Kovacevic: Steelers' window? It's right up front taken at Rooney Complex (Steelers)

Ramon Foster engages with Matt Feiler in a line drill Wednesday. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

Every time Ben Roethlisberger's been asked about his long-term future in the NFL, no matter the context, his replies have come with one constant: He'll hold up as long as his offensive line does.

That didn't change in the slightest Wednesday when I approached his stall, this after the Steelers' second session of minicamp at the Rooney Complex.

"You know, their play really dictates my well-being," Roethlisberger told me with a slight laugh. "As healthy as I'm going to feel, as good as I'm going to be ... it's all about them. On top of that, I've got a great relationship with each one of them. Maurkice Pouncey's one of my closest friends on the team. All of them ... they are my brothers."

It's so very visible. Day after day. Drill after drill.

Roethlisberger isn't easy to get to know, much less to love. But the linemen and their franchise quarterback have forged a relationship that really does — not just in the cliched mandatory-steak-dinner sense — extend beyond the huddle. They've laughed together. Cried together. Won together. Lost together. On this day, too, it was plainly visible that most of Roethlisberger's more fun, more spirited interactions were with Pouncey, Ramon Foster, David DeCastro, Marcus Gilbert and Alejandro Villanueva.

As Foster would tell me, "We're all in this together, man. We always have been. We've got a line that's been together a lot of years, and we've got a franchise quarterback. That's special in the NFL."

It's also rare.

That's where my mind started wandering on this afternoon, straying from the standard fussing over finding hybrid safeties, lacking inside linebackers and, of course, whatever inanity emanates from Antonio Brown's increasingly worthless words these days. We're not even a month away from Latrobe, so there'll be plenty of time for all that.

No, in the here and now, I was focusing on ... well, the here and now.

Because here they still are, these linemen and their franchise quarterback, after all these years. And now is the time to get it done. Now or never.

Unless I'm missing something below ...

... or unless Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin surprise everyone by offering Foster some long-term extension when a much younger guard, B.J. Finney, 26, is already in the fold. Otherwise, the gang will finally get to being broken up, if only piece by piece.

I spoke with all six mainstays, and their stance was shared across the board.

"I think it is that. I think it is now or never," Pouncey told me. "That's the approach you've got to have. You've got to be thinking each chance is your last chance at a Super Bowl."

"A window? You want to talk about a window? Hey, the clock is always ticking," Foster told me. "And that clock isn't about how long you last. It's about the peak of the career. That's when the window closes, when that's done. At some point age gets you. Or money gets you. Or attitude gets you."

Attitude?

"You've got to keep believing," Foster came right back. "Let me put it this way: I recognize our window, but I feel like our window is still open. And I'm looking forward to getting through there."

"We're blessed to have this offensive line and this quarterback together for so many years," Gilbert told me. "And then you can argue that we've got the best quarterback, wide receiver and running back combo in the league."

Sure can. He's referencing AB and Le'Veon Bell, of course.

"We just need to find a way into that window," Gilbert finished. "We just need to get the job done."

DeCastro was more blunt:

Villanueva, ever the pragmatist, initially downplayed the concept when I brought it up.

"I wouldn't say the window is something we talk about or even really consider," he began, "because it's all about the next game, the next snap. If you worry too much about windows and personnel and coaching staff, you can become a little overwhelmed and put an extra pressure on yourself that you don't need."

OK, but there's an awareness?

"Oh, absolutely, there's 100 percent awareness. But I also think that awareness is there every single Sunday. We know we've got a very talented, experienced team, and you're maybe facing a team with guys who haven't been together as long as we have ... and that should be an advantage. That should be an advantage all season long. That's our window."

Right, but then what?

Even if Foster stays, there's the not-so-small matter of age being as undefeated as the 1972 Dolphins. All six, Roethlisberger and his line, stayed almost entirely healthy last season. The odds are against that this coming season. And even if they make it the whole way again, all six will have another autumn's worth of wear and tear.

It's one of the taller tasks in the NFL to rebuild at these positions, individually but especially collectively.

Ben Roethlisberger points during a drill Wednesday. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

For significant starters, fewer than a third of the league's teams have a franchise quarterback, at least by my count, and I'm not counting potential franchise guys or RGIII-type fads. I'm talking Ben, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Phillip Rivers ... I don't know what the exact number would be, but I'm sure it stops above the Andy Dalton Line. And from the Steelers' perspective, while everyone's got a right to be excited about Mason Rudolph, the only franchise QB they've got is the one they've had. Roethlisberger's all that's known.

And never mind that AB will turn 30 next month, meaning Roethlisberger's primary weapon will begin his own descent before long, given the unique demands of his position.

The line, that's always different. I can't think of a comparable across professional team sports, where four or five or more players have to operate in such harmony. Even within the scope of scripted plays and audibles before the snap, so much still needs to occur afterward in which all concerned have to rely upon each other not just for their quarterback's 'well-being,' to borrow Roethlisberger's term, but also their own.

"It takes a long time to get it right," Villanueva told me, "and you're still working to do better."

That's from the newbie in the pack, right?

Drafting Chukes Okorafor, an offensive tackle, in the third round might have been the start. But even if he blossoms into the next Joe Thomas, even if a bevy of picks and free agents and trade acquisitions eventually arrive to replace the older linemen, it would take years to assemble anything approaching what they've got now.

That's not me talking. That's anyone at any level of football.

This is part of what's made the Steelers' past couple seasons so maddening, 2017 in particular: They've got the hardest part down when it comes to roster-building, they roll through the regular season 13-3, and then they get undone in the playoffs because, of all things, they can't bleeping tackle a running back who had the league's 30th-best yards-per-carry average.

The occasional stupid shortcomings like that need to stop.

The occasional stupid strategies, though often overblown by a fan base that seems increasingly to want to blame Tomlin for everything under the sun, also need to stop.

The occasional stupid outbursts/distractions, also overblown though typically by people in my profession, also need to stop.

So much of the above seemed harmless for so long. Everyone was still young. Ben would play forever. Bell came along and only added to the offensive riches. But that's passed. If you ask me, the window on affording this group of players and coaches any slack, any benefit of the doubt, that passed in the moment the Heinz Field scoreboard froze at Jaguars 45, Steelers 42.

And no, not because the public is running out of patience. But because the participants are running out of time.

The more mature among them grasp this. Powerfully, I might add.

"All I've asked for, over my career, is a chance," Foster would tell me. And he was referring, as he often does without speaking it, of a Super Bowl ring. "This year, that chance is better than most, so I'm grateful for that. This team's got a chance. We know that in here. We believe that."

He smiled upon a slight pause.

"We were talking in here the other day, 'Wouldn't it be great to do this for the city?' When you see these scenes, it's not just you that gets happy. It's everybody. You look at Philly when the Eagles won. Or the Bay Area with Golden State. Or the Capitals ... man, those were some crazy scenes down there in Washington. Everybody's so happy. And the Penguins right here ... it makes the whole damned city excited."

He poked a thumb into his chest.

"I want to be part of that. I want that feeling. I can't imagine what it would be like to play here and not experience that feeling."

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY

Steelers minicamp, Rooney Complex, June 12, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

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