Opening drive. Third-and-short in the red zone. Jaylen Samuels lines up to take the handoff.
Oh, hell yes, I'm starting there.
Because look, there's no fair path for praising all the smart moves the Steelers' coaches would make over the course of their 28-21 victory over the Texans on this sunny Sunday afternoon at Heinz Field ... without starting with one so stupid it defies description.
Here, enjoy it all over again:
OK, so Vance McDonald barely got any push, and Matt Feiler was late on the pull. But here's betting the only execution anyone in the broader Nation was contemplating upon completion of this beauty was of whoever designed and/or called it.
Not without cause.
Ben Roethlisberger and the offense had rolled 63 yards to get to the Houston 16, mixing run and pass over those 11 plays. James Conner was running hard. Anthony McFarland's first NFL carry was for 7 yards. Benny Snell, who specializes in short-yardage grinds, was standing at the ready.
You betcha, Randy Fichtner turns to his fourth-string running back. A guy who could've been cut in camp without raising an eyebrow. A pass-catching specialist. In a single-back set. To run a play to the right. That required the left guard to deliver the key block. To try to get through the league's 30th-ranked rushing defense.
I mean ... calling that over-thinking is an insult to under-thinking.
Understand, please, this wasn't critical to the outcome. Chris Boswell trotted on for the field goal, and that was that. But I'd be dishonest if I didn't confess here to wondering ... well, what's the point in amassing all this talent on both sides of the ball if the team's two coordinators aren't of a comparable caliber?
Mind you, this wasn't rash. Fichtner's in his third year of running the offense, Keith Butler in his sixth of running the defense. And in that time, the number of times either has been praised for ingenuity is roughly equivalent to the outside job offers they've received.
Not rash. Not new. If anything, it felt old. Stale. Tired.
And that only multiplied when Butler's secondary started getting scorched by Deshaun Watson on the ground and through the air. It looked like 2017 in Foxborough all over again, even with shiny new pieces in place.
T.J. Watt assessed of the first half, "We weren't playing very well."
Nope. Watson was 14 of 18 for 202 yards and two touchdowns. He was sacked twice, but that was less representative of the half than this:
Sorry, but that's just gorgeous schematics.
Watch Brandin Cooks, who catches the ball, cross way over from left to right. Check out Steven Nelson atop the screen. Cooks is his guy. But he's got no prayer once the Texans' other receiver, Randall Cobb, No. 18, crosses against that same grain. Cobb doesn't bump Nelson, but he doesn't need to. It's the equivalent of a soft pick in basketball. The sole intent is to disrupt.
Now watch again how Cobbs' route additionally pulls Mike Hilton out of the picture. He chases Cobbs even as Watson's firing the ball the other way.
I know, right?
This went on the whole half. And it really wasn't that the Steelers' secondary suddenly stunk or were overrated or whatever else anyone might've been shouting at the living room LCDs. It's that Bill O'Brien and his offensive coordinator, Tim Kelly, also collected paychecks this week. And apparently were intent on earning every penny.
"People are going to have good plans. They work, too," Tomlin offered with a shrug afterward. "And so, we had to do some adjusting."
Wonderful. So the guy who gave Samuels the ball to kill the opening drive, and the other guy who never had an answer for crossing patterns when Tom Brady and the Patriots used to pick him apart ... the game was in their hands. And Tomlin's.
Hm. Might want to sit down for this.
Watson and his 150.5 passer rating would melt down to 5 of 9 for 62 yards, with an interception, three sacks and ... zero points, two first downs and ... wait, who'd need to hear more than TWO FIRST DOWNS?
"You've got to have the balance between run and pass," Watson observed later, "and we didn't have that in the second half." Balance? Wow, he's got a point there: Of 51 total yards, 43 came through the air and, uh, 8 on the ground.
I preferred O'Brien's assessment: "We didn't do anything in the second half."
The home team sure did. And that started, according to all concerned, with the coaching.
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Bill O'Brien and Mike Tomlin, Sunday at Heinz Field.
Even Tomlin, who wouldn't accept a coaching compliment if it came from the collective spirits of Chuck Noll, Vince Lombardi and George Halas, acknowledged it in his inimitable way.
He opened his press call with this: "You know, I've got to start off by tipping my cap to Coach O'Brien and the Houston Texans. They had a really good plan. It took us a while to get adjusted to it. They made plays early on in all three phases. I thought the guys did a nice job, players and coaches, communicating, making necessary adjustments at the half, getting the necessary stops and possessing the ball."
Later on, there was this: "Kudos to the coaches and those guys for communicating and not blinking in the midst of some of those things that transpire when those things happen."
With the final reply, there was this: "Like I mentioned earlier, we made some minor adjustments, not significant ones. I just thought it was the difference, and oftentimes that is the case. It's not dramatic things, it's not things we can talk openly about in this setting, and maybe you guys can appreciate that."
Reporters, he meant. He wasn't about to spill out what we'd just witnessed and assist in any way Mike Vrabel and the Titans in advance of a meeting of 3-0 AFC teams next Sunday in Nashville, Tenn.
Which is fine. I didn't see it as all that layered.
On offense, mostly, it was a matter of finding rhythm. That's a word I haven't typed in association with the Steelers' offense since New Orleans in 2018, and it's not easily quantified. It's just something to be seen.
And this was, in fact, something to be seen.
Roethlisberger, who'd wind up 23 of 36 for 237 yards, spread his 35 targets to eight different receivers, none of them catching more than five passes, and with a touchdown each from JuJu Smith-Schuster and previously under-utilized Eric Ebron. And this without Diontae Johnson, lost in the second quarter to a concussion.
The run was that much more diverse, with Conner doubly reasserting bell-cow status -- "James is our featured runner," Tomlin reiterated. "I've mentioned that repeatedly" -- with 109 yards and the sealing 12-yard touchdown on his 18 carries. McFarland showed exciting pop with 42 yards on six carries, and Snell had two key third-and-1 conversions.
And speaking of such conversions, Jaylen-and-a-cloud of dust was abandoned for far more intelligent fare:
Man, that's sweet. It's a route that's usually run by JuJu -- and was two other times on this day -- but this was for James Washington, to the same effect.
Anyone feeling a rhythm out there?
I asked Ben: "We did some really good things. We still lacked in some areas -- I missed a couple of deep balls, overthrew a couple guys here and there -- but I think what I was most proud of was the way that guys stepped up. Diontae goes down and JuJu, James and Chase Claypool basically have to play all three positions. They're bouncing around and we're moving them and doing things. I told each one of them after the game how proud I was that those guys stepped up because it wasn't easy to be in their shoes today."
JuJu, on same: "Slowly, our offense, our coordinator Randy, Ben ... we just knew what we wanted to call," JuJu said. "We just went out there and dominated. I think it was the game plan."
And Conner: "Yeah, I trust the play call, I trust the line, fullbacks, and tight ends. If we’re calling the play in the huddle to the outside, I trust it because I know they’re seeing that. You’ve just got to be ready, with them or not. You’ve just got to be ready at all times. We’re professionals."
The greater adjustment was needed on defense and those crossing routes.
Condensed to the basics, the Steelers stepped off the blitzing pedal, trusted their front four or five to pressure Watson, then did a whole lot of reassigning everyone else, chiefly Devin Bush, to roam around for support. The schemes themselves didn't change much, but there were more bodies, and there was, by all accounts, a big-time upgrade in communication. Halftime offered a chance to discuss and dissect the routes themselves, and that relaying continued right out on the field.
Before I illustrate, here's the technical explanation from T.J.: "We always pre-smash the run and then the rush and coverage have to work together. We didn’t do a great job of it all day as far as rush and coverage. We felt in the first half our rush needed to be a lot more sound, and we felt we made some good adjustments. Then, toward the second half, it just started clicking. We were able to keep them in the pocket a little more for a lot of our back end guys to make some plays."
Rough translation:
1. Contain Watson and the run in general, which is why Watt and especially Dupree focused so much on edges rather than straight paths.
Of that specifically, O'Brien conceded, "We tried to work different schemes, and really nothing worked. We weren't able to get to the edge."
2. Get Watson. Again, without blitzing.
To illustrate now:
Cam Heyward gets double-teamed because he's just that fearsome, and Stephon Tuitt obliterates Houston's right guard, Zach Fulton, to take down Watson.
But the subtext is that, although Minkah Fitzpatrick can be seen hovering near the box to threaten a safety blitz, he and Bush and most everyone else drop back to do their own disrupting of those previously disruptive crossing routes.
Nice, huh?
Might as well throw this in, too:
Count up all the black jerseys in coverage!
Mike Hilton plays the hero again with the pick, but the sequence never happens without Watt's pressure or the scheme, and Watson never commits the cardinal quarterbacking sin of throwing across his body back into the middle of the field late in a play.
Now, how much was Butler and how much was Tomlin -- the defense is still so very much his baby -- we'll never know.
And how much of the offense was Fichtner and how much was Ben, especially since the Steelers did a bunch of run-play options where Ben can call his shots right behind Maurkice Pouncey, we'll never know.
And how much of the players being able to process new information so quickly was the teacher and how much was the pupil, we'll never know.
But one thing that's bugged me forever about the Nation is that, seemingly in the eyes of most, the coaches only exist when the Steelers lose. They're somehow never responsible for any of the positives, even within rousing or lopsided victories. Only the minuses.
Well, I'm here to attest that this team's an honest 3-0. I don't want to hear about all three of their victims being a combined 0-9. Not when the franchise hadn't seen 3-0 in a decade. Not when there was no preseason. Not when a pandemic prevented everyone -- players and coaches both -- from being able to prepare as they'd prefer.
This, what took place here Sunday, was a positive reflection on all of them. All the way up. And imagine if that somehow sticks through all 16 games and beyond.
"There wasn't a lot of blink in the group," was maybe Tomlin's most memorable line after this. "They absorbed the necessary adjustments and sometimes that's necessary."
Vrabel's got his work cut out for him down in Music City.