Kovacevic: Devil's still in the details, but game-changers matter

Shortly after noon on this shiniest of Sundays on the North Shore, the seas of asphalt surrounding Heinz Field sat empty, a deafening silence in all directions, but for a couple scenes I spotted: A police officer was dutifully chasing a wayward candy-wrapper on an otherwise isolated sidewalk and, down by the riverfront, a dozen or so private boats had docked, presumably partaking in a floating, socially distanced tailgate.

The Steelers' 88th home opener, it's safe to say, was one that'll forever stand in stark contrast to the rest.

But don't take my word for it. Press play on my 20-second iPhone video instead:

It's crazy. Just crazy.

You know, I've covered a bunch of Major League Baseball games like this, and I covered the Steelers' opener last week in East Rutherford, N.J., so I'm not sure why this scene seemed to hit that much harder. But it definitely did.

Maybe it's because this is football, this is Pittsburgh, this was Sunday, and this was where 68,500-plus of our population belonged.

Maybe it's because seven other NFL stadiums have already seen the return of limited fans, including both in neighboring Ohio.

Or maybe it's just that someone, anyone should've been in here to cheer this spectacular scene, one best appreciated from a sky-cam perspective:

Oh, you betcha.

Cutting to the, um, chase, that's Ben Roethlisberger connecting with Chase Claypool for an 84-yard touchdown, one that set the stage for the Steelers to beat the Broncos, 26-21, and start the season 2-0.

And that, my friends, is the most magnificent sight in football. Possibly in all of sports, I've long maintained. 

A monster home run in baseball, a breakaway goal in hockey, a buzzer-beating jumper in hoops ... all can be awesome, but none offers the additional element of anticipation. Generally speaking, those other events occur in a moment ... like, boom! But the beauty of the bomb for a touchdown is that it can come with three: The throw, the catch and the run after the catch, with each one raising the reaction to a crescendo.

Look, I'm aware that this overall performance wasn't pretty. And that people are upset about it. I'll get to it.

Can we first spare a minute to appreciate this one thing?

Cool. Here we go, as they say ...

With 6:34 left in the first half, the Steelers at their 16-yard marker, ahead by only 7-3 despite their defensive front crushing the souls of both Denver quarterbacks, Ben and the offense strode back onto the field seeking something of a spark. The previous two drives had brought punts. More was needed.

As Claypool would word it, "We were thinking big."

It's a simple scheme -- picture drawing a straight line in the sand, then topping it with an arrow -- but it tends to take special players to pull it off. Ben's been that for the better part of Claypool's life, and Claypool's shown extraordinarily well through training camp, practices, the circus catch last Monday ... and now this.

Ben comes first:

There's a play call and a read, and only the quarterback can do the latter right at the line. Ben watched the Broncos emerge in a Cover 2 only to switch to a Cover 1. That was his green light.

"We kind of had the coverage there," was all that Ben would elaborate.

The offensive line did fine, considering it started two children on the right side -- Chuks Okorafor and Kevin Dotson both acquitted themselves well -- but this play wasn't it. Not for Alejandro Villanueva. Watch him up there picking up nobody, just as Alexander Johnson barrels right by him to take Ben down. And hard.

But watch Ben stand in there, knowing full well what was coming, and put all the necessary air under that ball.

Now watch the kid go to work:

Claypool's really large at 6 feet 4, 238 pounds. In an alternate reality, he's a tight end. Or an edge rusher. But he also came out of Notre Dame acclaimed for his additional -- and unnatural -- combination of speed and body control, all of which are highlighted above. He outraces, then outmuscles Denver corner Michael Ojemudia, who hilariously pleas for a push-off flag while still sprinting.

And then:

He keeps his balance when Ojemudia attempts an actual football play with a desperate dive, then flat-out bursts away like Usain Bolt in the final few meters.

I asked Claypool how it felt running under that ball for so long under all that blue sky, since some receivers can get freaked out by having that much time.

"Usually, it's kind of tough to focus on the ball when you're running full speed, the head shaking a little bit," he replied. "But Ben lofted it up pretty good to where it wasn't that hard to see the ball, if that makes sense."

Yeah, kinda.

"I really just had to run under it, so it wasn't too bad."

And when he crossed the finish line?

"It was pretty cool. Sometimes you hear a play call, you know the ball's coming your way, and you know you're gonna score. That was one of those where I had that chance."

I asked Ben his thoughts on the throw to Claypool, just as I had six days earlier in East Rutherford on that other throw. Only this answer wasn't at all expected.

"Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I kind of got hit right after I threw it. And so I ... without the crowd, you really don't know what happens, right? You can't tell if it's caught, incomplete, touchdown ... I mean, there's just no reaction. I had no idea what was going on. I kind of had an idea that he caught it and then he kind of kept running, and next thing I saw was Maurkice Pouncey running toward me. I still haven't had a chance to see it all yet. I'm excited to check it out."

Sounds like they missed having fans, too.

"It's not the same," Ben spoke to that subject. "Being out there and not having them, not seeing all those Towels ... We definitely miss them, and I hope they know we still appreciate their support even though they're not here."

Nice.

Anyone still steaming over all this?

Ha! Trust me, I know this especially cynical fan base better than to think that for a split-second!

OK, let's try this a different way.

I hated the secondary looking soft against the nobody likes of Drew Lock and Jeff Driskel, whose 276 combined passing yards on 19 completions spelled an average of 14.5 yards per completion.

I hated even more that, when I brought up the secondary looking soft with Joe Haden, who'd been burned more than once, he replied with: "I'm not sure which plays you're talking about."

But I didn't hate that Mike Hilton spent half the game in the Denver backfield and finished with a game-high eight tackles, a sack, two QB hits, a fumble recovery and a superlative pass defensed deep downfield.

And I definitely didn't hate that Hilton's menacing presence at the line had Driskel so locked onto No. 28 that, when Terrell Edmunds was sent up there in his stead, it resulted in the game's decisive play, the 11-yard sack that brought the final turnover on downs.

"Oh, man, that felt great," Edmunds beamed after I'd reminded him that more splash has been his goal for a couple years now. "I knew I could do it."

I hated that the Broncos grinded out 104 rushing yards despite being behind throughout, keeping their offense multidimensional when it shouldn't have been.

I hated even more that Melvin Gordon was ripping through arm tackles, especially early on, on his way to 70 of those yards.

But I didn't hate that those would-be tacklers were far more focused on destroying Gordon's quarterbacks and, thus, appropriately distracted. Seven total sacks, 11 total tackles for loss and 19 total QB hits don't lie. 

And I definitely didn't hate that T.J. Watt, in the week after some wondered if the Giants were paying too much attention to him, put forth 2.5 sacks, four QB hits and much all-around mayhem. Because with this defense, you can't pay too much attention to anyone.

"It doesn't matter who we're facing. We blitz," Watt would say. "One of our assets is that you have no idea where it's coming from, who it is. We can send anybody. We play fast. We play technically sound. But we can definitely play better than we did today."

Didn't hate that assessment, either.

I hated that the offense turned the ball over twice in the second half, both egregiously: Ben was picked off early in the third quarter despite having enough time to wash/sanitize his hands per CDC guidelines, and Benny Snell fumbled for the second time in as many games early in the fourth quarter.

I really hated that, in the face of this, Randy Fichtner for some reason refused to slow the clock in any capacity, stuck with four wides, passing and passing while pinning his fullback to the bench until he was left with zero choice.

But I didn't hate that once Derek Watt was finally sent to the huddle, he threw the key block to spring James Conner's game-sealing 59-yard run to the Denver 10.

And I definitely didn't hate that Conner managed to survive the full three-hour ordeal, leaving him at least theoretically available to participate in another NFL game next week.

I hated other stuff, too: The offense going 2 for 12 on third down. A couple ugly drops. Lousy pass interference penalties. A dubious replay challenge.

But I won't be blinded by any of that hate because I won't lose sight of the broader context that this group, flaws and all, are making game-changing plays on a scale we haven't seen in Pittsburgh in some time. There were a bunch in New Jersey and a bunch more here. And those types of plays can't be taught, can't be crafted through additional practice. A team's either got that or it doesn't.

The details, the timing, the precision, all of that can still come. Which it had better very soon. The Texans are in town next Sunday and, although they're 0-2, they've lost to the AFC's two best teams in the Chiefs and Ravens, they'll bring the first respectable QB the Steelers will have faced in Deshaun Watson, and, yeah, they've got the planet's only other Watt brother.

I asked Mike Tomlin, without setting up any kind of excuse for the Steelers' inconsistencies, if this just might be how an NFL team looks without a preseason.

"I'm not going to be making any excuses," he came right back, anyway. "We were far from perfect today, so we've got to get better. We're thankful to win today despite it. We understand that there's going to be some growth at the early stages of this thing, and that we'd better make enough plays to win along the way. We were able to do that today."

Here's a concept: Save all the hate for that day when they don't make enough plays to win.

Meaning, not a day when the franchise quarterback and the franchise's future follow through with an unforgettable one.