Kovacevic: Pickett sees offense reopening, but it can't just be one drive

LAS VEGAS -- Kenny Pickett engineered one really big play and one really big drive, and it couldn't have been clearer which he'd prefer to replicate consistently.

“You saw a lot of different things on that drive,” he'd say after the Steelers' 23-18 victory over the Raiders on this Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium. “That’s a positive we can take away, for sure.”

Not that the really big play wasn't one, too:

Pickett and Calvin Austin had that one available in the opener against the 49ers, too, only to have it thud. This one spanned 72 yards to erase an early Las Vegas lead and, almost as important, a bit of an opportunity to breathe.

“It was big. We needed it,” Pickett would say. “We missed that against San Francisco, so it was good to hit it tonight.”

Not just big. Really big. Because, truth be told, beyond that play, the offense looked little different than the one that'd been sparking the fans back in Pittsburgh to chant for Matt Canada's firing. (Which didn't happen here at all, by the way, despite roughly half the 62,541 on hand visibly and vocally backing the Steelers.) If not for the Austin strike, the half would've shown three punts, two field goals and a head coach essentially -- no, embarrassingly -- having his offense sit on the ball at the Pittsburgh 20 with two timeouts in his pocket and 38 seconds on the clock.

Those two field-goal drives lit some hope, however, in part because Pickett began having success by roaming around to pass, even running by design for the first time since ... wow, Latrobe?

“I think we did a good job of mixing it up and moving the pocket,” Pickett said. “They have a great pass rusher in 98. I didn’t want to be a sitting duck back there.”

Yeah, Maxx Crosby's all he's quacked up to be when it comes to chasing sitting ducks, and Pickett wasn't about to be an exception. Crosby scorched both of the Steelers' tackles, Chuks Okorafor and Dan Moore, and he'd end up with a sack, two quarterback hits and relentless pressure.

But a key component to the offensive plan, as Pickett and others allowed afterward, was to keep Crosby guessing. And it just might be that, within that, either Mike Tomlin or Canada of whoever might've been finally, finally motivated to make the offense at least marginally less predictable.

Behold these three plays on the really big drive:

Best ball out of Pickett's right hand all season. Bar none. Not sure the video does it justice. From the press box, it looked like a zero-percenter. But it beats tight coverage on George Pickens -- running laterally, no less! -- to turn a third-and-5 into 32 yards. 

That's using a running back for something other than slamming his forehead into a nine-man front, and Jaylen Warren turned a second-and-6 into 11 yards.

Sit down for this one:

And then play-action -- wait, my God, play-action! -- on the finishing touch to Pat Freiermuth.

“You’re kind of able to get to the playbook that we haven’t been able to get to the last couple weeks,” Pickett would say, in an apparent nod to Canada. “We were able to go out there and show all the stuff that we know we can do and have in our playbook. It's never going to be perfect," said Pickett. "There are always things that I'm going to want to improve on and get back to the drawing board. But I think it's a great step for us as a team to come on the road, back-to-back primetime wins."

That's fine. I respect that. The results are the results, and Pickett finally delivered his first NFL game with two touchdown passes, the offense amassed 23 points and 333 yards without having to recruit T.J. Watt and/or Alex Highsmith, the running game got to 105 yards despite needing 31 carries, and Pickett was sacked once with no interceptions, the latter thanks to Marcus Peters dropping what would've been the easiest pick-6 of his life in the first half.

This was progress.

I think.

• I tried to ask Tomlin what he thought of his offense ... once, twice, three times. All with no answer.

That began with the first two questions of his press conference:

And my third try came later:

Some weighty insight there.

I can only guess, but maybe he thought I'd be leading into some kind of Canada conversation. Whatever.

• To ensure there's no mistaking the stance: Fire Canada. Yesterday. Last week. Last year. There's nothing quite like having everyone in the stadium knowing whether or not the offense is about to run/pass based on whether or not the quarterback's under center. There won't be a WPIAL Class A game all of this fall in which that happens, but it happened again here.

• What if T.J. Watt isn't just the best defensive player in the NFL but also the best player on either side of the ball?

Anyone care to argue the case against the guy with six sacks on the young season and an outsized influence on every single game his team plays? For years now? With one DPOY to his name and another he should've had?

• T.J. used sarcastic finger-quotes to reference a Minkah Fitzpatrick "roughing the passer" call at a critical juncture in the fourth quarter, and he was hardly alone in ripping this:

Minkah, on whether he thought he'd be penalized: “No.”

On whether he was surprised by the flag: “Yes.”

On whether there was an explanation: “They said he ducked, and I hit him in the head when he ducked."

I hate the flag, too, but only because I hate the rule. Referees have always needed to apply judgment on such situations, and that's now morphed into all helmet-to-helmet contact, no matter how incidental or how after the fact it happens.

Don't misunderstand, please: It's the correct call by Tra Blake's crew, per the NFL's rules and per the guidelines the league's giving to its referees. And there was, in fact, helmet-to-helmet contact. No one's arguing that. So I'll hate the rule while accepting the call.

Doesn't mean it goes down easily.

• For anyone further invested in the debate, which I'm sure will be a weeklong blast, it should also enter that Garoppolo was being tested for a possible concussion after the game. (And, thus, by the way, understandably unavailable to reporters.) We might eventually find out more, from those tests or from Garoppolo himself.

• Give it up for Keeanu Benton ...

... and his first NFL sack. A bullet past Las Vegas center Andre James. Immediate takedown of Jimmy Garoppolo. As artful as it was athletic. Javon Hargrave-like.

I asked the kid how it felt, and this was all I needed back:

Many more of those to come.

• Give it up for Pressley Harvin yet again, first for averaging 53.8 yards over his six punts, for annihilating one of those 63 yards, but above all for burying the Raiders at their 8 with a 56-yarder that left a dozen ticks on the clock and no hope.

That's big-time.

"I didn't just want that one. I needed it," he'd tell me, referring to the 41-yard stinker he'd put up on the previous series. "I can't even tell you how great that felt."

He doesn't have to. A photographer did:

GETTY

Pressley Harvin celebrates his 56-yard punt with 12 seconds left Sunday night in Las Vegas.

Between Harvin and Chris Boswell booting a 57-yard field goal, plus two others, someone somewhere's going to have to acknowledge that special teams are a real strength.

• Give it up for Tomlin, too, for having his players ready to play, and I mean that ... but only after acknowledging that he didn't have them ready for the 49ers and had them only semi-ready for the Browns. And yeah, I'm referring to effort. This showing stood out in that regard, and there's no way to cite one without the other.

• I've got more on this in our Steelers feed, but the team's overnight charter flight back to Pittsburgh was diverted to Kansas City overnight for undisclosed reasons, though spokesman Burt Lauten did add, "Everyone on the plane is safe."

One team captain's certainly handling it well:

• I'm grateful for everyone who read this column, as well as the main column, and I'll be flying home myself Monday before embarking for Philadelphia and my final three days of covering the Pirates in 2023. And from there, it'll be right down to Houston for more football.

Hey, I did say I was looking for work when I applied here.