The football's underthrown, but the result's an overachievement.
It's got no business becoming a catch ...
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 21, 2024
... but it still does. And once it does, despite the daunting odds of George Pickens bringing the ball back to himself in mid-air, Lynn Swann-style, not a soul among the 66,956 cramming Acrisure Stadium on this Sunday night to see the Steelers eventually engulf the Jets, 37-15, could've been surprised. Nor the national TV audience. Nor the legendary Mr. Swann himself, on hand for a 50th anniversary celebration of the seminal Super Bowl IX championship.
Why?
"Because he's George," Calvin Austin would tell me later. "Just put it anywhere near him."
Yep. Five catches, 111 yards, and four of those came on clear underthrows by an understandably rusty-early Russell Wilson.
None better than the one above, which clanged off Isaiah Oliver's helmet, then was clawed from his hands, then had to be settled in mid-air before a crazy contortion for a bonus yard.
"Yeah, just concentration," as Pickens would recall. "For a minute, he had it. For a minute, I had it. Bounced up in the air. Got my eyes back on it. Made the catch."
Uh-huh. And again, no one's surprised.
Similarly, when Najee Harris tops 100 rushing yards for the second straight week -- 102 on 21 carries, to be specific -- and he lights up the place with a 34-yarder down the left sideline, despite the daunting odds for a guy who's been a grinder throughout his college and professional careers, despite a badly banged up offensive line doing the blocking ...
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 21, 2024
... it looks like a breeze.
"Nothing to it," Dan Moore, the left tackle charged with the lead block, would tell me. "It was a trap play that we had there. Good execution. Good job by two-two reading it. Got to the second level. Great job."
And again, no one's surprised. It's not as if Harris hasn't had his share of days in this league, especially behind bulldozer blocking like that which benefited him much of this game.
Similarly, when Wilson couldn't seem to connect with his targets any higher than their shoelaces through the first half, and he suddenly tastes some awkward success in Pickens converting dying quails into dynamic catches, despite the daunting odds of instantly undoing 10 months of inactivity, he sharpened up after the intermission to finish 16 of 29 for 264 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and but a single sack, including deft-touch gems like this one ...
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 21, 2024
... into the eager hands of Pat Freiermuth.
"Perfect," Freiermuth would tell me. "Just perfect."
Anyone surprised by Wilson after all his achievements?
How about Freiermuth's playmaking ability?
Nah?
See where I'm headed here?
If not, let's stop, step back and assess some serious, all-encompassing stats:
• The Steelers rank No. 8 in the NFL in total defense, allowing 298.3 yards per game, powered mostly by ranking No. 3 in rushing defense in allowing 81.0 yards per game. And maybe most relevant, they're No. 2 in points allowed, allowing 14.3 per game. In this one, Aaron Rodgers passed for 276 yards, but Breece Hall, who'd terrorized the Bills a week earlier, was held to 38 on the ground. And once the Steelers started blitzing Rodgers in the second half, they'd make the Jets the third team they'd stick with a second-half shutout this season.
All of which is really, really good.
"We know what kind of defense we've got," Patrick Queen was telling me after this game. "It's not perfect. It's coming together, though. A little bit more every week."
• Thanks to Beanie Bishop's two interceptions of Rodgers, the Steelers are tied for No. 3 in defensive takeaways at 13. Coupled with their offense committing only four turnovers, ranking No. 4, their plus-9 turnover differential ranks No. 2, one below the Bills.
That's freaking outstanding.
"That's something we've focused on as a defense, getting the ball," Bishop would say. "Checking that box off helps us win."
• The offense isn't at either level, obviously, but a No. 19 rank for averaging 314.1 total yards, a No. 9 for averaging 134 rushing yards, and a No. 16 rank for averaging 16 points, all are miles above anything seen since Ben Roethlisberger. Heck, back-to-back 30-point outputs now between Las Vegas and these 37 here -- their highest in three years -- was laughably unthinkable just a few months ago.
That's ... getting somewhere.
"This is the most efficient offense we've had, I think, in my four years here," Harris would say. "Usually, we turn it around later in the season, but to have it happen so early and have this momentum going, I think that's just a sign of what's to come. This is the best we've started off."
• The special teams, believe it or not, deserve more superlatives than any of it. In addition to Chris Boswell's status among the sport's elite kickers, Corliss Waitman's been a sublime replacement for Cameron Johnston at punter and, on top of that, there've now been three -- three! -- blocked kicks in as many games, the first time for that anywhere in the NFL since 2017.
That's absolutely mind-blowing.
"We take a lot of pride in what we do," Dean Lowry, who blocked a field goal in this one, would tell me. "It's a tight group, too."
It genuinely shows:
us rn pic.twitter.com/13lJM8i85m
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) October 21, 2024
That's the special-teamers swarming Danny Smith, who, Lowry told me, had spent the whole week pushing his players to extend that block streak.
That's the norm, though. These weren't:
Gotta celebrate with #SteelersNation after that touchdown‼️ pic.twitter.com/QuJ5YFxr9S
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) October 21, 2024
That's Harris leaping all the way inside the seating section beyond the south end zone where he'd just scored six, something I've never seen a player do in this place.
Mason 🤣🤣🤣#EasyToCelebrate | @Budlight pic.twitter.com/LOrlCFf6P8
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) October 21, 2024
That's young Mason McCormick, the rookie forced to replace James Daniels the rest of the way at right guard. Dude's wild. He's like that all the time, which is rare air for any lineman.
I had to ask:
"It's the best game in the world," he'd say. "To go out there and have a game like that ... that was really fun. My teammates work so hard. We have confidence from that. It's fun."
Not elaborate enough, I thought, so I slid to Moore at the next stall and got it all.
"I mean, hell, he's a rookie," Moore would reply, gesturing McCormick's way, to the latter's amusement. "But he brings the juice, and that's how it's gotta be. We feed off of that."
All right, how about now? Figure me out yet?
Listen, it's like this: These Steelers are 5-2. They're alone atop the AFC North. They've got the conference's second-best record, behind only the 6-0 Chiefs. They've got the conference's second-best point differential, too, at plus-60, behind only the Bills' plus-63, and the NFL's fifth-best point differential. And even though no one ever seems to cite this until Christmastime, they've now got a 4-1 record inside the conference, which weighs a ton come playoff seeding.
But it's also like this: We've all, myself very much included, complained so much about this team that a newcomer to this conversation would never fathom that any of what's above could be close to accurate. In fact, in my two decades of covering this franchise, I can't find in the memory bank any occasion in which a team was performing akin to all those bullets I just posted up there while being accompanied by this much local and broader cynicism.
And take that, for a more specific disclosure, from someone who was ready to rip Mike Tomlin up, down and sideways if his Wilson-over-Justin-Fields gambit at this pivotal point in the schedule hadn't paid off. Because I've both experienced and expressed similar cynicism.
The players feel this sorta stuff, too, believe me. I asked.
"I think that's the whole world right now, where everything's just negative even when it can be positive," Queen told me. "Internally, we don't care. We know that we come in every single day with a smile on our face. And that's the only thing that really matters, that we're positive with each other. All the outside things, we couldn't care less. We just show up and do our job."
And it's a legit good team?
"It's a legit good team."
I asked Austin.
"It's a good team, and it's getting better," he'd reply. "That's the part that's the most exciting."
I asked Freiermuth.
"It's a good team, and I think all you have to do is watch what we're doing to see that," he'd reply. "That game tonight ... man, I was proud to be part of that."
I'm sure he had company in that category from the outside, too, though maybe still not a match for an increasingly clear reality.
• Chris Halicke's game-night Chalk Talk breaks down Wilson's proficiency.
• Greg Macafee's Spotlight shines on Bishop's interceptions.
• Much more from all three of us in our Steelers Feed.
• Thanks for reading our football coverage.
• And for listening: