Kovacevic: No more fretting over offensive identity, but will it be enough?

No one was about to flag Broderick Jones for a false start.

Not on this count.

Remember when I'd asked him a couple days ago if he and the rest of the Steelers' offense could cull some collective confidence from that 166-yard rushing output against the Titans?

Remember his response?

"Honestly, for me, I don't feel like that's good enough," he'd reply without hesitation. "Like, I came from Georgia. Not to dwell on the past. But we were big on running the football. I want to get 200-plus every time."

And remember how I'd describe my eyebrows rising up with that?

"That's just me," he'd proceed upon noticing that, with a slight head shake. "I know it's the NFL. But if you're gonna commit to the run game, you've gotta do it all the way."

So ... all the way, huh, kid?

Talk about commitment:

Those two touchdown runs, by Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren, topped off the Steelers' opening two drives in what'd wind up a 23-19 takedown of the Packers on this sunny, autumnal Sunday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium. And it was the running, built on a suddenly bullish run-blocking line that's accompanied Jones' ascent to starting at right tackle, that set the tone. From the Jones-approved 205 yards on the ground, to the 5.7 yards per carry, to the balanced production between Harris' 82 yards as the starter and Warren's 101 yards as the don't-dare-call-him-a-backup, and even to the diversity of the directions chosen:

NFL NEXT GEN STATS

They did it all, really. They ran through, around, under and occasionally over Green Bay's defense, prompting Matt LaFleur to acknowledge of his Packers, "We knew they were going to try to run the football, we had a lot of calls designed to stop the run ... and they were still gashing us."

Gashing's a good word for it. And it's not one utilized lightly by an NFL head coach whose players were the gashees.

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The home team's head coach came from 180 degrees away.

"I thought our bigs up front on offense did a really good job of kind of controlling the line," Mike Tomlin would say, referring to Dan Moore, Isaac Seumalo, Mason Cole, James Daniels and Jones. "I thought, in general, we were able to run the ball effectively, and that's a good pasture to play from."

Of Warren, on the occasion of his first 100-yard game in the NFL, Tomlin added, "He runs hard. He plays hard. He's a tough, hard-working young man. He's deserving of the recognition and the production he's providing."

Of the running game as a whole, Kenny Pickett would say, "It was kind of a one-two punch that you really didn't want to take it out of their hands with how successfully they were running. I thought those two were unreal. I also think it's the continuity with the guys up front getting more reps together, so I think it was kind of a mix of the line and the backs getting into a rhythm together."

Awesome. All of it. And accurate.

The evidence, like the Steelers themselves, could run all day:

That last one's my favorite. Don't skip it. Press play. I'll wait.

OK, now play it yet again and watch no one but Jones, No. 77, coming all the way across with a first-round-caliber pull to annihilate a second-level linebacker, Isaiah McDuffie. Everyone else seals, too, notably Moore and Seumalo also on the left side. But Warren's waiting, waiting, waiting until Jones' arrival before breaking through. 

That's how it's done.

"We're getting better," Moore told me. "We're just executing better. I think it's always been there. We just lacked execution early in the season."

The running backs, unsurprisingly, lauded the line.

"That's it," Warren would tell me. "You saw the holes we were getting. Those guys did the job. Give them the credit."

Harris spoke in similar tones, while also stressing that the line's begun to use more motion, partly because of Jones' athletic ability, partly because it simply seems to be the big men's preference. He meets with them regularly, more than most running backs anywhere would, and that's the message he's received and, more important, the message that's been relayed to Tomlin, Matt Canada and the offensive staff.

"The O-line likes that," Harris would say of motion. "And really, it's about what plays they like. They like pulling, so we like them pulling, too. They like it, so we like it."

Hey, what's not to like?

Oh. Right. That.

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The passing game's as putrid as ever. And that's the kindest possible assessment I can offer.

Pickett completed 14 of 23 passes for 126 yards for a 75.6 rating that, if everyone's being honest here, continued what feels like a weekly gnawing away of the concept that he'll amount to much, short term or long. He's still panicking in the pocket, then exiting stage left. He's still checking down as if his final option's his first. He's still ... man, I'm not sure to go with this one, since it might not be his fault, but let's word it this way: Either he can't see the middle of the field, or his coaches have zero confidence in letting him throw there.

Both of which are bad:

NFL NEXT GEN STATS

No, seriously, five of Pickett's attempts traveled 10-plus yards in the air, and zero of those were to the middle. Whereas Jordan Love, his counterpart, completed 4 of 6 to precisely that area for 105 of his 289 yards.

Why weren't there more?

"We had opportunities," Pickett would say to that. "We just didn't connect on them, you know."

He'd then cite a quality connection with George Pickens for 28 yards, one with Diontae Johnson for 17. But Pickens finished with another pout-worthy output of three catches for 45 yards, and Johnson ... had just that one catch. Add to this scenario that neither was double-covered. And that the Packers were without their top three defensive backs: Jaire Alexander, Darnell Savage and Eric Stokes. And that LaFleur wound up sending extra green and gold up to the line to try stop all that run-gashing.

Never mind the childlike fear of the middle.

"We liked our one-on-ones that they were giving us outside," Pickett would say to that. "We thought that's where we had some opportunities. You can always try to use the middle of the field, but if we feel they're dropping guys out underneath there ... the outside lanes were clean, and that's why we did that."

The way Pickett and/or Canada treat the middle, it's as if the lanes are fronting the Squirrel Hill Tunnel at rush hour.

Maybe don't worry so much about what the other guys are doing. The opponents are no longer dictating detours to the running game, and witness the result.

It's a weird offense, a weird team, a weird season. Unprecedented, actually. These Steelers are only the 23rd team in NFL history to be outgained in each of the first nine games of a season, and they're the first to have a winning record. The yardage was a little tighter than the norm in this, but the Packers still prevailed, 399-324.

But the record's still the record, still the only stat that's ever counted at any season's end, and 6-3 means 6-3.

As Larry Ogunjobi put it for me, "All we care about is the dub. Get the dub. The rest will come."

Can't argue that.

Also can't argue Tomlin's apparently conciliatory point that, "We're just going to continue to work. We've worked, we'll continue to work, and we're seeing some of the fruits of that labor." That's fair. The running game alone represents real improvement. 

Also can't argue that the identity everyone's been longing to see from the offense, the short side of the roster for about a half-decade now, has taken a firm form: They'll run, they'll run hard and, as of late, they'll run to great effect.

"For sure," Harris would say. "We kind of know our identity as a run team now. We know what that is."

And I definitely can't argue with Jones about his 200-plus goal, as I'd remind him to his face after this:

“Got my 200,” he'd beam.

And no one told him he was nuts for having spoken that?

“Nah. I just know with the group we’ve got up front and the running backs we have behind us, there’s no way we shouldn’t be able to get 200-plus every game.”

Fine, but between the Pickett/passing issue, inside linebackers falling like the local leaves, and other new and lingering injury worries ... is even that enough? 

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Highlights
• Team feed
• Standings
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• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Steelers: ILB Kwon Alexander (Achilles), WR Diontae Johnson (thumb), SS Keanu Neal (rib), LS Christian Kuntz (leg)

• Packers: None.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE SCHEDULE

This game just felt like AFC North football, airtight and almost all on the ground. Next comes the authentic article, with back-to-back Sunday games in Ohio, first Cleveland, then Cincinnati. I'll cover both.

THE CONTENT

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