KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Vince Williams just might have been having the best individual professional day of his life, but he needed crutches to leave Arrowhead Stadium.
"Why do you want to talk to me? I'm the guy who got hurt," the Steelers' inside linebacker asked as I approached Sunday following the 19-13 victory over the previously unbeaten Chiefs. "Didn't even finish the game."
That's Williams. And I'm pretty sure he was being serious.
Well, to start, I wanted to see how the man was doing. His right hip was badly bruised after a hard fall in the third quarter, and he was unable to return, missing his first action of the season.
"I'm fine," he said. "It's not bad."
Really? What was up with those crutches he was using almost immediately on the sideline?
"It's no big deal. Just being careful."
That's not exactly part of Williams' repertoire, though, best evidenced on this day by his having fairly trotted off the field once the clock hit zero:
Soon after, though, he was back on the crutches, which was also how I saw him leaving the locker room as one of the last men out.
Mike Tomlin offered no meaningful update. Guess we'll have to see.
The other reason for the approach, of course, was to ask Williams about the quality of his performance.
"I don't know. I don't really focus on that," he answered. "I just do my job. I know that sounds so cliched, but I just want to play great football for my brothers because I don't want to let them down. This is a great defense. I don't want to be the weak link out there."
He's been using the "weak link" line since Latrobe. He should be way past that or any connections or comparison to Lawrence Timmons, given how he's asserted himself in all areas.
GILBERT HURT, TOO
Marcus Gilbert reinjured his hamstring in the second quarter and couldn't return. That was a visible disappointment to the Steelers' generally underappreciated right tackle, but it didn't appear it was too much of one.
"It's a setback, a small setback," Gilbert told me. "I don't think it's bad."
He didn't think the initial one was bad, for fair context, but it cost him two games. Tomlin had no update on this, either. Again, we'll see.
ANYONE ELSE?
Tomlin did acknowledge, "We had several guys go down at different points in the game," but without mentioning names.
One that our staff noticed was Tyler Matakevich, who appeared to struggle through an arm injury late upon replacing Williams, and that could prove important if the latter can't go against the Bengals. Next up on the inside linebacker depth chart is L.J. Fort.
VANCE ON THE LIST!
Vance McDonald was expected to have a much bigger impact at the tight end position than he has, but he at least poked his head into the realm of contributors Sunday with solid blocking for Bell and, yes, his first catch.
It was a significant one, too: The Steelers opened a drive midway through the second quarter at their 1. Despite being under his goal post, Ben Roethlisberger called for McDonald on a route that all concerned knew would cost an extra second or two. But, as David DeCastro would say, "We have faith in Vance, and we knew we could hold the blocks."
Roethlisberger hit him in right-to-left stride, McDonald held on and continued for a 26-yard gain that eventually led to a field goal.
“We had three guys going out, but he was kind of the main one that we were going to look for down the middle with the play-action, hopefully getting their guys to come up and then have him running across," Roethlisberger said. "I missed him earlier in the game deep down the sideline. We had the exact same play. Just missed him by a hair. It was good to get him involved. I think we'll continue to get him involved more.”
McDonald described himself as being emotional all through the game.
"My voice is going to be hoarse tomorrow," he told me. "All the excitement, to address that atmosphere and that game ... there's a lot of anxiety. But boy, if you come out on the side we did, it's so fun. It makes football so fun."
And of his catch?
"It meant a lot, honestly, and to have all the guys rushing up to me on the sideline when I came off. 'Yeah! Finally!' That was nice."
BERRY SHOWS BIG
Jordan Berry's booted some awful punts at awful times, but he came up big Sunday on his final kick in two ways:
1. His punt traveled 62 yards, forcing superb return man Tyreek Hill to field it at the Kansas City 12.
2. Once Hill still somehow found a way to burst around the left of the coverage team, Berry's diving attempt at Hill's legs forced the returner to hurdle him and slowed him enough that Matakevich and Roosevelt Nix pulverized him to the ground.
Hill still got 32 yards on the return, but he also was concussed by the hit -- Kansas City coach Andy Reid later confirmed he entered the protocol -- and thus couldn't be on the field for the Chiefs' final drive.
"That hurt," Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith would lament of the drive that stalled 8 yards later.
It sure didn't hurt Berry's cause. Hill had been one of the Steelers' primary concerns all week, but Berry averaged 41.4 yards on five punts, including two inside the Kansas City 20 and two others returned by Hill for 7 total yards.
"We're all proud of that," Darrius Heyward-Bey, the special teams captain, was saying. "Even on that last play, that ball went almost too far for us ..."
With that, DHB invoked the rarest of usages for the term 'outkicking one's coverage,' meaning the literal one. But let's allow the man to finish.
"But if you look at the fact that we were able to stop him the way we did, it worked out fine."
WHY NOT KICK?
Reid had to answer questions aplenty about his curious decision in the fourth quarter, on fourth-and-2 at the Pittsburgh 4 with the Steelers leading by nine, to go for the touchdown rather than try a chip-shot field goal.
"I do what my gut tells me," Reid said. "I thought that was the right thing."
It wasn't. Cam Heyward's pressure and Sean Davis' coverage saw to that:
BACK AT IT
The Steelers resume practice Wednesday at the Rooney Sports Complex. There's a player availability for media Monday afternoon, then Tomlin's weekly press conference Tuesday at noon.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY