Kovacevic: They've got a feelin'

Nov 9, 2017 • 1:10 am

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Amid the most wonderful autumnal setting in Western Pennsylvania, the falling leaves as crisp and cool as the breeze whipping through, this Wednesday afternoon at the Rooney Sports Complex saw football players doing their drills with equal parts passion and volume.

Which is to say, Bud Dupree was really loud.

"Wasn't I, though?" the big man would tell me, beaming afterward. "I mean, yeah. I was into it."

Bud booms, too. Cuts right through the whole scene.

But he's anything but alone. Sean Davis, who wrapped up the practice by chasing Terrell Watson down the field 60 yards just to execute a leaping, playground-style two-hand touch, barked with every all-out stride. And once inside, Davis unstrapped his helmet, peeled off the shoulder pads, plopped down on his stool and looked up at Bud.

"Just havin' some fun," Davis would say, beaming himself. "We're havin' some fun."

"You know that we are," Bud came back.

I've got no real point here. It's a good group. Has been for a couple years.

And now that they've emerged safely on the other side of a fiasco-filled first half of anthem protests, thrown water coolers and whatever one would call Martavis Bryant's many messes, it couldn't be clearer that they're perched at or near the top of the AFC contenders list, with one dutiful eye on Indianapolis and the other on all that surely lies beyond:

Reasonable doubts remain, for sure. Ben Roethlisberger's dragging an 82.7 QB rating and describing himself as a "point guard," as he did Wednesday when asked about being a game manager. Le'Veon Bell's wheels might get worn down. Antonio Brown can't carry the receiving corps forever. The tight end position is still theoretical. Even the defense, while overwhelming in waves, occasionally gets burned by splash in both the run and pass.

Oh, and the Patriots exist, as nearly everyone in the collectively fretting Nation will bring up at the mere mention of anything positive.

But what might be most important right now, when there's an undeniable awareness that this second-half schedule shouldn't be anywhere near as demanding as what's already come, is that the Steelers focus on the only opponent that really matters.

"Ourselves," Bell was telling me. "It's just us. You look at the games we lost, and we beat ourselves."

Yep. The Bears are 3-5 and don't have a quarterback. The Jaguars don't have a quarterback, either, but they're 5-3, they've got that superb young secondary and ... oh, come on, that should have been a W, too. The Steelers needed little more than mere offensive competence in either game.

But back to Bell.

"That's what happens," he continued. "You win some big games. Kansas City. You do some good things, you look at the standings, and you know what's up. You know what you're supposed to be doing. You know what to expect from yourself as a team, as individuals."

He paused a moment.

"We can beat ourselves. We can. But we don't want to."

That actually spells out what's got to happen here, at least intangibly. The Colts matter inasmuch as they're next, but they also don't. Andrew Luck not being there doesn't matter. Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson not being there doesn't matter. The Titans on short rest don't matter. Dear God, no one else in the AFC North comes close to mattering. And the Patriots ... they matter, but not yet.

What matters is that these Steelers, having poked their collective head through the clouds, now need to look around and realize they can soon be on their own level. If they keep improving within their own standard. If, as Bell stated, they don't beat themselves.

"It's about looking at who we are, what we want to be," David DeCastro told me. "We've just got to focus on what we need to do to keep getting better, to get to our own next level."

Sounds about right.

Like I said, no real point here. Just sharing a general feel.

• Bell's got 229 offensive touches, most in the NFL and on a comfortable pace for second-most in league history.

Not that latter will happen. Although Tomlin's displayed a will for running his running backs into infinity, the memory of Bell limping off the field in Foxborough earlier this calendar year should be freshly painful enough to prevent a sequel.

So, what's the answer?

More James Conner?

Well, sure, but it's telling that Todd Haley's script mostly has called for Conner to run sweeps. Those have been surprisingly productive -- 18 carries, 89 yards -- considering Conner's Pitt pedigree of pounding up the middle. That's to Conner's credit. It's also a telling sign, though, that he hasn't been used much in the conventional sense.

So look for Bell to basically keep going, save for maybe being spotted on an occasional series late in the first half or something like that.

Besides ...

“It's not like I'm carrying any injuries,” Bell said Wednesday. “I feel fine. I can't complain with where I'm at right now. Over the course of the year, and as I continue to do what I've been doing, when we get to playoffs, I should be good.”

He declined to cite his camp holdout as keeping him fresher, but he did credit a strong supporting cast off the field.

“Over the course of last year, I got hurt just because I didn't realize I was hurt until too late," he said, referring to a midseason groin injury that wasn't disclosed until the postseason. "I've got a lot of doctors and therapists to help me maintain my body. I'm staying on top of things now before anything ever happens, before I have any strains or tears.”

• Mike Mitchell's a practical man in every sense. He thinks the game on and off the field. So when he was asked Wednesday about the Steelers' second-half outlook, and how it might be even better than last season's winter surge, it should come as no surprise that he reduced it to a simple roll call:

• The Steelers need to take the Colts seriously, but the rest of us don't. Jacoby Brissett, Luck's replacement, has been sacked 32 times in 302 passing plays, or once every 9.4 times he's dropped back. Frank Gore was once Frank Gore, but now he's 34 and he's Frank Gore no more, averaging 14.1 carries per game. And the Colts rank 32nd in total defense, this, of course, being out of all 32 teams.

They might need to pipe in that artificial crowd noise again, only this time for aesthetic purposes.

• Heck, even Chuck Pagano managed to find humor in his Colts having been mauled by the Steelers in the past three meetings by 17, 21 and 35 points.

"They ain't gonna let us play with 12," he told reporters Wednesday in Indianapolis. "I wish they would."

• The Browns have won four of their past 44 games. Every once in a while, especially when symmetrically pleasing, stuff like that bears a mention. Society owes it to them.

WHAT'S BREWING?

• Matt Gajtka, our Penguins beat writer, will cover practice today in Cranberry Township, and I mention this primarily because he's waiting on some input from the availability up there to complete Matt's Stats. It'll be published as soon as he's got that. It's a good subject, worth the wait.

• If you missed it, Chris Mueller, our newest staffer, penned his first Midweek Reader on Mike Lewis II, the foundation of this new era of Duquesne hoops.

• Remember, we're holding our next big PNC Main Street Meetup this coming Saturday in Indianapolis, where Dale Lolley, Chris Carter, Matt Sunday and I will be waiting to chat with you ahead of Sunday's Steelers-Colts game.

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