Kovacevic: The core of Steelers' intangible dynamic

"It's fun. You know what? This is fun."

Take that from David DeCastro, the Steelers' offensive MVP by such a frighteningly freakish margin they wouldn't even bother with a runner-up were such an award actually in existence.

Our topic was the challenge that's been faced from the moment Ben Roethlisberger was last seen on the field. In most places, the franchise quarterback is lost, and so is the season. Not in a small way, either. I'm talking 1-15, 2-14, full-blown, Cincinnati/Miami-scale disaster. Because it isn't just the pivotal player that's stripped away. It's hope. It's faith.

It's that sense of purpose. You know, having a point to the process. A reason to tape up every Sunday and bash in somebody's brains. And when the participants themselves see 60 total personnel moves being made since the season's outset, when they're about to partake in an NFL game without Roethlisberger, JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Conner, Maurkice Pouncey, Rosie Nix and Ryan Switzer on offense, plus Stephon Tuitt and Sean Davis on defense -- more than a third of their presumed starters entering 2019! -- they've got to feel like there's a prize at the end.

Not just the game that week. At the very end. And since there can't be a sane person anywhere who sees that as the Super Bowl ... what is that endgame, anyway?

"We're looking to win the next game we play," DeCastro would answer to that. "That's the way we've always approached it, and that's the way we're approaching it now. If you think about things too much, wonder where you are or what's going on around you, it can hurt you. Our next game is Cleveland. We're thinking about Cleveland. We'll see where it takes us."

Mike Tomlin will get a lot of credit for this, even from his detractors, and that's fair. A football team's focus invariably is set by the head coach, and this one's better than most. In the end, his own prize might well be NFL Coach of the Year if he somehow guides this group into the playoffs.

But save some credit for the players, particularly the tone-setters and doubly so for the tone-setters on the offensive side. It'd have been so easy for that specific situation to have disintegrated by this stage, for finger-pointing, for excuse-making. No coach, even one as respected in the room as Tomlin, can control that. And it hasn't happened. At all.

Instead, they're embracing this as "fun," as a challenge.

"Look, we want to be better as an offense, no question," DeCastro continued. "But we understand where we are, and we know the kind of defense we've got, so it's a little different situation than maybe we've had in the past. We'd love to do more and take the pressure off them, but we know we've just got to do our part. The goal is to win any way we have to."

What a neat dynamic.

• Not to diminish the impact of Tomlin and Kevin Colbert on this. There never was so much as a trace of punting on the season from anyone and, in fact, the immediate reaction to Roethlisberger's injury was the excellent trade for Minkah Fitzpatrick. It's evident now that trade will pay dividends deep into the future, but at the time it also served, unwittingly or not, as a powerful message that the season still carried meaning.

• Tomlin's loving this. He could be heard roaming around the field right after the game randomly barking out the names of some of the newcomers: "Deon Cain! Kerrith Whyte!" He's anything but the type to boast -- or even talk -- about himself, but this has to be a bona fide point of pride.

Tell me, when was the last time you heard him sound this way: "Football is the ultimate team game and those men in that locker from, those in helmets and those inactive, they all fought and fought together. I’m proud of them. It’s a cool thing."

• Minkah should play on offense just in case anyone fumbles.

• Whichever way Tomlin goes with quarterback this week -- and I'll repeat I'm sure it'll be Devlin Hodges -- he can't send even the faintest signal of a possible quick hook. Not when his decision should be primarily rooted in that player taking the field with confidence. That'll unsettle everyone.

• Myles Garrett should be absolutely radioactive in the Browns' locker room when he returns. Someone capable of taking "that route," as Mason Rudolph dubbed it, is capable of doing it to anyone and in all kinds of ways. Even a teammate.

• It's hard to make much of Benny Snell's 98 rushing yards Sunday against the NFL's worst defense, in that the Bengals are especially bad against the run. But I certainly appreciated this:

It's right after the two-minute warning. Bud Dupree's surreal strip-sack bought the offense rare good field position, so all that was needed with a six-point lead was to run out the clock. In this case, the running out could be literal, so Snell's 13-yard gallop around left end for a first down was decisive. Because after that, the Steelers could kneel to the finish.

But watch two things up there:

1. DeCastro sprints way out left to take out Cincinnati safety Jessie Bates, and I bring this up only to further solidify his candidacy for my mythical offensive MVP award.

2. Snell stays in-bounds with a plan. Every running back sees the end zone on every carry. That's normal. But Snell shows sharpness to turn away from the sideline through the final few strides of his run, then instantly whirls around to find the down judge, David Oliver, and ensure he's deemed to have kept the clock running.

That's one difference between having a natural running back in Snell vs. a hybrid like Jaylen Samuels, who's basically learning the position in the NFL after being a hybrid in college.

• There's no reason for the Steelers to bring back Conner in 2020. Add another running back from elsewhere.

• Dupree didn't ramp it up because he's in a contract year. His want-to was always through the roof. If anything, it went too far in that he'd over-pursue the quarterback.

He just became a better player. It happens.

• Lamar Jackson could take the final month off and still be the NFL's MVP. He's wrecking the league. And not just defenses but models.

FINAL: The @Ravens win big on #MNF! #BALvsLAR #RavensFlock

(by @Lexus) pic.twitter.com/KoMQov9t51

— NFL (@NFL) November 26, 2019

Give it up for the Ravens. It's bold beyond words to try to swing away from any sport's trends, and John Harbaugh's not only pulled it off but also predicted beforehand that it would happen, that Baltimore's offense would be 'unstoppable.' It's been that.

• As for the imminent AFC North champs ...

Ravens about to finish a 4-0 November. Barring any more scoring in this one, they'll have out-scored the Patriots, Bengals, Texans and Rams by a margin of 172-46 this month. They'll now be on short week to prepare for Sunday's matchup vs. San Francisco, the NFC's top team.

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) November 26, 2019

• Few sports convos are more common than revisiting a draft class, but go easy on praising the Ravens too much on this count. Yeah, they traded up to take Jackson at 32nd overall, but their first pick of the first round, 25th overall, was tight end Hayden Hurst. If they were that sure Jackson could be all this, they wouldn't have waited.

• Goaltenders matter as much in hockey as quarterbacks in football, pitchers in baseball. Quite literally, everything's got to go through them.

But, as with quarterbacks and pitchers, goaltenders can be excessively praised or blamed because of that prominence.

I like what I've seen of Tristan Jarry. It's impossible not to like it: After the Penguins' 3-2 overtime victory over the Flames last night at PPG Paints Arena, he's got a 1.81 goals-against average and .945 save percentage in six starts. Digging deeper, he's also got an astounding .900 save percentage on high-danger scoring chances, stopping 27 of 30, second in the NHL to the .905 of the Oilers' Mikko Koskinen.

But again, it's six starts. And the primary thing that's held Jarry back over the years is his inability to limit adversity. When he's going well, he'll roll. As soon as it starts sinking on him, he loses control.

It'd be enormous for the Penguins if he can break through that, but we won't know until we witness the first struggle of 2019-20.

• John Marino's 22 years old. Marcus Pettersson's 23. Jim Rutherford sent a sixth-round pick to the Oilers for the former, Daniel Sprong to the Ducks for the latter.

And Sprong, for all the fuss kicked up around here at the time -- mostly about how Mike Sullivan allegedly hates young players -- Anaheim management thought so little of Sprong that he was placed on waivers in late September. And the NHL's other 30 teams, including the Penguins, thought so little of Sprong that he cleared waivers and was assigned to San Diego of the AHL, where he's currently got four goals and a minus-9 rating over 15 games.

There's no way Rutherford -- and for that matter, Sullivan, as it relates to Sprong -- are getting enough credit here. These are two very young, multitalented top-four defensemen added to the organization for next to nothing. That's a coup and a half.

• Robert Bortuzzo's always been an affable enough guy off the ice, including his time in Pittsburgh, but he's snapped far too often on the ice. And by snapped, I'm referring to what he tries to do to his stick across opponents' backs and necks, as happened yet again Saturday night in St. Louis to the Predators' Viktor Arvidson:

Viktor Arvidsson injured after taking two nasty cross-checks from Robert Bortuzzo pic.twitter.com/v8jVySeoab

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) November 24, 2019

Man, that's ugly the first time, never mind the second.

Bortuzzo similarly assaulted the Islanders' Brock Nelson two years ago, then, of course, injured Evgeni Malkin earlier in 2019. And yet, all the NHL saw fit to assign to this latest incident was four games.

The league's dinosaur approach to meting out punishment remains embarrassingly skewed toward being fair to the perpetrator. As if this process were a court of law. It isn't. And the priority for the process should be, above all, actual player safety. When Bortuzzo's time is up, he'll cross-check someone else. And when someone else recognizes that Bortuzzo got nothing, they'll do it, too.

Keep going that way, guys. Right up until someone's paralyzed or dies.

• Craziest thing about the Islanders' much-trumpeted points streak -- 15-0-2 before finally losing in regulation late last night in Anaheim, 3-0 -- is that their 16-4-2 overall record barely stands out among the Capitals' 16-4-5 and the Bruins' 15-3-5 atop the Eastern Conference. And the longer that curve continues, plus the very real possibility that the Lightning will someday wake back up, the local team's broader challenge becomes that much more daunting. It'll be a tough field, way tougher than the West.

• The Pirates' managerial search appears to be down to two finalists, both of whom were bench coaches in 2018: Derek Shelton of the Twins and Matt Quatraro of the Rays. Both come from successful organizations, both are eminently qualified, and both have been overdue for an opportunity to take the helm.

Wonderful.

If I sound blah about it, so be it. I'll never pretend to disown the natural Pittsburgh parochialism within, including attachment to a Pittsburgh franchise. Within that, I welcomed the idea of Jeff Banister, who's just as qualified as the two men already mentioned, ascending to manager here. That obviously won't happen, and that's singularly disappointing.

We'll see how it goes. As with so much else in this transition, it'll take patience.

• Anyone care to explain dumping Dario Agrazal and keeping Dovydas Neverauskas on the 40-man?

Starting pitching, even if it's mediocre, is needed. Catastrophic middle relief isn't.

Ben Cherington's got a few more people to fire, apparently.

• I've written since August that I'd be OK with the Pirates trading Starling Marte, provided a competent general manager was in place. Now that this is apparently the case, that stance remains intact. It sure sounds as if there's plenty enough market for center fielders across Major League Baseball and, with Marte coming off the most complete season of his career and two years of affordable club control ahead, a quality haul could be had.

Yeah, the idea of a 2020 outfield of Bryan Reynolds and a healthy Gregory Polanco flanking Marte could be fun. But waiting half a decade to replenish the minor-league system is an unattractive alternative.

• Pitt's 64-59 upset of Kansas State last night in Fort Myers, Fla, came amid 21 turnovers, 1-of-16 shooting from beyond the arc and, most amazing, two assists.

Or actually, that last one's not all that amazing, because these Panthers, unlike any edition of the program I can recall, have a one-man offense. Meaning whichever man happens to have the ball. It's wild to watch but, time after time, that man -- usually Xavier Johnson or Trey McGowens -- will simply lower his shoulders, seek out a line and put the ball on the floor.

On one hand, I get it. That's Jeff Capel playing to the strengths of Johnson and McGowens. But more balance will be needed from an offense that's not going to suddenly shoot lights-out from the outside. It'll involve smart distribution.

• Not to be a bummer. That's an uplifting victory for the younger Panthers, almost as much as their opener against Florida State. But there's room to be markedly better, and this is the time of the season to stress that.

• It's unfathomable that the Steelers' season remains relevant through Thanksgiving. No one could have foreseen that. Enjoy it as much as they are!