"Listen," Kenny Pickett would say, with an inoffensive intonation that maybe only he could summon when starting a sentence with that word, "I'm gonna sling it until the end."
He'd just been asked about his confidence, meaning in himself, following the Steelers' 37-30 sinking by the Bengals on this Sunday evening at Acrisure Stadium, a strange setting in that an unprecedented offensive output for 2022 -- first time over 20 points, first time to three touchdowns -- still, somehow, seemed as stagnant as ever.
Hard to explain. Had to be there, I guess.
"And my confidence level has not wavered," Kenny'd proceed from that podium in the press room. "I'm extremely competitive, and I hate to lose. Doesn't feel good sitting up here after a loss, that's for sure. So we’ve got to get things cleaned up and get back on track this next week."
They won't, of course. They can't.
Because if anything's become clear over these past couple months, no single facet of this football operation -- not one, not from top to bottom -- could conceivably get back on any track until 2023. I'm talking at the soonest. And even there only through the perspective of a glassy-eyed optimist swigging a seventh Sunday beer in one hand, waving a tattered Towel in the other.
I could probably begin and end a resounding argument with this alone:
That's Dan Moore Jr. He's terrible. And he needs to be replaced.
He's not a quarterback, he's not a coordinator, and he's not a head coach. But his position, left tackle, doesn't rank all that far in importance from any of those, and I dare say there are those inside the game who'd rank it higher on a day like this.
See, there's not much else that matters if the left tackle's beaten to a pulp for three hours straight, as Moore was all day by Cincinnati's Trey Hendrickson. That's No. 91 up there, flushing Kenny from the pocket and forcing a throwaway. And that'd represent but a fraction of Hendrickson's feast, as he'd finish with two sacks for 16 yards in losses, two tackles for losses, four quarterback hits and a pass defensed.
Outright emasculation. All day long. And in Moore's case, all season long.
Know what Moore had to say about this?
Not a thing. Never showed at his locker stall, even as his more prominent teammates took questions for nearly a half-hour. James Daniel was bleeding down his left arm and still was there to politely decline my interview. Mason Cole missed the second half of this game with a mid-foot injury, and we sat and spoke for a few minutes. Same with Kevin Dotson, who'd again had a foot heavily bandaged.
Know what Moore's got on his resume to offset all this?
Not a thing. It's been this way since the opener in Cincinnati and, really, all through his rookie season in 2021. He'd been a fourth-round pick in the NFL Draft that year -- in the round after Kendrick Green, to reinforce the point -- and he's done not ... one ... thing to have earned starting duty at this level, beyond the mere assignment of hope that, heck, maybe, possibly, he can become something.
Know the price of a serious left tackle?
The top 16 in the league, exactly half of all starters, are paid in the range of $15 million to the $23.1 million the 49ers are paying Trent Williams. Whereas the Steelers have devalued the position to the extreme that Moore's in the second year of a rookie contract that pays $1,044,476 ... to rank 45th.
Know the other price that can be paid?
Yep. A high draft pick. But the Steelers haven't taken an offensive lineman within the first two rounds since David DeCastro was a first-rounder in 2012. And since then, it's as if they'd forgotten the worth of a position they once prioritized like found gold.
Change that in 2023, and we can start talking about getting back on track. Paying tens of millions to Chuks Okorafor, Daniels and Cole was a tourniquet, and that's it. The trenches need to be foundational, which they once were for this franchise.
Speaking of that:
Nary a decade's passed since Chuck Noll's arrival that there wasn't a middle/inside linebacker who stood among the tallest on the field. And yet here we are, half a decade since Ryan Shazier's injury, still seeking his replacement.
Look, I love Myles Jack. He's been everything the Steelers could've hoped out of free agency and probably more. It's wild to me that he ever spent a single weekend in Jacksonville. But the modern NFL doesn't allow for any one man to stand there, a la Jack Lambert, Hardy Nickerson, Lawrence Timmons. It takes two, arguably three. Nor is the skill kit limited to having tackles funneled his way. It's now more about coverage and patrolling sideline to sideline, which was part of what made Shazier such a magnificent, ahead-of-his-time pick.
Devin Bush was supposed to be it. Traded up to No. 10 overall to get him. Zilch.
And when the team itself concedes how bad Bush is -- one doesn't keep our man Robert Spillane out there for his coverage or his tackling, as illustrated above -- that's all anyone needs to know that this conversation needs to be revisited yet again in 2023.
This, too:
That's Levi Wallace, who'd been tormented much of the day by Tee Higgins, an almost-pardonable offense, on this occasion being undressed by some dude who was elevated off the practice squad for the week.
I already forgot his name, but here's a photo of him embracing the honor he'd receive later from Zac Taylor:
When you get your first game ball 😁@trenton_4 | #RuleTheJungle pic.twitter.com/79MLMl3Ywt
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) November 21, 2022
The Steelers have drafted corners, as we all know, but they've been so miserable at it that, like the offensive line, they've basically stopped doing it. Not one in the top two rounds since inflicting Artie Burns upon us in 2016. None at all in the entirety of the past two draft classes. And the only thing that masked all of that was the exemplary acquisition of Joe Haden.
Who's next in line within the lineage of Mel Blount and Rod Woodson?
It sure isn't Wallace, a bargain buy in free agency. It never was Ahkello Witherspoon. And since it hasn't had a chance to be anyone else, so much of the dynamism and diversity of this defense has been lost.
Anyone remember corner blitzes?
OK, how about safety blitzes?
The last member of the secondary capable of jumping up was Mike Hilton, an old friend visiting on this day who never should've been allowed to leave. Since then, the defense has been reduced to a vanilla mix requiring T.J. Watt to singlehandedly do all the wrecking up front. And on a rare day like this, with T.J. being largely eaten up -- and held -- by the Bengals' Le'al Collins, that's bared for all to see.
And oh, my those wide receivers:
Diontae Johnson caught four passes for 21 yards, three of those coming on the same drive and, thus, rendering him utterly invisible the rest of the way.
And afterward, surrounded by the usual crush of cameras and microphones because it really matters what he's got to share with all of us, he'd say, “Any football player would be frustrated. But I just have to keep playing.”
What nobility.
If anyone should be frustrated in the equation, it should be those who thought it a bright idea to pony up for that two-year, $36.71 million extension over the summer, only to see him get this deep into 2022 without -- repeat this along with me -- not ... one ... touchdown ... through 10 weeks of football.
Also, not ... one ... 100-yard receiving game.
He's paid like a No. 1 receiver. He speaks of his status as if he's a No. 1 receiver. But as I'm typing this, he's undeniably No. 3. Just behind Pickens, who showed his own first rookie stumbles here. And, if we're being real, both are behind Pat Freiermuth, the Steelers' only consistently top-level offensive performer who'd wind up with eight catches for 79 yards and dozens of Cincinnati bruises.
The solution for this, as everyone cites as soon as something goes awry with a wide receiver, is to just draft another one the next year. Because there are zillions of them, falling from the sky like snow over Orchard Park. But between Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Chase Claypool ... that's a lot of picks that could've gone to better players at some of the positions I've listed.
Oh, and hey, let's not dare omit the reigning king of all who need to be replaced in the worst way:
Not going to lie: I'm tired of piling on Matt Canada. A scapegoat can be a crutch in football analysis. Like a lazy compensation for not being able/willing to look at anyone or anything else.
But this guy tried that wacky flea-flicker in the fourth quarter right after Kenny'd connected with George Pickens for 33 yards to the Cincinnati 39. The momentum felt legit. The Bengals' lead was only four. And after the flea flicker, there was a negative run by Najee Harris -- one of countless, mindless second-and-long runs in this one -- and Moore botching a block for Kenny to get sacked.
Germaine Pratt, a Cincinnati linebacker, had this observation of the Steelers' offense: "We knew what they were going to do. They like to do the same plays over and over.”
I didn't even mention the third-and-25 draw play with the game on the line. Or the latest inside flick to Zach Gentry. Or only having one wide receiver on the field on the first snap following T.J.'s interception and an attempt at the end zone.
Sure, though, let's talk some more about the quarterback, right?
Fire this coordinator. Into the raging sun. By lunchtime Monday. Every day Canada's here, every play he calls, the worse it is for this offense, both from a winning and a developmental standpoint. All anyone's learning is how to suppress shaking their heads out there.
As Kenny himself might've let slip when asked afterward if the offense has become too predictable, "It's something you need to look at the tape and see what our tendencies are. We’ve got to go out there and execute whatever is called."
That wasn't a no.
Not that Kenny's faultless, to say the least, and I don't mean to suggest otherwise. No one applauds a passing line of 25 of 42, even if it's accompanied by a season-high 265 yards and, for a third consecutive week, no picks. That's not a healthy NFL completion rate, and that's supposed to be his strongest suit. He can do better.
But my God, look at all of what's up there. And on top of that, weigh Mike Tomlin's propensity for promoting his coordinators from the next cubicle, further weigh that neither Tomlin nor Teryl Austin nor Brian Flores nor anyone associated with the defensive braintrust they'd openly been pumping up back in the summer could come up with a solitary answer for the Bengals plowing their way toward second-half drives of 92 and 93 yards, totaling 18 plays and producing 14 points.
Forget 3-7. Forget all these outcomes the rest of the way, regardless of how uplifting/dispiriting they might feel in the moment. Because they don't matter, and they haven't since September, if they ever did. They'll look OK for a half or a quarter or a series, and then they'll come crashing down. As Kenny described the offense's falloff in this game, "I think it's just consistency throughout the game and executing at a high level. That's coming down to each guy doing their job at the highest level they can do it. We did a good job of that in the first half, but the second half was nowhere near where we needed to be."
Nowhere near, indeed.
The task ahead is massive. And it seems all the more massive with every quality opponent that comes along to expose more, so don't get distracted.
JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY
Najee Harris hurdles the Bengals' Jessie Bates III for a touchdown Sunday at Acrisure Stadium.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE INJURIES
Hurt in the game: RB Jaylen Warren (hamstring) and WR Miles Boykin (oblique) exited in the quarter and didn't return. C Mason Cole (foot) exited in the second quarter and didn't return, either, but he told me after the game he's "fine" and doesn't expect to miss time. Chris Halicke has the full report.
The inactives: CB Ahkello Witherspoon (hamstring), QB Mason Rudolph, CB Josh Jackson, G Kendrick Green, LB Mark Robinson
THE SCHEDULE
It's the Colts on a Monday night, 8:15 p.m. kickoff at Lucas Oil Stadium. Halicke and I'll be in Indianapolis for that one.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything from our football staff of Halicke, Ramon Foster, Matt Williamson and myself.