It's a preseason game, so it's a notch above Saint Vincent, which is a notch above football in shorts, which is a notch above no football at all. So calm, rational perspective will be pivotal when watching the Steelers and Eagles tonight on TV sets across Western Pennsylvania.
Ah, who am I kidding?
Here are a handful of drop-dead-serious things I'd love to see in this one:
1. Tackle in the secondary.
I can promise you nothing will matter more to Mike Tomlin, Keith Butler and the defensive coaching staff, given their vocal emphasis from OTAs onward. Tomlin, in particular, has taken to barking, 'Tackle football! Physical Works!' so much that the cafeteria workers are probably pounding each other with plastic trays.
I can also promise that you'll see better tackling. And that, at the risk of sounding rude, is because Mike Mitchell won't be around.
I liked Mitchell. This isn't a cheap shot. But I dare say that his inability to close, much less wrap up, was responsible for a big chunk of all those big chunks the Steelers have conceded the past two years. I believe it kept Sean Davis and Artie Burns from being all they could be, in part because they had to cover a position and a half rather than just their own.
If these guys in the secondary -- not just Davis, Burns and Joe Haden, but everyone, since pretty much all of them apparently will be used -- aren't tackling, then the Mitchell excuse is gone.
2. Set a rhythm on offense.
Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell won't participate, so judging Randy Fichtner's adjustments to Todd Haley's playbook won't be fair until Cleveland and beyond. Besides, it's not as if they're going to show much of the repertoire they do change.
That said, now is very much the time to start setting a pulse. No one grasps the Steelers' offense, maybe not even Ben, better than Landry Jones. So observing how he handles it as the starter -- quick snaps, hot reads, usage of tight ends, picking up blitzes, etc. -- will be worthwhile. Again, no one wants to see how clever Fichtner is on this night. That'd be silly. But a comfort level needs to be shown.
More than anything, what's needed is a flow, a consistency, the kind the Steelers forever lacked under Haley but also the kind from which the Jaguars, for example, have flourished under Nathaniel Hackett despite lesser talent.
3. How about a return?
Does anything catch the eye in the preseason more than an electrifying return?
Even if that return comes in the fourth quarter against a bunch of dudes who'll be toll-collecting on the Turnpike the following week?
It's been far too long since the Steelers have had anyone register a blip on returns. It's been Fitz Toussaint catching the ball, clinging to it for dear life, then plodding forward for 3.7 yards right into a gaggle of tacklers. Even AB's punt returns have been reduced to little more than that.
We've seen what Quadree Henderson can do at Pitt, of course, and that's encouraging, but he's not guaranteed a roster spot from his competition with Justin Thomas, an undrafted free agent last summer who was cut out of the Rams' camp. Nothing they do in Latrobe can set a bar, so this will be center stage. Expect to see a split between the two.
A dash of splash sure would be nice.
4. James Conner needs to go steamroller.
Sorry, I'm not a buyer that a slimmer Conner is suddenly about to go all Barry Sanders in slipping through tackles. Conner's got to be physical. It's the way he played in Erie and through his best years at Pitt. He's the bull, and the defense is the china shop. I get that this isn't the ACC, and he won't physically overwhelm people as he did in college. But I also get that the very best version of Conner was hitting the holes and creating his own extra yardage.
So do that. Haley's gone, and so are all his predictable sweeps. Ram it down someone's throat. Give the Steelers a threat they'll want to use even once Bell is back.
5. Cut Rudolph loose.
Come on, you didn't think I'd forget the only reason twice as many fans as usual will watch the second half tonight, right?
Let the kid play. He's shown so much poise, so much command -- really, even his cadence at the line comes across like a military commander -- that he's earned the right to take the field and take more than a couple shots. That isn't how the second half of most preseason games go, I know. They're just an endless roll of 2-yard runs. But this can be more. The talent's there, and so's all the rest.
That'll be fun, huh?
• The biggest potential short-term benefit to all that poise is that Rudolph will let any mishaps roll right off. That's good. There's a chance he won't see any snaps at all once the real games begin, so all of this can be magnified. Josh Dobbs and I spoke about that quite a bit through last season. He'd revisit every decision, every throw from every one of those preseason games the rest of us mostly dismiss.
• Player to watch tonight, assuming anyone can take their eyes off No. 2: Chukes Okorafor.
Not to overburden a third-round pick here, but this offensive line won't stay intact forever. Ramon Foster's out with a knee injury, but he'll also likely be out for good after this season as a free agent. The rest have been around for a while, too:
They've been so solid that Kevin Colbert and Tomlin have gotten away with not adding a meaningful lineman in the draft since ... since ... wow, since David DeCastro way back in 2012. For real, the draft picks in the interim have been Wesley Johnson, Jerald Hawkins and the short-lived, hilarious choice of long snapper Colin Holba, if that can be counted ... and now Okorafor.
• Here's guessing we'll all be talking about all the flags sure to fly tonight:
• Anyone else still cringing at placing the words 'Philadelphia' and 'champion' in the same sentence, much less the same thought?
• Remember Corey Coleman?
If not, this should help ...
Yeah, him. He's that first-round wide receiver who made that fantabulous drop -- with his face -- at Heinz Field this past winter to clinch the Browns' 0-16 season.
Well, it didn't get a ton of notice around the football world when he was traded to the Bills earlier this week, and that's probably justified. But here's an amazing figure accompanying that move: The Browns made 11 first-round picks between 2009-16, including Coleman, and not one remains on the Browns' roster.
Never overthink what matters most in professional sports.
• Is it just me or does the Pirates taking two of three in Denver, and still only moving up a half-game in the wild-card standings, only further illustrate how impossible it'll be to leapfrog this whole muddled pack?
• Corey Dickerson's not exactly the old-school prototype at leadoff, but his 2-for-4 yesterday now has him at .349 -- 22 for 63 -- from the top spot. And because of that, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco have been allowed to stay comfortable at the Nos. 2 and 3 spots, so everyone wins.
I know, I know ... all Clint Hurdle does is make moves that help the team win.
Either that, or the Pirates are 59-0 and he's 0-56 this season.
Am I doing it right?
• Joey Cora's a terrible third base coach. When I invested a full column on that from San Diego a few weeks back, it got all kinds of pushback from the Pirates' hierarchy -- through their usual avenue, Neal Huntington's Sunday radio show, in which he and the host acted aghast that anyone could think such a thing -- but all he's done since then is get more and more guys inexplicably gunned down at home.
Wow, Francisco Cervelli got the wave yesterday?
That's 17 outs at the plate, tied for most in the National League. And it's not like they've been outs rooted in aggression. They've been either stupidity or simple lack of game awareness, neither of which is defensible at the big-league level.
• The Giants will retire Barry Bonds' No. 25 on Saturday night, clearly having scheduled the ceremony for when the Pirates would be in town.
If I'm the Pirates, I'd present Bonds with a No. 24 -- his number in Pittsburgh -- only it'd be six sizes smaller.