JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- It's called a timing pattern, and that's no coincidence.
Ben Roethlisberger drops back precisely five steps, then plants on his right foot, then releases. James Washington darts forward precisely five strides, then plants on his own right foot, then pivots violently to his left. And by the time both those events occur, precisely five full seconds elapse as the pass arrives not by vapor trail but by air mail.
I'll maintain forever it's the prettiest play in football. It's the slow, savage curve to buckle a batter's knees in baseball. It's the sweet, soft saucer to spring a linemate for a breakaway in hockey.
It's so very much this:
Understand, Ben's not throwing that ball to Washington. He's throwing it to a time and place. And the burden's on the kid to match his every move, like a synchronized swimmer in a separate pool.
Fun, right?
Look, I won't lie: There wasn't a lot to love about the Steelers' business-like 27-3 burial of the Jaguars here at TIAA Bank Field on this Sunday. At least not beyond the whole 10-0 thing, beyond the relatively good health, beyond climbing higher atop the AFC North and ... almost the conference as a whole.
And yet, this blossoming symbiosis between a 38-year-old quarterback and his babyfaced brigade of receivers ... man, it's increasingly a special sight in any setting.
Washington seldom sees a snap. That's why I singled out this sequence. His 16 targets over the past six games are as many as Diontae Johnson would log on this day alone. But all Washington's done, week after week, ready or rusty, is make them count. Two targets last Sunday against the Bengals netted two catches for 30 yards. Two targets the previous week against the Cowboys netted a 17-yarder.
He's No. 4 on this depth chart. Legitimately so. But he hasn't pouted. If one prorates this out, he's produced at probably the same level as any receiver on the roster. Heck, from my perspective, it feels like they've blurred so much, these four -- Washington, Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster, even the prodigy Chase Claypool -- that it's as if Ben's throwing to a position rather than a person.
I asked Ben after this if the visible energy he's shown, right from the first drill of training camp, can be partly attributed to these four, and he replied with a smile, “Oh, absolutely. They’re a fun young group. I enjoy working with them. I enjoy communicating with them at night through videos and texts and things like that. I joke that they keep me young."
He laughed at that, then proceeded, "But they really are something, this group that believes in each other and then they’re genuinely happy for each other. They just want to win football games, so I’m blessed to have such a fun skill group.”
Don't dare dismiss that fun factor.
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Let me find a delicate way to phrase this: Ben isn't, by default, the most fun guy around. That's not a knock. We don't all come equipped with the same quirks. He's just much more the straight-faced, super-serious type, based on my decade and a half of covering him. And even the casual observer can attest that he's forever found his on-the-field fuel not from getting giddy but from anger.
That made something of a comeback after this game. But for a couple answers, his press call was a big bummer. As if he'd been the one who was picked off four times, not poor Jake Luton of the Jaguars.
On the Steelers' slow start: "We didn't execute. We just didn't do enough."
On targeting Diontae those season-high 16 times, resulting in 12 catches for 111 yards: "He’s a heck of a football player, and I believe in him. I’ll say it again. He’s a heck of a football player."
On the running game semi-improving with James Conner hitting the edge for 89 yards on 13 carries: "We'll be just fine. I'm not worried about it."
Those aren't abridged answers. That's front to finish. And it's not at all how he was through the first nine weeks.
Who knows why and, really, who cares?
What matters is this:
L-R: Ola Adeniyi, Robert Spillane, Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Tomlin, Diontae Johnson, Chuks Okorafor after the game Sunday.
Oh, that's exactly what you think it is: All of the Steelers' many MAC alumni -- -- Ola Adeniyi (Toledo), Robert Spillane (Western Michigan), Ben, Diontae (Toledo) and Chuks Okorafor (Western Michigan) -- playfully taunting Mike Tomlin over his remark earlier in the week that Steelers vs. Jaguars wouldn't be akin to "a Big 10 team playing a MAC opponent this week." Spillane crafted an Instagram story around this assembly, labeled 'MAC guys.'
That, my friends, is a Ben I haven't seen much. And because coronavirus protocol keeps all reporters from all locker rooms, I can only attempt to piece together whatever might be causing it to come forth in 2020.
Maybe it's the old Ben finding a new angry motivation in wanting to stick it to doubters and detractors along the way.
Maybe it's the old Ben seeking out a second life, post-surgery, in more ways than one.
Maybe it's the family life, the recently renewed commitment to religion.
Or maybe, as I'm beginning to think, it's this:
Show me an elite quarterback with boring wide receivers, and I'll show you a bored elite quarterback.
The press box in this place is close to that end zone. I'm here to tell you, the instant that ball left Ben's hand, it was six points. That's where Claypool's stock is already, and not just because of the 10 touchdowns in as many games, an NFL rookie record. It's because of the size, the speed, the authority, the agility ... he's got it all.
That's fun. That gets a quarterback going.
So does this from Diontae ...
... and this, later on the same scoring drive:
I neither know nor care if Diontae's another Antonio Brown, even if just stylistically. What's relevant is that he's here, he's now, and the only thing he and AB have in common other than efficient route-running and extraordinary athleticism is that ... hey, they both came from the MAC.
Diontae's everything this quarterback and this team needs.
Listen to the difference.
“We’re just a special group," he'd say after this when asked about the receivers' confidence. "We take everything serious. We like to make each other better. If we see something wrong, we tell them about it so they can correct it the next play. I feel very confident because we have a quarterback that knows what he’s doing back there, and he’s been back there for a long time, so we trust him to put us in the right positions and we’re going to make plays for him.”
And talk about no pouting ...
"I never really know when the ball’s coming to me on certain plays," he'd say when asked about all those targets. "I just really go out there and play my game. If the ball’s thrown my way, I’m going to try and make a play for Ben and get the team in the right field position."
It's one thing to say stuff like that, as AB occasionally would. It's another thing to live it.
This was their scripted celebration of Claypool's touchdown, gathering in the end zone to light the figurative candle, sing a couple bars of 'Happy Birthday' to JuJu on his actual 24th birthday, watch him raise his helmet to blow out the candle, then whoop it up back to the sideline:
Children. They're children on the playground.
Regardless of anyone's stance on such celebrations, anyone would agree it's a welcome sight among so many gifted wide receivers sharing a solitary football that, unlike the cake, can't be sliced up.
I asked Diontae how this camaraderie came to be.
“We became close during camp when we realized we have a special team and a really special defense," he replied, and I found that emphasis on the defense fascinating. As if the receivers realized they'd need to be the ones to level that lopsided outlook.
He then added, "And you could see it in Ben’s eyes that he wants to play."
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Final receiving statistics from the day:
• Johnson: 12 catches, 111 yards
• Claypool: 4 catches, 59 yards, 1 TD
• Smith-Schuster: 4 catches, 19 yards
• Washington: 1 catch, 12 yards
Not exactly mind-blowing.
Ben was 32 of 46 for 267 yards, two TDs and a meaningless end-of-half pick, and that's similarly ... meh.
The Steelers' passing offense as a whole averages 245.6 yards per game, ranking 18th in the NFL, a notch below the Bengals and a notch above these Jaguars.
So why all the waxing in this column?
Because, as with everything about this perfectly imperfect team, it's about the cumulative outcome.
"We did the job today," was as effusive as Tomlin would get about the effort here. "We checked the boxes. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing is perfect about us except our record and we talked openly about that at the team meeting last night. We just want to wear it the proper way."
That's smart. It's also accurate. From series to series, it couldn't be clearer that the Steelers are an incomplete product. But let's not pretend they'd be anywhere near this state, much less this return to national prominence, if not for whatever clicked between Ben and these kids.
Earlier this season, Ben told the tale of silently watching from across the locker room to see how JuJu'd react after barely being targeted in a game while Claypool got all the glory. No one had asked Ben about this. He brought it up on his own. He wanted it known that JuJu seemed to be enjoying Claypool's big day as much as Claypool was.
Know what I culled from that?
That Ben cared enough to be paying attention to something so small. He wouldn't address a question I'd ask about AB right now even if I threatened to throw all his furniture out the window, but I'd bet anything that all of this -- the youth, the skill, the selflessness, the diva-free environment -- is all just so refreshing for him. So reinvigorating.
So fun.
What might've been the bummer after this game, then?
I'd bet on this, too, and I'd say it's that his passing was mostly off the mark in the second half. He underthrew, overthrew, missed on a couple timing patterns. It still wasn't terrible. He completed 15 of 21 for 87 yards and a quality 20-yard touchdown strike to Eric Ebron. But it was easy to see he was frustrated.
That eventually emerged out in his postgame session, near the end, when he shifted course on a discussion about Diontae by saying, "We have to put more points on the board. I know the scoreboard says what it does, but there’s too many times we punted today and we didn’t do enough. Offensively, we’re happy we got the win but we know that we have to be better."
Five Jordan Berry punts are no fun.
He wasn't having fun.
The driving force of this franchise is the defense. It's T.J. Watt, Bud Dupree, Stephon Tuitt, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick and everyone on that side of the ball. They're the best in the NFL at what they do. They're what make the Steelers a bona fide Super Bowl contender. Diontae was dead-on to view that situation the way he described back in camp.
But remember, the driving force was in place in 2019, too. Only the driver was missing.
This wonderful group of receivers, from Diontae to Washington, needed to make a difference. They knew that. They're doing that by entertaining the big guy back at the wheel.