No, this offensive awakening wasn’t about Ben Roethlisberger’s big rebound, though he certainly silenced his cynics for the next six days or so.
Nor was it about Najee Harris' big breakout, though he nearly doubled his previous peak NFL rushing output.
No, it was, at least from this press box perspective, wholly about the very first snap of the Steelers' 27-19 slump-busting victory over the Broncos on this summery Sunday at Heinz Field, and I'll offer that snap right here on endless loop for own endless edification:
There. End of column.
But honestly, let the thing roll and track all 11. Isolate on each blocker, each role. Not just Najee, even if he'll cap it by carrying Denver's Justin Strnad an extra couple yards. Chuks Okorafor gulps down the great Von Miller, a precursor of both their showings. Trai Turner burrows Mike Purcell deep enough to search for our Fourth River. Kendrick Green goes to the next level to lock up Alexander Johnson. Kevin Dotson bulldozes Strnad, the eventual tackler, far enough downfield that it doesn't matter if he's the eventual tackler. Dan Moore, with maybe the tallest task, eliminates Shelby Harris, outside to inside, to carve Najee's straightest path. The tight end on that same side, Zach Gentry, fends off Malik Reed to protect that same path. And to compound the chaos, JuJu Smith-Schuster swings through there, as well.
Boring and yet beautiful, huh?
One play. One set of assignments. All fulfilled. And all fulfilled, by the way, by personnel who are eminently capable.
My friends, these are your 2021 Pittsburgh Steelers. Because they'd damned well better be precisely this.
If there was one fallacy above all amid the mostly deserved torrent of criticism/skepticism that trailed the 1-3 start, it was that one player -- or one change of one player -- could make some meaningful difference. Maybe that's the mindset that results from a franchise that's forever been blessed with elite individual talents, and maybe it was just wishful thinking. Whichever the case, it was ludicrous.
And yeah, of course I'm referring to the flame-eyed focus on the quarterback.
It never could've or would've been the Steelers' plan to build an offense structured toward the #BenBeingBen of a decade ago. Or the Ben of the Antonio Brown tenure. He's 39. His legs are heavier than ever. His elbow's been cut. And to the credit of Art Rooney II, that was seen and pronounced pretty much minutes after Maurkice Pouncey's snap sent everyone into a long winter. He knew the team needed a running game as the foundation in 2021 and, even if grotesque errors were made along the way in amassing an NFL-ready offensive line and in salary cap management, that goal was as obvious as it was correct.
Nothing that Ben did, including being brilliant right from the outset, could've or would've altered that.
Nothing that Mason Rudolph and/or Dwayne Haskins and/or Aaron Rodgers, if he'd have defected to the other sideline after that famous nod in Green Bay, could've of would've altered that had they replaced Ben.
It was always, always, always going to be rooted in the run.

JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY
Najee Harris leaps above the Denver line for a touchdown in the second quarter Sunday at Heinz Field.
Get this: Najee was handed the ball 14 times on first down and ran up 47 of his 122 yards, a 3.4-yard average that the record will show would be even higher if not for his 1-yard touchdown leap -- captured above -- that brought a 17-6 lead in the second quarter.
And this: Of Najee's 14 first-down carries, nine were part of scoring drives.
And this: Overall, the Steelers worked their way into seven third-down situations of fewer than 5 yards to go. Of those seven situations, they converted five, punted twice.
"That's big," Ben would say to that subject. "When you can get 3, 4, 5 yards on first down, it makes those third downs much more manageable. I felt like we were in manageable third downs today."
They sure were. And that, in turn, freed up Ben to pass when he wanted rather than when he needed. And that, in turn, freed up Matt Canada to get more ambitious on, say, second-and-short and take a shot deep downfield. And that, in turn, freed up all concerned from the seeming self-strangulation of the playcalling the first four weeks.
The most compelling examples of the latter came with Ben's two biggest completions to Claypool:
That's a 59-yard slant in the second quarter that really ought be known as the where-the-hell-was-THAT-all season pattern.
Ben's description: "That play was actually designed to go to Najee on a linebacker. That was kind of the first read. They rotated a corner down at the last minute, saw it out of the corner of my eye, and took me off that because the whole time I was just watching. I didn't realize Von was on him at first."
Meaning Miller on Claypool. Meaning this:
Von Miller is a Hall of Famer. He should not be in coverage against Chase Claypool, who then runs past Kareem Jackson in the open field. Slant goes for 59 yards. pic.twitter.com/b10wIChBFv
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) October 10, 2021
"So, the whole time I was watching who was gonna guard Najee, who had him, and inside leverage, outside leverage, was the safety coming? And once they rolled to the Cover 2 on that side, it brought my eyes right back over. Chase is the first read on that side. I'm just so happy to give him the ball in space. That's just guys making plays."
Ben can't read the field anymore, by the way. He's finished.
Well, either that, or he just needed a balanced and emboldened offense to restore his own normalcy.
This was the other:
That's the 18-yard bullet in the third quarter that brought a 24-6 lead and had been almost as absent as the other from the arsenal.
Ben's take began with a nod to Canada: "Yeah, Coach came up with a heck of a play call. We had something set up, we put Chase on the inside. It was actually a double-move outside to Diontae Johnson, and they kind of slacked off him. There were two high safeties, and I knew Chase was going down the middle, so the best thing I could do is try and keep the safety left for as long as I could and just try and deliver it close to where he could make a play. He did the rest. The line gave me great time."
Ben can't throw over the middle, by the way. Can't read safeties. Lacks arm strength. Basically, he sucks and he's finished.
Well, either that, or he was joined by everyone else in just doing their jobs, an event so predictable that it'd been forecast by the world's worst prognosticator on this very website the morning of kickoff.
Mike Tomlin was asked afterward if he could cite anything that sparked the offense, and he flatly replied, "No, I just thought we played better. We played more efficiently, like we've been talking about. If you could pinpoint one thing, we would've solved this problem weeks ago."

JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Mike Tomlin on the Steelers' sideline Sunday at Heinz Field.
• Allow me, please, to be the first though definitely not the last to not distribute a shred of credit to Tomlin for the victory. I know the rules.
• Listen, I'm not expecting some seamless continuation for this offense. Or for this team, as a result, since the offense remains the overwhelming variable. I wouldn't be any more surprised than anyone else if this offense reverted to egg-laying levels next Sunday night here against the Seahawks.
But that also, in a weird way, buttresses my broader point: This'll be hard work. And it won't be the hard work of Ben alone or Najee alone.
• Fun addendum to the list up there of benefits to the strong running game: Tomlin, who's been known to refer to Miller as 'a walking yellow jacket' to his players when preparing for Denver, had this to say of Miller being held to zero solo tackles, two assists and zeroes across the rest of the board: "You minimize his impact on the game by staying out of negative circumstances. Largely, we were able to do that because we were running the ball."
Yep. But I'll reiterate my praise for Okorafor. He might've been flagged for as many as four false starts -- he was fortunate to be penalized only twice -- but there are no negatives connected to quashing Miller as he did.
• For what it's worth, there were more references to Canada from the players than after any game this season, including this from Green on his offensive line: "I think it’s something we needed for those three weeks of losing in a row. We had to get back off the mat, as Coach Canada would say. I think we’re about to start going in the right direction."
Not sure what clicked, why or with whom, but the coming week of practice/classrooms needs to be a carbon copy.
• Related cool nuance: Najee acknowledged spending time in the offensive line's classroom, hoping to learn more about what they're learning as well as being invited by Adrian Klemm, the positional coach, to share his own thoughts with the group. One thing I've heard about Klemm is that he's not too proud to seek help when needed.
Good for him and all of them.
That'll explain this excellent response from Najee when I asked about his line:
When I've called him special, I've never limited that to his athleticism.
• The defense of the first three quarters was a far more accurate default setting than the fourth, I thought. Losing Devin Bush to injury -- is anyone not a member of the Groin Gang yet? -- didn't help, and neither did James Pierre being inexplicably left in island coverage by Keith Butler until Denver's final drive.
High marks to Pierre for bouncing back in the biggest way with a game-ending pick in the end zone, and almost-as-high marks for his answer when asked if he thought the Broncos would try to pick on him one final time.
"Thought? No, I knew they would," he came back with a big laugh.
Pierre also exhibited "big-time hustle," as Tomlin called it, in tackling Javonte Williams at the Pittsburgh 2 following a 49-yard sprint. That essentially took four points off the board for the Broncos, as they'd settle for a field goal.
No issues with the defense other than the injuries. Pierre shouldn't have been starting. Robert Spillane shouldn't have been in pass coverage. Cam Heyward shouldn't have been out there huffing and hunched over all afternoon. This side of the ball needs to heal up.
• Not to sound insensitive, but what if JuJu's injury affords more opportunity for Diontae and Claypool and ends up making them the bigger, better components to this offense that they long should've been?
Oh, come on don't look at me like that.
• Give it up for Chris Boswell, for real.
He's become so automatic that the Steelers don't even try to inch forward offensively to help him hit from distance, as was the case in advance of his 48-yarder in the second quarter. He also hit from 43 and, not to be forgotten, another from 51 that was wiped out by a Denver penalty.
Since the start of the 2019 season, he's made 56 of 60 field goals for a 93.3% success rate, and that includes 19 of 22 from 40-49 yards. The number of kickers with a better field-goal percentage in that span is zero.
When this was done, Boswell instead was inclined to rave about Pressley Harvin III's 63-yard punt in the fourth quarter that drew an audible gasp from the crowd about halfway up: "He smashed the ball. That’s why he got drafted. That’s why he beat out a long-time vet. I love Jordan Berry, and I wish him the best. They had a hell of a competition all camp, and it just came down to who they wanted to go to. It was a flip of a coin because they both punted incredibly all camp. But Pressley murdered the ball today. He’s growing."
• Teddy Bridgewater was coming off a concussion, which is the kind of thing that could conceivably cause a quarterback to, oh, say, call a timeout before his first offensive snap. But, as he explained afterward when asked about his literal state of mind, "Once I passed all the tests and cleared protocol, I was comfortable and competent playing this week."
OK, but he still would've been Teddy Bridgewater.
My point: The Steelers faced Josh Allen, Derek Carr, Joe Burrow and Aaron Rodgers in the first four games. They faced nothing of the kind in the fifth. Might've contributed to the 2-3 record some.
Coming up next is ... Geno Smith?
Yeah, the Seahawks will be without Russell Wilson for a month because of an ugly finger break this past Thursday. Also, they're 2-3, their defense is rancid, and their uniforms are still among the lamest in the league.
• The actual turnstile count here was 59,841, and the atmosphere was awesome despite the 9,000-plus no-shows. And it'd have been that much better if there were some way to influence those who hoard their season tickets -- most of whom live nowhere near Western Pennsylvania, according to the team itself -- to give up what they don't plan to use.
No complaints about those who didn't hoard, though.
"It’s incredible," T.J. Watt replied when I brought that up. "Heinz Field is like no other once you get everybody into it and involved, and that’s exactly what we want."
I'll second that 68,400 times over.

JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY
Thousands of fans pack Heinz Field's rotundas Sunday.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES
• JuJu Smith-Schuster, Steelers wide receiver, left the game in the second quarter with a shoulder injury and didn't return. He was officially ruled out after halftime, then was taken to a local hospital for further evaluation.
• Devin Bush, Steelers linebacker, left the game in the third quarter with a leg injury and didn't return.
• James Washington, Steelers wide receiver, missed the game with a groin injury
• Cam Sutton, Steelers cornerback, missed the game with a groin injury
• Carlos Davis, Steelers defensive tackle, missed the game with a knee injury
THE AFC NORTH
• Baltimore
• Cincinnati
• Cleveland
THE SCHEDULE
Next game: Seahawks sans Wilson

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