"I mean, I don't know if teams are gonna blitz against Ben ..."
Najee Harris' eyebrows rose as he spoke that last syllable. This was late Saturday night at Heinz Field. The subject that'd been raised by a reporter was his blocking, and the kid zigged before he zagged. Because, quite clearly, the first thought that came to his mind was that blitzing Ben Roethlisberger wouldn't make much sense.
I'll be honest. That caught my attention to the extent that I kind of tuned out the rest of his response, which I'll share in a bit.
Not that this constitutes news, of course. Ben's always eaten blitzes for breakfast. In 2020, for example, he completed 64.1 percent of all his passes on dropbacks where he was blitzed, right there with his 63.6 percent in all other situations. Maybe more telling, he averaged 7.6 yards per attempt when blitzed, 6.1 yards on all others. Part of that's because of his richly established ability to read and react to blitzes, but the other's that no NFL quarterback had a faster snap-to-release time in 2020 than his 2.17 seconds.
It's always been a bad idea to blitz Ben, and it'll likely remain one. Again, there's no headline to be had on that front.
But ...
See, this is where, after citing all that data from last season, I feel aware of what triggered my reaction while Najee was talking. Because if we're being blunt rather than tiptoeing around the topic as everyone associated with the Steelers seems to do, the offensive line last season stunk.
I mean stunk.
I don't care about their names. I don't care about their Pro Bowl counts. I don't care about their backstories. Not in this context. Because Maurkice Pouncey, Alejandro Villanueva, David DeCastro, Matt Feiler and, yeah, Chuks Okorafor collectively stunk. If it weren't for four starts' worth of energetic, aggressive blocking from a rookie, Kevin Dotson, it would've been a complete sweep of stunk, too.
Ben won't say it. Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert have nothing to gain from saying it. But that's fine, since Art Rooney II said it all back in January when he singled out the running game for special blame after it finished 32nd in a 32-team league. The logical public target after that became James Conner and even Benny Snell, but as Tomlin pointedly reminded all of us in a pre-draft press conference, "There's a lot more to the running game than the running backs."
That's right. Because it was all awful and, at least from this perspective, nothing was more awful than what was lacking up front. Conner wasn't a great back, and Snell's not even a good one. But more often than not, they'd both slam into a teammate's posterior at the line of scrimmage, then see no other daylight. Nothing would move. It looked like running into a wall of ... well, large, immobile posteriors.
Najee will make a difference on his own. We've witnessed that already. A special back sees what Conner and Snell can't. A special back can burst through a seam or around the edge more efficiently. And in Najee's case, he can toss his 6-foot-2, 232-pound frame onto this pile, as well.
But the line can and will make a difference, and it says right here -- mark it down, record it, whatever -- that it'll be a positive difference.
If only because it couldn't conceivably be worse.
Look, I don't know what happened to those guys last year. They had the careers that they had, and then they had the year that they had. Maybe they all fell off similarly. Maybe they stopped investing in the physical component and, thus, kept Ben mostly clean with only 13 sacks allowed. Maybe one or more of them were just ... done. I'm hesitant to take this too far myself, out of respect for all they'd done beforehand.
But make no mistake: This was the No. 1 reason Ben got rid of the ball as if it were ablaze. It wasn't his elbow. It wasn't Randy Fichtner's lack of imagination. It wasn't his receivers running uninspired routes. It wasn't the running game. It's that he sensed, as only a veteran at his position can, that he was going to get creamed every other snap if he didn't.
Really, it's OK to say it.
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Kendrick Green has a laugh Saturday night at Heinz Field.
So how does young Najee already realize that opponents won't blitz Ben much in 2021?
My guess is that he gets this new Matt Canada offense well enough to grasp that Ben's surely going to operate with a similar trigger time, given all the uncertainty in front of him. At least at the outset. And within this, that Ben's head count on potential targets will be as high as the level of unpredictability of all the motion and misdirection that frames them.
That's smart, man. It is. The blocking of Zach Banner, Kendrick Green, Trai Turner, Dotson and Okorafor on his more natural left side doesn't need to be brilliant. It needs to be just good enough. And even the blocking itself gets fragmented with the new emphasis on zones -- which I've been told will be kept super-simple under Canada -- to further reduce that burden. There's no individual who can't handle this.
Now, if this line improves, as youngsters can reasonably be expected to do, maybe more gets introduced. But for now, the more academic, the better.
I asked Ben after the 26-20 victory over the Lions what he thought of his line:
He gently called out Okorafor for a false start on the opening series, but even within that, he neither looked nor sounded worried, did he?
No one in this fold does, and here's betting there's a reason for that.
• The rest of Najee's remark, for the record: "If they do blitz, though, I'm gonna be ready. I'm improving my blocking. We always start our meetings, me and Coach Faulk, going over all our pass protections."
Meaning he and Eddie Faulkner, who coaches the running backs.
And that's awesome. It's been that way since Dick Hoak held that job for 35 years. As Le'Veon Bell once told me in his rookie year, "I don't care what kind of running back you are, you aren't getting on the field for the Pittsburgh Steelers if you can't block."
• Case in point comes from this excellent blitz pickup by Anthony McFarland on the Lions' Jalen Reeves-Maybin:
Neither of those two angles tells the tale, either. Watching this from the press box, Reeves-Maybin timed his attack perfectly, and I was sure we'd seen the end of Mason Rudolph. McFarland reads it, waits on cadence, then slices across low to just take the poor guy out.
Know all those highlights from Saturday night that had everyone raving around here?
Trust me, this will rank No. 1 on all the projector screens at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex this morning.
• Pat Freiermuth over Eric Ebron every day and especially Sunday.
That said, there's always room for two tight ends, as multiple looks have shown through camp and the preseason. And if Ebron blocks with even a fraction of the -- very much promised -- commitment he showed against the Lions, he'll force that room. Not once but twice, he cleared the way for significant yardage from Najee.
• Rudolph over Dwayne Haskins?
That couldn't be more obvious at this stage, and even then, it doesn't feel any more important now than a week ago or two weeks ago.
Haskins has outperformed Rudolph through camp and the preseason. But they didn't start at the same line, nor anything close. Rudolph's in his fourth NFL season, all under this head coach, all surrounded by a ton of these same teammates. That doesn't get discarded each summer. Tomlin and Matt Canada evidently saw him as the best choice to be No. 2 within the prism of what a No. 2 will be asked in Pittsburgh this fall.
Meaning this: It wasn't a competition to determine Ben's ultimate successor, as it seems the Nation was viewing it.
I'll repeat this until it stops being true, but this fan base lives in eternal terror of having to relive the quarterback years between Terry Bradshaw and Ben. As if no one else can ever play that position here without having a pre-punched ticket to Canton. And on top of that, we've all got to know who it is, like, years in advance, the way the 49ers knew with Steve Young conveniently waiting in Joe Montana's shadow, same as the Packers knew with Aaron Rodgers waiting in Brett Favre's.
Doesn't commonly work like that. When it's time, the Steelers will get/designate a quarterback. This ain't it. They've got one.
• The second-best running back on this roster is Kalen Ballage.
Fire away. I can take it.
• Najee's a different dude. And I definitely don't mean that in a bad way.
When he engages, he really, really engages. Locks in. Pokes. Prods. Curious to learn more. He reminds me, in that way alone, of a young Ryan Clark. Someone who asks at least as many questions as he gets asked.
Watch this exchange we had:
Yep. He's going to be fun off the field, too.
• No Najee in Charlotte. Please and thank you. Copy and paste and share with friends, family and the local bubble wrap company.
• With Arthur Maulet hurt and Antoine Brooks out Saturday, the nickel back duel's been reduced to spare change. And that's the optimal outcome, I'd say, because Cam Sutton's got to get bumped back inside to the slot and James Pierre's got to be the right outside corner.
Hey, whatever it takes.
Sorry, but I can't be convinced that continuity won't help this defense more than the constant sub-this and sub-that rotation. I appreciate the value of matchups, but I appreciate all the more seeing a steady 11 lining up, ears pinned back, to play ball.
• The Steelers are back to practice today, 1 p.m. I'll stop over there for a spell, but my main mission will be Pirates vs. Diamondbacks, 7:05 p.m. at PNC Park. Tomorrow's 10 Takes, not coincidentally, will be all baseball.