"We love you! We love you! Wooooooooooo! Four-and-oh! Thank you!"
A young lady could be heard shouting toward the top of the Steelers' tunnel late Sunday afternoon, not long after Heinz Field's home team had handed the home crowd a welcome-back gift in the form of a 38-29 edging of the Eagles.
Oh, and 4-0. That, too.
First time since the Pirates won a World Series.
So yeah, go ahead, flash that smile. It's fine.
Tunch Ilkin, a good man I'm proud to call my friend, showed up for work as if this were any other week in his life. He and his best bud Craig Wolfley stood side by side in the broadcast booth, collectively lighting up as only they can with each of Chase Claypool's four touchdowns.
"It's a good day," Tunch told me upon seeing me Sunday morning.
Right. Smile because every day is a good day.
Smile because, amid a pandemic, the Nation took one small, safe step toward normalcy. The crowd was only 4,708 thick, but it was 'amazing' in volume, per Vince Williams, and made an 'impact,' per Steve Nelson. I met a few of them. This event was a very, very big deal for them. I respect that. I loved hearing each story.
Smile because, amid any and all other concerns this team might have, No. 7 remains No. 1. And all Ben Roethlisberger did was complete 27 of 34 passes for 239 yards, three touchdowns and a second consecutive game without a pick. Even if he was right to assess, as he did afterward, "I'm still missing the deep ball too much, still overthrowing," then joking, "I don't know if the doc made my arm a little stronger," nothing matters more.
Smile because Pittsburgh sure is blessed with Canadians who can score:
And against Philly, to boot.
It's a very good football team that's trending toward very good things.
Maybe.
If ...
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Minkah Fitzpatrick's been reduced to a scarecrow.
If ... it sounded like I had a complaint coming through that preamble, rest assured that's it. Distilled to the core of this now officially disturbing defense, that's it.
It's not that he suddenly stinks. It's not that he doesn't suddenly stink. But it's more that, as the central figure in a secondary that's now being scorched every week, he functions as an ideal place to illustrate what's really going wrong back there. And why it'll be a challenge for Keith Butler and Mike Tomlin to solve it simply through schematics.
Start with this: Minkah hasn't been good.
Like, at anything:
• 0 interceptions
• 0 passes defensed
• 9 catches on 12 targets
• 136 yards allowed on those
• 40 yards after the catch
• 16 solo tackles
• 4 missed tackles
• 0 tackles for loss
• 0 forced fumbles
• 0 fumble recoveries
• 0 sacks
Remember when we once chased Mike Mitchell out of town for numbers like those?
To quote the Bobs from 'Office Space:'
There's nowhere to run from that. Not when a player's a first-team All-Pro one season, now in the lower-third of NFL strong safeties in catch-target rate at 75%, and still won't turn 24 for another month. That arrow's supposed to point skyward.
Instead, we're seeing Minkah magic reduced to a vanishing act, at least if we've got our eyes open.
From this game alone:
That's Travis Fulgham. In early August, he was waived by both the Lions and Packers, then claimed by the Eagles. He might as well have been scrubbing grease buckets at Taco Bell. And on this day, he caught, um, 10 passes for 152 yards, as well as pinballing off that pathetic tackle attempt by Minkah.
However awful that looks here, trust me, it was worse live.
Here's another:
That's Fulgham again, turning third-and-12 into a 31-yard gain.
He's not Minkah's guy, you should know. Mike Hilton's tailing Fulgham, and Minkah and Terrell Edmunds arrive customarily late to help, neither putting himself into position to deliver an old-school safety hit after a guy looks that casual running down the middle of your field. Say what one will of Mitchell or Ryan Clark or how NFL rules have changed to protect the receiver, but they'd have been reading Fulgham his last rites after a route like that, never mind watching him bounce up and pose.
Can you tell this is bugging me?
Wait, one more:
This one bugs me the most. And you bet, it's Fulgham again.
This time, he's Nelson's assignment off the line. And Nelson totally dozes off. Inexcusable. End of story.
Or is it?
Isolate on Minkah up there, and it's easy to see why the Steelers' mindset regarding Minkah might be as much of a problem as his own performance.
See, Nelson's job on this sequence isn't to follow Fulgham as much as it is to funnel him toward Minkah. That's how Butler's secondary defense rolls, and it worked well for most of 2019. Both outside corners, Nelson and Joe Haden, are trusted with one-on-one coverage and, within that, their default is to force their respective receivers toward the inside, where Minkah lurks and, theoretically, awaits splash plays galore.
But I see Minkah looking that flat-footed, that fixated on reacting to the quarterback, that socially distanced ... all the time. Play after play, game after game through this 2020 season, that's the stance. He's watching, waiting and hoping something gets pushed his way.
Think of a scarecrow. That's his role. Standing in the middle of the field, doing nothing other than maybe, maybe frightening away a few interlopers.
Well, what happens when no one's afraid?
It's one thing when a secondary's being picked apart by this version of Carson Wentz -- and I thought he was both tough and terrific in this game -- but quite another when it's Jeff Driskel and Daniel Jones. And this has been happening from the opening series in East Rutherford, almost without pause: The Steelers are now allowing 13.1 yards per catch, the second-worst average in the NFL, and have allowed eight passing touchdowns.
Do the six interceptions offset that?
Not from this perspective. Not close. Because opponents are sustaining drives within that average and, more damaging, converting third downs almost casually. The Eagles were a mindblowing 10 of 14 on third downs, including pass completions of 9, 20, 37, 31 and 18 yards.
I asked Tomlin afterward about the latter, and he replied by praising the other guys: "It was a hodge-podge of things. I want to compliment them. They had a good plan, a good execution of plans. They had guys like 13 stepping up and making combat catches."
No. 13 was Fulgham, though anyone outside immediate family should be forgiven for failing to identify him.
"We had guys in position," Tomlin continued. "They made some plays. They made some plays on the football. Carson stood in there in the face of adversity and made some throws. I don't want to discredit them entirely. Could we be better? Certainly. We gave up the ball down the middle on a long-yardage situation. We had things we need to focus on and do better, but I'd be remiss if I didn't compliment them."
I won't argue that. But I'd be remiss myself if accepting that as accountability that might aim toward a solution.
Seriously, what will the Steelers do here?
They've got playmakers up front, and those guys are making plays. But they've built their secondary on playmakers, as well, and those guys aren't making plays. Long gone are the Dick LeBeau days of tackle-the-catch Harvey Clayton types back there. When Tomlin, Butler and Kevin Colbert set out to reshape their secondary a few years ago, they did so by prioritizing plays on the football.
As such, when they got Minkah from the Dolphins last year, it looked like a heist of historic proportions. He was a human takeaway machine from the first time he stepped onto that field in Santa Clara. And though the picks faded as the season went along, that was attributed almost entirely to teams steering clear of him.
Maybe he'll still be all that. He's young. He's talented. He's so smart, so poised.
But maybe he'll need to be put in a position to better capitalize on that.
Let's presume, however unfortunately, that Haden and/or Nelson have flat-out regressed since last year. It's hardly inconceivable, particularly with Haden, who's now 31 ... or 61 in island-type cornerback years. When the end comes, it often comes hard.
Let's then presume, in turn, that one or both of those two won't be capable of funneling anything toward the scarecrow simply standing there in the middle.
What then?
Keep trying it till it works again?
Cut down the blitzing and cut off the team's greatest strength?
I don't like it. I don't like any of this. Every plausible scenario that has the Steelers in meaningful contention is founded on an elite defense. Not passable. Not even very good. But elite. And that can't/won't happen without the secondary being shored up.
Here's my wholly unsolicited and doubtless unwanted suggestion: Make Cam Sutton the scarecrow. Or just slide him back to deep safety.
If Tomlin and Butler don't trust Edmunds to play deep -- who could blame them? -- and they opened this game with Hilton on the field and Edmunds on the sideline, then take this to the next tier. Utilize Sutton, who's got exceptional versatility to go with agility and awareness downfield, in Minkah's spot.
From there, mix it up with Minkah. Move him around. Move him up and down. Rather than letting the opponent know where he'll plant himself at pretty much all times, keep everyone guessing. Or apply him as a true wild card, roving about toward the ball based on the instinct he showed upon arrival, before he'd even had a week to read the playbook.
If nothing else, it might re-instill some semblance of aggressiveness.
If ...
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It's OK to smile, even if it's under a mask ...
JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY
Fans twirl their Towels in the dreaded open end, Sunday at Heinz Field.
... but it's also OK to be a bit greedy.
If the Chiefs are the class of the AFC, they sure haven't looked that way the past couple weeks. The Ravens were obliterated by the Chiefs. The Bills have holes, too. And the Titans are about to be rightly rocked by an NFL punishment that'll make their 3-0 record as relevant as Mike Vrabel's word.
More important to this, the Steelers are 4-0 and haven't approached their peak on either side of the ball.
I'm here to tell you that's cause to smile, too, because ... hey, imagine if they were 4-0 and everyone were all surprised and satisfied, right?
It can't happen without Ben being better at those deep balls, it can't happen without James Conner finding north on his compass, it can't happen with Diontae Johnson repeatedly getting hurt, and it can't happen if the defense doesn't get it together. All the way together. Not just T.J, Bud Dupree and Cam Heyward up front, but the whole thing.
That all revolves around Minkah. A little too much, actually.