Kovacevic: Good luck rationalizing the Steelers' sudden, dramatic demise taken at Heinz Field (DK'S GRIND)

DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

View of the Steelers' minicamp at Heinz Field, from the 100 concourse, Tuesday afternoon.

"Quick feet! Violent hands!"

The sun seared down on the opening day of the Steelers' minicamp Tuesday afternoon at Heinz Field, and the only thing louder in this setting than all those glaring, golden seats was Karl Dunbar's booming voice. He's the defensive line coach, but this drill he was overseeing involved the edge rushers, three stand-up dummies, and what he was demanded here was ...

Oh, just watch:

"

Not much to it, right?

Yeah, I thought the same. Right up until, of all people, Henry Mondeaux took his turn seen up there. Because big No. 99 tore through those dummies as if they'd had schoolyard bullies' faces scrawled on them. He didn't adjust them. He assaulted them.

Boom! Boom! Crash!

And while Dunbar was admonishing almost everyone else to not simply "swat" at the dummies, to not settle for a "push," the only sound after Mondeaux's tour de force might as well have been those poor contraptions crying.

No one's going to want to hear this, but it made me miss Bud Dupree.

I know. Sorry.

What's more, it distracted me into gazing around at other ongoing drills and wonder what else might be missing. What else might contribute to this dropoff, this downfall that seemingly everyone's forecasting for this team around the football world.

You know that drill, right?

1. Steelers go 11-0 with Bud
2. Steelers go 1-5 without him
3. Maurkice snaps the ball
4. Bud bolts for Nashville
5. Asteroid extinguishes us all

You've doubtless seen, heard or read the predictions that these Steelers will finish third or even last in the AFC North Division they just won. They're only everywhere. As in everywhere. No, really, everywhere. It's become nearly universal that the Ravens and Browns will surpass them, and there are occasionally some that have Joe Burrow resurrecting the Bengals, as well.

And in this moment, before it fleeted away, I decided to embrace this line of thought.

What would it take for the Steelers to plunge per all the prognostications?

What would have to go wrong?

What could go wrong?

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In that spirit, then, I came up with this fatalistic list of five potentially rotten scenarios that'd keep the Steelers out of the division's top two and, in all likelihood, out of the playoffs:

5. WAIT, BUD'S REALLY GONE?

T.J. Watt's still here, of course. (And by the way, he handled his three dummies in that drill both with a snarl and his usual mix of speed and dynamic down-low movement.) As such, the Steelers still have the planet's most disruptive defensive player, according to a new study by NFL Next Gen stats.

Before taking the field on this day, he sure came across as if he isn't about to experience his own downgrade.

"I just want to be the best possible player I can be, not just for myself but for the Pittsburgh Steelers," Watt told us. "The big thing for me is noticing the plays I didn't make last year, wishing I could have converted on some forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, sacks, tackles for a loss. There's a lot of good from last year, but there's a lot of stuff I can continue to improve on. That is why I love this game so much. You're never at your ceiling."

Awesome. At the same time, let's not pretend 2020 wasn't about T.J. and Bud. The tandem that terrorized opponents together. They were the one element of the Steelers no one could counter. 

There are encouraging advanced analytics about how Alex Highsmith will handle being Bud's replacement, notably his 16.4% pass-rush win rate that was a bit better than Bud's 15.7%. And that's nice. Highsmith certainly won't be some black hole on the right edge. But it'd be beyond naive to anticipate Highsmith affecting entire outcomes the way Bud could do just by all the general havoc he'd wreak. He'd toss aside 300-pound humans like a CGI-generated Hulk. He'd draw so much attention that everyone else up front was that much more dangerous, contributing greatly -- at least to my belief -- to Cam Heyward, Stephon Tuitt and Tyson Alualu grading out as the NFL's premier defensive line.

If Highsmith has that X-factor component to him, I haven't seen it and don't expect to.

What's more, there's zero depth behind these two, which moved Keith Butler to strikingly -- but with characteristic candor -- go public on this day that the Steelers still need to sign another edge rusher.

My genuine feel is that, by the time that addition's made, I'll feel a lot better about this overall facet. But that hasn't happened yet, and Cassius Marsh isn't anyone's answer.

4. WHAT IF NAJEE ISN'T ALL THAT?

I'm not suggesting he isn't, but I've also got no a solitary NFL snap-in-anger to suggest he definitively is.

If he were to bust or break down or even wear down -- hardly unthinkable for kid elevating from a college schedule to 17-plus games with no freebies against Fresno State for a breather. He's going to be taxed in a way he's never known, and he's going to be targeted by the biggest, baddest humans he's ever seen. In facing the Ravens alone, he'll surely be the focus of John Harbaugh's take-away-their-top-rushing-threat approach he used to use against peak Le'Veon Bell.

Maybe Harris will succeed, even excel. He's shown a lot of the latter already since his arrival, not least of which has been prodigy-level poise. Eddie Faulkner, the running backs coach, on this day, called him a "tail-wagger," elaborating that, "He's always wagging his tail, ready to learn. That’s fun as a coach."

But if Harris' tail droops through a long season, whether through performance or attrition, it's right back to Benny Snell Football. And right back to ranking No. 32 in the NFL.

3. WHO'S AT OUTSIDE CORNER AGAIN?

This hasn't been discussed, it seems, anywhere near as much as Bud's departure or even that of Mike Hilton from the slot, but the current plan to replace both Hilton and Steven Nelson is to ... uh, clone Cam Sutton?

Seriously, as this team emerged from the tunnel on this day, Sutton's role on this defense, as defined by himself and affirmed by Mike Tomlin, is that he'd be the outside corner in the base package, then slide inside in the sub packages. And being that the Steelers now tend to go 60/40 in favor of the sub, he'd moving an awful lot. Mid-series.

Teryl Austin, the secondary coach, explained the rationale here: "The way I’m looking at it is that I know Cam can play inside. So, right now, he's working outside, and we’re letting these other guys work inside to see what we have. I think that’s the proper way to do it, to give them an opportunity to learn and see where they can go inside. If we don’t feel real comfortable with what we have, then we would address changes at that time. But I know that Cam wouldn't need a lot of reps if he had to move inside."

I respect that Cam's got full confidence he can pull this off -- he enthusiastically messaged me the other day to make that clear after hearing my podcast on the subject -- but that doesn't mean it's feasible. Or plausible, for that matter. Either job's tough enough without having to change hats every other snap. And that goes double in the Keith Butler scheme, where the outside corners are expected -- no, required -- to take on island coverage. That's what Nelson did, and it allowed Minkah Fitzpatrick, in particular, to roam free rather than doubling up coverage.

Minkah cites the return of Devin Bush as being a big plus in this area, and he's right. As Minkah worded it, "We were missing both of our inside linebackers," referring additionally to Robert Spillane. "And teams exploited that because the guys that came in their place didn't understand what we needed."

Yep. And both will be back.

But more's needed here. Either James Pierre or Justin Layne needs to big-time step up in Latrobe and take outside corner. Or someone like undrafted Shakur Brown needs to follow through on the Hilton screenplay and win slot snaps.

2. OH, MAN, THIS O-LINE!

Is it wrong that all of my observations of the offensive line on this day were outdone by the sight of David DeCastro in civvies?

DeCastro was the only non-participant present -- Tuitt was excused from minicamp while dealing with the hit-and-run death of his younger brother in Georgia -- which mean that the entire right side of this mostly new line wasn't active. Zach Banner, the presumptive right tackle, is still recovering from knee surgery.

Now, I'm all-in on a fresh line. However it is that Chuks Okorafor, Kevin Dotson, B.J. Finney, Kendrick Green and Banner get sorted out -- only DeCastro's been guaranteed a starting job by Tomlin -- they're bound to bring more fire to the field than what was seen from Alejandro Villanueva, Maurkice Pouncey and Matt Feiler, especially in run-blocking. A near-total transfusion was needed, and that's what's coming.

But still ...

Any football coach at any level will attest it can take weeks, months, even longer for a line to find chemistry. To communicate. To read off one another. To trust one another. And it's asking so very much of this green group to pull that off under an ideal circumstance, never mind one in which 40% of the projected starters aren't yet participants.

Add to that Matt Canada's move to the wide-zone blocking scheme, and it's magnified. I've been told by an individual who knows Canada's blocking scheme intimately that it's "easy, so easy," but it remains to be seen in this instance.

Big, big worry here. 

And yet, not bigger than this ...

1. WHAT IF BEN STINKS?

Mind you, I don't think he will. And from everything I've witnessed through OTAs and now this minicamp, I'm firmly in the camp that he won't. His arm's looked healthy, he's seeing the field, he's zipping the ball where he wants and, accompanying all that, he's exhibiting above-and-beyond energy and enthusiasm.

There's no doubt in my mind he wants to get back to being great.

But there's also no doubt it'll be quite the climb.

Not to peel back the ugliest of scabs, but Cincinnati still hasn't left me. And I'm not sure it should. For all else that went awry once Bud went down, nothing stood out as sorely as Ben's inability and/or unwillingness to throw the ball deep. Once Harbaugh noticed it and shoved all the Ravens into the box, Washington followed suit, then everyone else. Even the Bengals made a mockery of the offense.

We can blame the running game or just James Conner or the offensive line or receiver drops, but all of it originated with whatever happened to Ben.

How do we know that's in the past?

Because he had his machismo challenged by Philip Rivers and finally flung a few deep balls in the second half against the Colts?

Because he eventually did likewise against the Browns in the playoff game but only after three first-half picks?

I'm a Mason Rudolph believer -- more with each passing day, to be honest -- but I can't be convinced the Steelers would make a quarterback change ... at all in 2021, never mind in time to salvage the season should Ben crumble like that again. Imagine the drama. Imagine the impact. And imagine, in turn, how pressure would instantly flip to Mason, as it did in 2019 when he couldn't have been ready to take on a full NFL season.

No. 7 will always be No. 1 around here, at least until he isn't, and that applies to this list, too. He's got a shiny first-round pick at running back, he's got all four of his gifted wide receivers back, and now two potentially productive tight ends. It'll be on him to bring it all together.

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Now, having penned out all that pain, what could conceivably compel me to see this team as eminently capable of double-digit wins and the playoffs?

And yeah, I am envisioning both of those.

Simply put, it's equally easy to how the script can be flipped on all five of the above scenarios. It really is.

At edge rusher, Highsmith can mature into an effective, if not nearly as visible, replacement for Bud, especially if he seals his side on running plays. At running back, Najee's got infinitely more upside than downside. At corner, management's going to concoct a solution either outside or in the slot that frees up Sutton, and I firmly believe that without knowing which it'll be. At offensive line, what's got me most encouraged is the smarts behind the individuals involved, enough to grasp what's needed and grow from there. At quarterback ... I mean, he's Ben.

Look at this from the opposite prism: Good luck forecasting some sudden, dramatic regression for a team that ranked No. 3 defensively in the NFL in 2020 and still has all but one of its very best players back. And the same goes for an offense that, for whatever its flaws in 2020, received almost all of the offseason work toward repairing those, including a rare replacing of one, two, three new coaches.

But a ton more offseason work remains.

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