Stephon Tuitt was a 22-year-old overgrown child. This was 2014, the summer the Steelers made him their second-round pick in the NFL Draft. And despite his circus-like stature, all 6-feet-6, all 303 pounds, and all those All-America awards from Notre Dame, he somehow managed to keep the lowest, humblest of profiles. His responses, whether to us reporters or to those in his new world, rarely consisted of more than 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir.'
"I was the new kid," Tuitt was telling me Wednesday after practice at Rooney Sports Complex. "I wasn't going to be making waves. I wasn't going to make it about me. I needed to shut up and learn."
Smart kid. Who'd soon figure out a smart way to get a whole lot smarter.
Because the first time he carried a playbook into one of the Steelers' classrooms at Saint Vincent College, the one in which John Mitchell has cut down, carved apart and conducted his defensive lines for a quarter-century now, rather than hang with the rookies, he sidled right up to Cam Heyward.
Front row. Eyes forward.
"It's like in school," Tuitt explained with a bit of a giggle. "Nobody wants to sit next to the kids who know nothing. You want to get right up to the ones doing the work."
Smart kid. With all kinds of company.
"That's the culture here on this defense. That's the real culture, and it surprises more people don't seem to know about it," Mike Mitchell would share later at his nearby stall. "This defense is built on being smart. On doing smart things. On working with each other, learning from each other, trusting each other. And if you can't be smart about it, you aren't going to fit it in with this culture."
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And Javon Hargrave, who strays so far from the standard plugger definition of nose tackle that he isn't a Snack of any size:
"We're very detail-oriented," the chief scholar Heyward would say to the same question. "That's what we're about. The execution. No errors. When we're sound, we're hard to beat. We can't over-think what we do but, when everybody does their job, we're hard to beat. It's one out of 11. Just do your individual job. Doesn't have to be anything special. Don't get crazy. Don't go out of character. We feel like we've got the right coaching, the right schemes. We just have to execute it."
James Harrison started that in 2016, you might recall. All the talk about each man doing his own job. Because if a defense has one man out of position, then another man goes to cover for him, now there are two men out of position.
Stay in your lane.
Stay accountable for your own assignment.
Stay smart.
That sermon to his teammates, one that's still cited around the locker room, was just before that game in Cleveland.
"That made the difference," Tuitt said. "Before that, we had the injury with Cam, and a lot of us were trying to make up for him not being there. We all just needed to get it done individually, and everything was going to be better collectively."
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The Steelers' defense was ranked No. 1 in the NFL after the 2012 season, but no one will be writing remembrances about it anytime soon. This was more of a last gasp for a great group, almost a symbolic retort to Warren Sapp's infamous "old, slow and done" criticism on NFL Network a year earlier. Fact is, Sapp wasn't all that wrong. Harrison, Casey Hampton, Brett Keisel, Ike Taylor, Ryan Clark, even the great Troy Polamalu weren't their best selves anymore.
But they were smart. And they did look like they knew what they were doing, for the simple reason that they did. Dick LeBeau was still coordinator. His players absorbed his calculus-level complexity into their pores. Larry Foote was 32 and running on his last legs, but he hung around based on his signal-calling, on his ability to read an offense.
Soon enough, though, not being able to outrun opponents got in the way ...
... and all those familiar names and faces gradually faded, as well, replaced by Heyward as the leader and a whole bunch of high draft picks.
Well, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, now's the time. Ben Roethlisberger's made it clear his career status is year-to-year. Antonio Brown won't stay in his prime forever. Le'Veon Bell won't stay on a franchise tag forever. Martavis Bryant has to show he can be trusted. This wonderful offensive line eventually will find its cracks.
Tomlin knows this. Kevin Colbert knows this. Art Rooney II knows this. That's why they've taken the extraordinary steps of executing a trade ... what, every other day in the past week? They added Vance McDonald at tight end, Joe Haden at corner, J.J. Wilcox for safety depth. And sure, they've committed fully to the cap limit every other year, but this one feels a little different. It comes with a sense of urgency.
So now's the time for the defense. Meaning, really, the time.
The line is strong, stout with Heyward, Hargrave and Tuitt, and it comes with a star-level breakout possible for the latter.
"I know what's expected of me," Tuitt said. "But trust me, it isn't more than what I expect from myself."
He should. It's his fourth year. So should Hargrave, whose wildly quick learning curve as a rookie last year should spell further acceleration this year.
The outside linebackers have first-round bookends in Bud Dupree and T.J. Watt. The latter has been trusted by the coaches from the day he unpacked his stuff at Saint Vincent. If he isn't ready, for whatever reason, Harrison will be there. Dupree won't want any such crutch.
"It's my year," Dupree said. "I feel like, as a rookie, all I did was try to learn the defense and learn and learn. Now I go out there and just play. I don't have to think because it's all automatic. It feels good. I'm ready."
He should be ready. It's his third year.
Williams and Ryan Shazier are the inside linebackers. Williams earned enough trust that, but for one failed bid for New England's Dont'a Hightower, Tomlin and Colbert stuck by him as Timmons' replacement. And now Shazier, with Timmons gone, goes from part-time signal-caller to full-time. His dress rehearsal is over.
"I'm looking forward to the challenge," Shazier said. "We know what's in front of us."
Of Shazier, Tuitt said, "Now that guy, he's smart off the charts. He's the one you'd want leading a defense out on the field."
At corner, there's Artie Burns, another rookie-no-more, and Haden. The former's a classic cover guy, with the requisite cockiness to match. That's something that 2012 team had in Keenan Lewis and his 23 passes defensed that year. It's invaluable for the freedom it affords the coordinator. Haden, if healthy, is an NFL star, nothing less. But he's got to show durability, and he's now got to be the quickest learner of all.
"I'm getting there," Haden said. "I'm getting comfortable."
This is one position where outrunning will generally be prioritized over outsmarting. But neither can be ruled out with these two, and it's been quite a while since the Steelers could say that about two corners, much less one.
At safety, there's the other rookie-no-more in Sean Davis, who seems to stride by leaps and bounds weekly, and Mike Mitchell, who might well represent the ultimate eclectic mix of smart and physical on this defense.
I mentioned to Mitchell how some of his mates basically declined to even discuss this defense from any standpoint other than between the ears.
"I like that. I like that as a statement. I would agree with that statement," he came back with classic Mitchell drama. "When we're playing out there, when we're at our best, we're thinking the game at a high level. With this group, I think we've got more understanding, more knowledge than at any time since I've been here."
Then his eyes widened.
"Don't get me wrong. We still want to smash people in the mouth. That's still who we are. It's just that, before you snap the ball, we want to be 11 extremely intelligent guys. After that, we want to be 11 warriors. We want to be able to see through someone's tricks, see through all the B.S., see through the formation and the personnel ... then smash whatever you wanted to do."
Someone snap that ball already, right?
"Seriously. Let's go."
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