some other defensive splash.
Collectively, for every clunker in Buffalo, Philly or Miami, there'd be a Christmas Eve mini-miracle while honoring a fallen legend. For every four-game losing streak, a four-game winning streak. For every 2-6 start, a 7-2 sail to the finish.
Most important, I'd say, for every setback, there'd be a step ... not just up but above.
"We're a better football team now than we were," Dotson would tell me on this wintry Sunday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium, where the Steelers' 90th season wrapped up with a 28-14 doubling of the Browns, a 9-8 record that assured a 16th year under Mike Tomlin without a losing season and, as all concerned would experience almost simultaneously with the Dolphins booting a 50-yard field goal to beat the Jets in Miami, no playoff appearance. "We know we didn't make it. We didn't reach our goal. But we know we got better. As a team, as individuals. We know we came together. We know we kept putting it all out there, even back when we were ... what were we?"
That was 2-6 after Philly, I reminded. But there also was 3-7.
"Yeah, 2-6, 3-7 ... who does that?"
Pretty much no one. When the Jaguars overcame their own 3-7 start to make the playoffs on this same weekend, they became the second team in NFL history to pull that off. The Steelers nearly were the third.
What a strange setting the room was in the aftermath, with players visibly uncomfortable expressing satisfaction over this win and even the four-game winning streak that was nullified several states away.
"It would've been very easy to fold and to start wondering why this is happening to us and pointing fingers and assigning blame," T.J. would say. "But none of the guys did that. Credit to Coach T, the leadership in the locker room and the guys that we have who were able, when our backs were against the wall, to be able to fight back. ... So many ups and downs. No one gave up."
"Perseverance" was the word Najee applied. "For us to persevere and stick together, I think that'll carry into next year. When we go through some trouble early on or even later in the season, we can recall back to this year when we stuck it out."
So much of this event alone seemed symbolic in that regard: The offense was a mess ... until it wasn't. The defense was getting gashed ... until it wasn't. There were no touchdowns through most of a half ... until there were three:
Tomlin had mentioned earlier in the week that he'd have seen the Steelers as "a team on the rise" had they made the playoffs. Reminded of that remark and asked if he still saw his team on that arc, he replied, "I think our record indicates that. That's all that matters. The style component of play is less significant. You step into stadiums, you win games, and you step out of stadiums. So, to answer your questions, yes, we were a team on the rise."
Were? Or are?
____________________
See, Tomlin loathes connecting seasons. Each one's its own 'journey,' as he likes to call it.
But he also loathed stating the obvious throughout 2022, that the Steelers were bound to be in a reset year with Ben Roethlisberger retired, the offensive line all new, and multiple other drag factors in tow. And yet they were. What's more, even though Pickett didn't open the season as starter, it couldn't have felt more inevitable that he'd succeed Mitch Trubisky sooner rather than later. Which he did within a month.
No team anywhere skates through that scenario smoothly. And this one didn't, either, when coupled with a monstrous pre-bye schedule.
So, as I've been writing for months, I've felt all along that the only fair way to evaluate all this was monitor improvement. For every situation, to ask one simple question: Are they getting better?
And as one might further expect, there was a lot I'd like, a lot I didn't like.
I liked Tomlin's approach to facing a reset for the first time. But even though he wouldn't publicly acknowledge it, his actions counted more, particularly in sticking by Kenny after those eight early interceptions. He accepted, if subtly, that he had more to gain from getting his young quarterback experience now than in 2023, and he was going to ride that wherever it took him.
"I think I've been pretty consistent all year," he'd say after this game. “We lack experience in some areas, but we're good enough to win while we grow, good enough to win while we can gain experience. We did not grade this group on a curve. We did not grade Kenny on a curve. We don't function like that. Football is a game, our business is winning, and our intentions are to handle business."
Again, I like that. Same as I've always respected his handling of his people.
What I don't like is that he's continued to demonstrate little, if any, progress in the critical areas of on-field discipline, clock management, replay challenges -- with one of his all-time whoppers in this game in failing to throw the red flag on what should've been a Najee touchdown -- and the biggest one of all: He can't hire coordinators to save his life.
I like that, after a ragged start, Teryl Austin, Brian Flores and the apparent defensive triumvirate solidified a smart, if a little too safe, defensive scheme that contributed to leading the NFL in interceptions while eventually upgrading the run defense into a weekly strength.
I don't like ... wow, absolutely anything about having Matt Canada on staff. He's as overmatched as any assistant coach I've covered in any sport in my career, and it's astonishing that he survived through all 17 games of this season.
He needs to be fired. The month before yesterday.
I like that the team found its first competent offensive line coach since Mike Munchak in Pat Meyer, who worked wonders with this group and, from what I'm told, did so without losing his cool -- or his faith in his players -- once. Couldn't have been easy. Either one.
I don't like that the staff clearly doesn't have a single soul hardy enough to order Diontae Johnson to stop running backward every catch. That should be embarrassing for everyone, all the way up to Tomlin, each time he does it.
I like Kenny. A ton. And I sure hope it's shown from the moment Franco Harris called his name at the NFL Draft. He'll have his hiccups, like the four ugly overthrows in this game, but there isn't a week that's gone by that he hasn't gotten better. At everything. And along the way, all he's done is perform at his peak when it's mattered most.
"I just want to be consistent," Kenny'd say after completing 13 of 29 passes for 195 yards and the touchdown here. "I want to be a consistent guy, a consistent leader. I want to continue to improve. I don't think I'm anywhere close to what I can and what I'm going to be. So I'm excited to attack the offseason and take that leap into Year 2."
Kenny's the quarterback. I like that. It might mean more than all the rest of this combined.
I don't like that we've yet to see him operate with a capable coordinator. Not to pound the horse 8 feet deep.
I like knowing that Kenny's the quarterback, if only because even more cap space can be retained by moving out one or both of Trubisky and Mason Rudolph.
I don't like seeing a player make a beeline for the exit almost immediately following the season finale. I couldn't help but notice that Rudolph bolted as if he were being chased by Myles Garrett wielding a helmet.
I like Kenny's line. And as I'd share with Kenny afterward, I like the progress his line's made even more than his own. All five -- Moore, Dotson, Mason Cole, James Daniels, Chuks Okorafor -- came with question marks, and all five appeared in all 17 games, and all five became more cohesive with every passing week. Particularly in the running game.
I don't like Moore's ongoing lapses, and he remains the main worry. As such, barring a prohibitive view of the incoming class at left tackle, I'm prepared to push for that to be the position of focus in the first round. Moore can always bump inside or handle multiple positions, a role the team really doesn't enjoy now.
I like George Pickens. If I have to explain why, then the wrong column's being read, but hey, here's one answer he gave me I liked:
I don't like Diontae being on this roster at all, much less as some curiously designated top dog. It's bordering on the insane. In this game, he caught two passes despite being targeted 10 times, that showing littered with drops, a fumble, a bizarre backward ducking out of bounds when a first down was needed, several other standard backward runs and ... honestly, I don't even care which ones were negated by penalty or not. It's all occurred too often to be coincidence and, oh, yeah, it's costing $18 million a year.
I like sanity.
I don't like insanity. Stop it.
I like Najee. And anyone who doesn't at this stage isn't appreciating not only the exceptional back he's becoming but also the pivotal leader he became. When T.J. and others speak of what turned the season around at the bye, what they're referencing, I can attest, is the extra time and emotion Najee invested in working closely with his linemen to become the back they needed, rather than the other way around. He and I had a terrific talk about this in Charlotte, with the gist being, in his words, "We weren't going anywhere the other way."
I don't like ... hmmmmm, how to put this? ... that Najee still feels forced to say to the cameras and microphones what he thinks is the right thing rather than what he really believes.
I like dropping hints to my readers, such as noting that Najee voiced support for his coordinator after this game when surrounded by more than a dozen reporters, saying, "We all believe in Canada."
I don't like having to be the one to reveal that this isn't true.
I like Jaylen Warren, arguably the most uplifting story of the season from an isolated perspective.
I don't like when Warren's the centerpiece of any argument that running backs don't need to be drafted high. There's a reason Najee's Najee.
I like Pat Freiermuth's selflessness in having forfeited routes to assist in the blocking.
I really, really, really don't like seeing anyone get hurt as he did with his left knee in the final quarter of the season. No athlete should have to spend an offseason in rehab. Here's hoping for the best. He's been a wonderful addition.
I like disliking jet sweeps.
____________________
I like Cam. It's impossible -- no, morally repugnant -- to not like Cam. Two more sacks, four more quarterback hits, eight more tackles and no end in sight to his magnificent career, even at age 33.
I don't like that he's been the victim of two of the dumbest flags anyone's ever tossed over these past two Sundays:
I like player safety. Especially after the week everyone in the NFL just endured.
I don't like insanity. Stop it. Deshaun Watson had been escaping everyone all afternoon, and he'd have escaped Cam, too, if not for being brought down authoritatively.
Maybe a massage was expected?
I like T.J. Because he's T.J., and no one else is.
I don't like that he was hit with so many injuries that, as he told me a week ago in Baltimore, "I never really felt myself until this late into the season. It was one thing after another."
I like that T.J. represents the real championship window for this team, at least for those who believe it's still there.
I don't like to think about the planet's best defensive player never getting a ring. It'd be such a waste.
I like Minkah. More than ever. His game showed a rabidity I hadn't seen before, beginning with that one-man tour de force in Cincinnati, continuing into six more picks and culminating with a team-high 10 tackles in this game. Because he'll outsmart someone's quarterback as eagerly as he'll take on Nick Chubb.
I don't like seeing Minkah as disappointed as he was after this. Among the last to leave the locker room, he'd planted himself at a stall, his head leaning against a wooden wall, only occasionally looking around. Dude's built to win.
I like the Dolphins for idiotically giving him away.
I don't like the Dolphins for their 50-yard field goals.
I liked Larry Ogunjobi looking the way he did in this game, spending nearly as much time in the Cleveland backfield as Watson or Chubb.
I don't like that he'll get paid elsewhere. Which he will. And there'll be no internal answer for his departure. Or Tyson Alualu's. And maybe the D-line will have gone neglected for a year or two or three too long.
I like having fun tales like Mark Robinson to share when they happen.
I sure didn't like Robinson getting utterly lost in this game, underscoring why it took three months for him to earn a helmet.
I like Myles Jack, and I'd keep him at $11 million next season even with the unfortunate run of injury he's had of late.
I don't like anything else about this team at inside linebacker any more than I have since Ryan Shazier's injury. Whatever money's saved in other areas needs to go to this position first and foremost. Not a penny of it to Bush.
I like Terrell Edmunds. Because he stuck it to everyone ... except me, since I'd believed in him all along. He's a perfect complement to Minkah, which carries value unto itself.
I don't like that he'll rightly want to be paid now what he wasn't paid then.
I like Arthur Maulet at nickel, and the advanced analytics will support me.
I don't like that I dislike the rest of the secondary to such a degree that ... I'm dreading the next Artie Burns in the draft. Just go find a free agent or four.
I like this defense if it can shore up ... a whole bunch.
I don't like that it'll require either a bounty on free agency or a whole lotta Alex Highsmith Ws out of the draft.
I like this defense against the string of opponents the Steelers have faced the past two months.
I don't think I'd have liked it a week from now against Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs and company. And I like even less that I'm not exactly sure why that is. Because even Minkah got beaten up there.
____________________
I like being around this team, for whatever that might mean to anyone.
I like the way this all sets up for the future, notably that the Steelers will pick 17th, 32nd and 49th in the NFL Draft, the middle of those representing the gift from the Bears for Chase Claypool. Three picks in the top 50 despite winning nine games is wild.
There's nothing I'll miss more about this season than my talks with Dotson. We didn't get off to the greatest start in his tenure, but that makes me all the more proud that we're like this now:
I like Dotson.
I like a lot of these guys. Good dudes from wall to wall. And just as fiery on the field as they are friendly off it.
I like football. No, I love football.
Thanks so much for reading my football work all through the summer, fall and winter. I've loved the game all my life, and it's a privilege beyond words to have been covering one of the NFL's marquee franchises for the past quarter-century now.
And yeah, it'll be back to that lit-up status before long, presuming the current trajectory's as legit as it feels. I believe that. There's experienced pedigree on defense, potential pedigree on offense, and the competitive character to seize upon the confidence they all just accumulated. Again, it's far from complete. But amid what's already here, in many ways, I see similarities to successful predecessors.
Put another way, by and large, they carry themselves like Steelers.
But how long?
"How long?" Dotson repeated back to me. "Man, I wish it was next week. No training camp. No preseason. Just right into the game. I believe in these guys. I believe in what we're doing. Let's just go."
I'll dislike the wait, too.
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
A fan holds up a sign to honor Damar Hamlin at Acrisure Stadium.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES
Hurt in the game: TE Pat Freiermuth (knee) and WR Gunner Olszewski (knee) were both ruled out upon being injured, the former in the fourth quarter, the latter in the second. Chris Halicke has the full report.
The inactives: S Tre Norwood (hamstring), QB Mason Rudolph, LB Malik Reed, G Kendrick Green, LB Tae Crowder, DT Jonathan Marshall.
THE SCHEDULE
Tomlin's season-ending press conference is today, 12 p.m., at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, and the players' final access period opens an hour later.
THE MULTIMEDIA
All our video/audio from the scene:
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything from our football staff of Halicke, Alex Stumpf, Ramon Foster and Matt Williamson.
