Kovacevic: Everything about Steelers' offense makes sense with Najee

ATLANTA -- "Yeah. We're finding our identity. Exactly."

This was Najee Harris, after a shower, after a three-hour show of bumping and bruising by defenders to total 86 yards on 17 carries and, atop the list on this Sunday afternoon inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, after the Steelers beat down the Falcons, 19-16, on the strength of an offense that's ... well, not quite surging but certainly progressing.

And that was it, too. That was the entirety of his answer to my multilayered question about this group's cohesion, chemistry, and confidence, and even the long-unspoken R-word.

"The rhythm," Dan Moore would bring up in a separate talk across the room. "That's what we felt out there, all of us. I know I did. We did our part up front, and the backs ... man, we weren’t blocking for Najee out there. We were blocking for a maniac."

The big man betrayed not a trace of a smile as he spoke. And Kevin Dotson, seated at the next stall, stayed similarly stoic in simply nodding at what he'd overheard. Which seemed, if I'm being honest, wholly appropriate, since that identity on this day originated somewhere between the 2 and the 2 on Najee's jersey:

In order, those were the first two runs of the game for a tone-setting 9 yards, and the one just above captures the end of the pre-posterization portion of Richie Grant's career as an NFL safety.

Oh, and all of this punishment Najee inflicted followed a week in which an abdominal injury kept him out of the Wednesday and Thursday practices before he was a limited participant Friday. 

“It was more of me holding him back," Mike Tomlin acknowledged after this game. "I just knew it was going to be this type of football game. We were going to have to ride the wave that he and the men up front provided. There’s no secret. We talked about it openly all week."

Of the offense in general, he'd add: "Not perfect today, but I think we did what was required, particularly our big boys up front."

Of the running game alone: "We embraced that challenge, and we delivered.”

Can't debate it: Of 351 total yards that tied the Steelers' third-best total of the season, 154 came on the ground, and the offensive play distribution was 37 run, 28 pass. Now factor in that Najee's 5.1 yards per carry was a season high, that Benny Snell again chipped in with 24 yards on six carries, Steven Sims sprinted wide for 19 on three carries. The stupid jet sweeps were largely ineffective, but there also was enough quality run-scheming to make one forget Matt Canada was in the house.

“I really emphasized over the bye week how we've just got to do better in the run game from my standpoint," Najee'd say. "I feel like we all took that as a challenge and practiced as much as we can, looked at better fit, better runs. I looked at certain techniques from my standpoint of how they’ll place their runs on the defense in certain techniques, how linebackers insert coverages, some better ways to know pre-snap pointers, and to know where the ball is going to go, where it’s going to cut at, stuff like that.”

I didn't understand half of that assessment, but he's the only one who needs to.

Look, it wasn't close to perfect. Not the offense, and not any phase. I'm not pretending otherwise.

And yet, as this season's long since become about getting better, in particular the young offense with all the recent high draft picks, it's impossible -- for me, anyway -- to see this side of the ball as being most pivotal. There's enough experience, enough talent on defense for that group to get by, maybe even into 2023 with a couple of well-placed reinforcements. But the offense has been a ground-up thing, and if it were never to launch at all ... yikes.

See what I mean?

So sure, it matters way more than winning two in a row; way, way more than being 5-7; and way, way, WAY more than anything the defense does, that we're now seeing from the offense, week to week, slow but steady strides.

How about Kenny Pickett going 16 of 28 for 197 yards, a 17-yard touchdown to Connor Heyward and a fourth consecutive game -- 128 consecutive passes -- without an interception?

"The more I’ve been playing, I feel a lot more comfortable going through progressions, knowing how our guys get in an out of breaks with timing purposes and stuff like that," Kenny'd say. "Every week, I feel like I'm getting better and better, and I just want to continue to improve and build off the positives.”

Some Atlanta reporter stole my role at the Tomlin press conference and asked about Kenny getting better, though, gloriously, Tomlin came back at the dude with pretty much the same catty response I always get: "I know you guys ask me that every week, where you want me to comb through it on how he’s getting better. He’s getting better. He’s getting better in all areas.”

Life can be good, "you guys."

How about Pat Freiermuth and this 57-yard megaplay that'd be the offense's longest of the season?

What an athlete. What an asset he can become and, to think, he's already such an asset that Atlanta's coaches often assigned a corner to cover him.

"I don't remember," Freiermuth would tell me, "the last time I saw that much open grass."

All right, never mind that: How, I asked next, did he manage to stabilize those legs right after the catch?

"Just keep myself up, I guess," he'd reply before looking down with a laugh. "I've got some pretty big legs."

“He’s just a great player," Kenny'd say. "That run-after-catch was a bit of a surprise, to be honest. It was good to see him open it up a little bit. That was good.”

So was the O-line, left to right. And yeah, I cited the left. Moore and Dotson were both instrumental in the running game -- both are better at that than pass-blocking -- and Mason Cole, James Daniels and Chuks Okorafor -- were in that same sync. Diontae Johnson had two drops, one of those originally ruled a fumble that would've been devastating deep in Pittsburgh territory, but he also had six catches and ... ah, never mind, I'm running really close to E with him.

In fact, as if to remind all involved of the work that's still ahead, the offense scored on its first five full drives, but settled for Matthew Wright field goals on four of those. In the red zone twice, they found the end zone once.

That was stuck in only everyone's craw, and it should: The Steelers are now 18 of 36 in the red zone, a 50% success rate that ranks 25th in the NFL.

Tomlin: "Always concerning."

Kenny: "That’s just what we are missing right now is being consistent with touchdowns in the red zone. That’s something we are continuing to work at, we’ve been working at it. We’re close, but close can get us a loss in this kind of game, so we have got to figure that out this week.” 

Najee: "We need to finish."

It's taken a while, arguably too long to achieve even this much. And I'd posit that an overwhelming reason for that has been the inability to establish a running game despite having invested a first-round pick into the primary position. The "identity" of which Najee and others have spoken all season has always been a second-meaning reference to running, and they all knew that. Without it, the passing would never open up no matter who was quarterback. Without it, the line would never come together. And without it -- sorry, I can't resist -- but Canada's wafer-thin playbook would be that much thinner.

This, for what it's worth, while I'll insist wasn't significant, was a stride.

GETTY

Kenny Pickett throws over the Falcons' Abdullah Anderson in the first quarter Sunday in Atlanta.

• Trying in vain to get ahead of this: The record's 5-7. Entered the day with the AFC's third-worst record. Finished the day with the sixth-worst. The top two teams in the AFC North, the Bengals and Ravens, are both 8-4 and aren't exactly checking the rear-view mirror. The whole division won Sunday, actually.

That said, I'm compelled to share what Myles Jack told me after this game: "You watch, we're going to start sneaking up on some people. The offense is getting there. The defense is getting there. Special teams. I'm telling you."

I don't make a habit of arguing with NFL inside linebackers, so I'll respectfully proceed.

• That said, spare me, please, any nonsense about the Steelers beating bad teams. They had a worse record than the Saints, worse than the Colts, worse than these Falcons. There's no playing up/down in such settings.

• The Heyward touchdown, which meant so much more than six points to both brothers on this roster, is covered in detail by Chris Halicke.

• Same goes for that gorgeous game-sealing punt by Pressley Harvin, the Georgia Tech alum, that pinned the Falcons at their 2 with 39 seconds left. I've got that one covered myself after a fun one-on-one.

• After Harvin's punt, Minkah Fitzpatrick closed it out with an interception that probably would've been a pick-6 had he not opted to run it out of bounds. Heady stuff, considering 35 seconds were left, and the Steelers could just kneel it out.

"I knew, as soon as I caught it, I had to get out of bounds," he'd explain. "Because I'm not trying to go back out there again. We won the game. Go home."

Headier still was this tweet on the flight home:

• T.J. Watt's not himself, like, at all. That, too, gets covered by Chris.

• T.J. not being himself didn't help the run defense, which allowed 146 yards and a ghastly 5.2 average. Although the Falcons' only real strength as a team is heavy-volume running, and their opponents tend to wear down in the second half, that still didn't sit well with the visitors.

"It's tough, man. They make it tough," Jack would tell me. "But we still need to be better. Can't give up chunk runs like we did."

“It’s a different type of team," Cam would say of the Falcons. "Usually, when you get into a game where you go up more than seven points, they go to throwing the ball. But you gotta give them credit. They stick with their plan. Pace is a factor. That’s something we’re going to have to continue to improve on. It just comes down to tackling. Not surrendering touchdowns.”

• In the week leading up to this game, Johnson spoke of becoming more of a leader among the wide receivers. So, in that context, read the following reply when asked what he was thinking while the NFL replay officials were deciding whether he'd just fumbled a ball away or he'd committed yet another drop: "I wasn’t thinking anything. It doesn’t really matter. I was just trying to make a play.”

• Don’t even get me started on Johnson getting 11 targets to George Pickens’ two. Whatever Pickens was barking at the sideline about needing the ball more, it wasn’t nearly nasty enough  Chris has more on this, as well.

• Wright hasn't missed a field goal since his first game Nov. 13 vs. the Saints, and he went 4 for 4 here by converting from 46, 46, 48 and 33 yards. That was enough to draw a question about Wright's status once Chris Boswell returns, to which Tomlin replied, "We'll manage that next week. I'm here to talk about what transpired in the stadium."

• The Falcons have lost four of five and, to hear them tell it, their greatest frustration in this one was that they'd prepared defensively to pursue Kenny only to be undone by Najee.

“We gave up a lot of rushing yards trying to impact the quarterback," linebacker Lorenzo Carter would say on the Atlanta side.

See what I mean?

• This crowd, like the one in Indianapolis, had a substantial majority supporting the Steelers. This team's 5-7. We're several states away. And even if very, very few of them actually travel from Pittsburgh, contrary to common mythology, it's still something to see.

• Thanks for reading my football work. It's never taken for granted.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics

THE INJURIES

Hurt in the game: RT Chuks Okorafor (shoulder), TE Terrell Edmunds (abdomen) and CB Levi Wallace (arm) each missed a play, and not one was officially announced. I confirmed with all three afterward that they'll be fine for next week. Chris has the full report.

The inactives: QB Mason Rudolph, CB Josh Jackson, G Kendrick Green, DT Isaiahh Loudermilk, LB Mark Robinson

THE SCHEDULE

It's the Ravens, next Sunday, 1:02 p.m., at Acrisure Stadium. First meeting of the season, actually. And it might be with Baltimore missing Lamar Jackson.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything from our football staff of Halicke, Ramon Foster, Matt Williamson and myself.