Kovacevic: It'll take a ton of fight, but Steelers sure seem up to that part

LAS VEGAS -- No, Pat Freiermuth's no longer on the injury report. There are no parentheses after his name. No updates on whether or not he practiced on a given day, since he doesn't skip any. No worries over who might have to replace him. No lowered bar for how he'd fare in games.

And yet, he's barely breathing. Still.

As some might recall no thanks to the man himself, earlier this month on the NFL's opening weekend, he'd taken a blow to the chest so apparently brutal that ... he popped back onto the field within minutes. So apparently brutal that, afterward in the locker room, he was hardly audible when he and I spoke at his stall. So apparently brutal that ...

Uh-huh. That's a pretty-as-a-picture, play-action, scramble-and-serve touchdown from Kenny Pickett to Freiermuth that'd account for the decisive margin in the Steelers staving off the Raiders, 23-18, on this Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium.

"Perfect, man" Freiermuth would recall for me, beaming. "Just perfect."

And that was that. End of interview. I flicked off the iPhone recorder, thanked him for his time, wished him a safe flight home. Because I could scarcely make out any of those six syllables. And between that and just having seen his struggle in peeling off some of his pads, I wasn't about to be the one responsible for doing further damage.

There's a ton of work ahead, my friends. For this offense. For this running game, within that. For this quarterback and all of his various targets. Heck, even for this defense that's more responsible than any facet for this team being 2-1 and, believe it or not, tied for first place in the AFC North.

But three full weeks into this, I feel like I've finally figured out how it could all pull together: They need to fight like Freiermuth.

And to their cumulative credit, they did that here in a way that wasn't there at all against the 49ers and was no better than partly there even in beating the Browns. To be blunt, it was a two-week trial in which, all too often, the Steelers' foundational fire was easy to question. The focus lapsed through botched communication and assignments. The physical component lapsed, whether for the same reason or for flat-out not giving enough effort. Maybe most striking, a few of the newer acquisitions seemed tentative, as if still absorbing schemes rather than executing them.

Not here.

Through two games, Cole Holcomb was, respectfully, just another inside linebacker who was better than Devin Bush. Here, he was a terror:

There's more. Stuff away from the play, too, that probably didn't make the TV broadcast.

"Dude," Holcomb would say as I approach his stall, maybe sensing that my smile would lead to this line of conversation. "I feel like … shoot, I want even more. I want even more."

He motioned in the direction of the field, which had me thinking in the moment that he wanted to go play some more. But it turned out he meant more from the defense, especially near the end when the Raiders rallied within five.

"I feel like we should have kept our foot on their neck. I feel like, for me, I want to be at the top.”

I put forth my theory that, for his own game to get where it'd been in Washington, he needed time to assimilate before cutting loose.

“Oh, for sure. There were moments here where it’s like, 'Hey, you just gotta let the instincts take over. Get your calls set up, but then trust what you see and play off those instincts.' I feel like we’re starting to come into that.”

Note the plural.

"It wasn't going to happen right away for everyone," Kwon Alexander would tell me. "It's happening now."

"He really brings it, huh?" T.J. Watt would tell me, referencing Holcomb. "We're deep. We're showing that now."

Holcomb's stats: Five tackles, one for loss, and a pass defensed.

T.J.'s stats: Two sacks of Jimmy Garoppolo for minus-16 yards, three quarterback hits, six pressures and, seriously, check this out:

And both sacks:

He's got six sacks already. And he just became the first player since the NFL began tracking sacks in 1982 to have that many through three games, in addition to a defensive touchdown.

Never doubt that fire.

Nor that of the other resident superstar:

Minkah Fitzpatrick would get flagged for roughing the passer after making helmet-to-helmet contact with Garoppolo and, thus, he'd forfeit what would've been his first career sack. He and others hotly disputed the call on the spot and after the game, but his rare blitz was part of a plan that paid off in more ways than one, not least of which was sharpening the defensive teeth.

"We were giving our best effort to make the pass rush as hot as possible," T.J. would say of Garoppolo, who'd get sacked four times, throw three picks and wind up being evaluated for a concussion. "I think we did a good job of keeping him under duress tonight."

“This is what we are capable of doing,” Fitzpatrick would say. “It’s nothing new. It’s really the standard to which we play. It’s just the first couple of games. We're finding our identity, figuring out who we are and what we can do.”

Enough stats. I'll save the rest of those for the second column. This one, again, is about the intangibles. The fight.

Which can come in countless forms, sometimes through overcoming an adversary but, for this group at this time, it might've been more a case of overcoming adversity.

The defense's pinpointed shortcoming through two games had been the secondary.

Solution: Three picks. Two for Levi Wallace, including the sealer with five seconds left:

And the 35th of Patrick Peterson's exemplary career, his first with the Steelers, with a primary assist to T.J. for swooping into Garoppolo like Batman in Crime Alley:

And this after a month of cries to replace one or both corners, prompting me to ask the elder statesman if a statement was made:

“We just want to continue to get better," he'd reply. "We’re not in the business of making statements. We just want to go out there, continue to try and find ways to win and be the best team that we can be.”

Uh, OK. But when a Las Vegas reporter asked Peterson to describe what happened on Garoppolo's interception, Peterson gleefully shot back, "Which one? Because he had three."

GETTY

T.J. Watt sacks the Raiders' Jimmy Garoppolo in the second quarter Sunday night in Las Vegas.

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THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Steelers: CB Levi Wallace (knee, returned)

• Raiders: QB Jimmy Garoppolo (evaluated for concussion after the game), LB Curtis Bolton (knee, did not return)

Full report on our Steelers Feed.

THE INACTIVES

• Steelers: WR Gunner Olszewski (concussion), RB Godwin Igwebuike, DT Breiden Fehoko, RT Dylan Cook, WR Dez Fitzpatrick, QB Mason Rudolph (emergency) ... On Injured Reserve: DE Cam Heyward (groin), WR Diontae Johnson (hamstring), RB Anthony McFarland (knee) 

• Raiders: S Chris Smith II, LB Amari Burney, WR Kristian Wilkerson, DT Nesta Jade Silvera, QB Aidan O'Connell (emergency)

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE SCHEDULE

Next up's another flight, this to Houston to face the Texans next Sunday, 1:02 p.m. Eastern, at NRG Stadium. And the practices resume Wednesday, on the South Side.

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