Kovacevic: Williams brings the heat

It's never football season until Vince Williams is talking about football.

Which is to say, it's always football season.

The Steelers had just completed the opening round of OTAs on this Tuesday morning at the Rooney Sports Complex, a session that was as spirited as any I could recall for an offseason activity that's usually as mundane and meaningless as its acronym. Mike Tomlin was shouting throughout, jaw jutted forward that way it does when he's really relishing what he's witnessing. Artie Burns was monster-grunting while slamming his right hand to the grass after nearly picking off a pass. The offensive line was giving vocal grief to Roosevelt Nix after a drop that really wasn't his fault.

Heck, Ben Roethlisberger was giving Ryan Shazier grief.

“I told him he tried to give our plays away,” Roethlisberger would later explain through a big grin. “He had his golf cart on the sideline, and I had to tell him to move because we were throwing an out route. Now, the whole defense knew what we were throwing. I said he was doing it on purpose to help the defense out.”

The coaches were loud. The players were louder. And Vinny, naturally, was louder than both, talking up a torrent every which way he turned.

He was, as ever, among the last off the field, and even then, he treaded slowly, helmet in his right hand and looking to his left and right as if there had to be something more he could do. That's when I did my own barking and called out his name to hang on a bit.

Looking almost relieved, he turned, offered his standard warm greeting and asked how my "offseason" was going, adding, "No hockey for you now, either, huh?"

Nope. Thought I might be covering two championships in 2018, I replied, and I'm left with looking back at Washington and, before that, Jacksonville.

Hey, there's a reason I don't get invited to parties.

"Yeah, me, too," Vinny came right back, referring not to parties but to Jacksonville. You know, 45-42 and all that other goodness. "It sucks. I'm not going to lie. It sucks that it happened in the playoffs. It's terrible. You don't want to play your worst game of the season in the playoffs."

And from there, once I'd lit the flame, it was all Vinny. Pull up a chair.

"It absolutely infuriates me. It infuriates all of us, what happened that day. I mean, we're not as terrible as everybody labeled us. I think we had a top-10 defense, right?"

No. 5, to be accurate, in total defense.

"OK, No. 5. It's crazy, how everybody thinks we're trash, how we have so many gaping holes, how we're terrible ... just because we had a bad game. But hey, I guess that's how it's gotta be. Now we've got to go into every situation and just blank everybody."

Come on. Be serious.

"I am serious. We can't let anybody have anything. The heat is on, because you're only as good as your last performance. I understand that. So that's going to be the answer: Blank everybody.

"Man, they played a good game. You can't just sit here and talk about yourselves. They kicked our ass. We couldn't stop Leonard Fournette. The whole season, he'd been averaging, like, 3.8 a rush, and gave him, like, 5-something a rush."

It was 4.4, to be accurate. But there were those three touchdowns. And all those bruises.

"They just came out there and really beat us up. They did. And you've just got to eat something like that."

Eat?

"You heard me. You've got to eat it, man. We couldn't stop the run. That's what happened. Their offensive line gave Blake Bortles a lot of slack, and he's pretty good on the play-action. So when they were able to generate enough on the run, they could go to play-action and turn it into a 50/50 game. From there, they just had to execute."

From there, of course, everyone in town — myself included — clamored for the Steelers to add an inside linebacker to support Williams and, ideally, to replace Shazier. That didn't happen in the NFL Draft, though the front office did add a dependable starter-type in Jon Bostic out of free agency.

How did Williams, a social media maven, feel upon seeing some of that clamoring?

You'd better believe that fire was lit, too.

"Nothing," he replied. "I didn't feel anything."

He then glanced toward the field and the now-empty golf cart where his best friend had been seated.

"What everybody needs to understand is this: Ryan Shazier is an amazing player. If anyone thought we could pick a linebacker this year who was like that, that's idiotic. Ryan Shazier is a tremendous talent. You don't have linebackers who run 4.3s in the 40 and jump 40-something inches in the vertical, who can cover tight ends ... you don't have that in every draft. So just to pick a linebacker to say you picked a linebacker ... that's not really going to accomplish much. You either needed to find somebody that talented, or you need to do it by committee."

The committee being Williams and Tyler Matakevich for now, being that Matakevich was the starter in all defensive drills with Bostic working second-team.

"I think the Steelers' commitment to doing it by committee is going to pay off for us. I believe in what they decided. We don't have another Ryan Shazier on our team. But we do have very capable starting middle linebackers. ... Tyler is a very intelligent person. He doesn't make mistakes. He plays the game really, really hard. Everybody respects that, how he goes about playing the game."

"He loves football. I know that. Because I know how much I love football, and anybody who can sit around all day with me talking about football, that person's really got to care about football. A lot."

No question.

With that, I had one final question: How's he feeling, individually, about 2018?

And I asked that for the sole reason that, when I asked it at this time a year ago, he'd predicted he'd have 10 sacks, an outrageous figure for an inside linebacker in a 3-4 alignment. I literally laughed as he spoke it, certain that he was kidding.

He wasn't. He had eight.

So now?

"Double-digit sacks, my man. You know that."

And he won't come up short this time?

"I did come up a little short. I did. That's the goal. But first, we're going to stop that run."

He looked back out to the field, as if the Browns were about to break the huddle.

It was well past lunchtime. I was getting hungry and bade the man farewell. He might still be there talking.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY