Kovacevic: A deftly conducted draft, a physical branding rechristened

I'd asked Teryl Austin over the weekend if he'd felt Joey Porter Jr.'s fiery, physical style as a press cornerback would be a fit for the Steelers' defense that he coordinates and, look, I'm not going to lie, I knew the answer before it'd arrived.

Still wanted to hear it.

The man didn't disappoint:

"I think he does," Austin began his reply. This was Saturday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. "One of the things we always want to know when we look at guys is, ‘Hey, how do they play in the press?’ Because we are going to play man, and you know that. But we're also going to play some zone, and we're also going to ask these guys to tackle some big backs in our division. He’s got that ability to do all of those things. When you start looking at skill sets, I felt really comfortable with what he'll bring for us."

Mm-hm.

Allow me, please, to offer a brief respite from all the glowing and gushing about how Omar Khan, Andy Weidl and Mike Tomlin crushed all comers in the NFL Draft that just passed, even if it's all deserved and then some ...

... to add this: It's not just that they knew what they were doing. It's not just that they knew how to do it. Maybe more than anything, it's that they knew why.

As Austin's counterpart on the offense, Matt Canada, would word it in a later session, "There's no secret to what we're trying to do and how we're trying to play football."

There can't be anymore.

From Broderick Jones, the bullying, behemoth left tackle who didn't concede a single sack in 448 snaps as a senior at Georgia ... to Porter, the biggest corner the Steelers have had since maybe Mel Blount and the most stick-like-Super-Glue since Ike Taylor, whose mere lineage should speak to his on-field persona ... to Keeanu Benton, the first true no-nonsense nose tackle on this roster since Javon Hargrave, who blurted out over the weekend that Tomlin told him he wants "some goons" in his trenches ... to Darnell Washington, the 6-foot-7, 269-pound tight end who's referred to himself for years as "the sixth lineman" for his ferocious blocking, but who's equally capable of all this:

Seriously, that's the fourth pick? Fourth?

That's freaking Eric Green up there.

Yeah, I'm aware of the red-flag knee issue that had Washington plunging from first-rounder to 93rd overall. I'm also aware that knees, barring some kind of degenerative condition -- which no one anywhere has connected to Washington -- come with routine fixes in modern medicine. And that the Steelers, with Pat Freiermuth and Zach Gentry already in the fold, have zero cause to rush Washington.

Cool, so wait on him, if necessary. He's more than worth it.

The whole class is. It's extraordinary. It's A-plus, No. 1, and all those other rave reviews they're receiving almost unanimously across the football world. The first four picks alone had, for months, been cited on first-round mocks by experts and fans alike. Not just Jones and Porter, either. Washington had been a fixture, as word of his knee hadn't fully emerged until he began his fall Friday, and Benton had made appearances, as well.

I'm not about to lose my mind and predict the Steelers have just added four first-rounders to their fold ... but I'm also in no position to rule that out. And that's extraordinarily rare air for any NFL team, much less one that'd already been perceived as being on the ascent after that 7-2 roll to finish a 9-8 season in 2022.

Small wonder that Khan, Tomlin and seemingly everyone else on South Water Street couldn't stop smiling for three straight days.

"Productive weekend," Khan would say once it was done. "I really feel like we're a better football team today than we were at 7:59 on Thursday. Can't wait until we get to the rookie minicamp in a couple weeks and really see our new Steelers in action. It's going to be fun. I think we're in a good place."

"Feel really good about the weekend," Tomlin essentially echoed, seated to Khan's right. "But probably equally as important, I felt good about the process, and I think that just tees up the weekend. We've talked quite a bit about that. We rolled our sleeves up and got on the road and did all the things we needed to do, utilized all the opportunities to engage with these young people, man, and get a sense of what they're capable of and how they might fit."

All concerned should feel plenty satisfied with the process. Khan's deft, environmentally aware touch in navigating the move up three spots to get Jones, then the move down 13 spots to wait on Washington, while winding up with the bonus pick to add Wisconsin edge rusher Nick Herbig in the fourth round, might've been the most impressive front-office maneuvering within a draft in franchise history. 

No hype. 

Any A-plus for Khan should begin with that alone. It was a clinic on how a general manager should generally manage.

But that "fit" Tomlin cited, I'm betting, will have the far greater resonance with the public. Because if there's one commonality to this class that stands out, even more than that they all managed to be acquired by any one NFL team in any one draft, it's that they come equipped with the punishing approach that this team's head coach prefers. And, if everyone's being honest about it, it's an approach that hasn't exactly been there for a little too long.

Though it'd begun to bloom on both sides of the ball in 2022, with each perspective being most prominent via the run:

• Although the offense finished the season 26th in the NFL by averaging an awful 18.1 points per game, the lowest such output since 1998 if exempting the 2019 season that Ben Roethlisberger mostly missed, it was a revived running game that drove that 7-2 closing roll. Najee Harris, Jaylen Warren and company averaged 146.4 rushing yards over those nine games, ranking eighth in the league in that span. To a man, players, including Kenny Pickett, credited that component with freeing up the pass and contributing to those stirring last-minute drives in December and January. And within that, it was the offensive line receiving almost all of the love.

As Najee'd told me in Baltimore, "It's all the big boys. They lead. We follow."

OK, now imagine that same scenario albeit with veteran free-agent signee Isaac Seumalo at left guard rather than Kevin Dotson, Jones at left tackle rather than Dan Moore Jr. and, eventually, Washington as Freiermuth's bookend tight end, and no one should be more stoked about this draft than Najee and, in turn, Kenny. Because this has the potential to be an offense that grinds out both yards and the clock and frees up Kenny and his targets for more time to develop more rhythm.

Will they suddenly start putting up 30 points a game?

Heck no, but they don't need to in that environment. They don't need to match Joe Burrow dart for dart or keep pace with Ja'Marr Chase stride for stride. They just need to swat away someone's lunchpail, stomp on their pencils and books, and prevail on the big board.

• In that same spirit, on defense, nothing was going to be set straight until the run was stopped. And that didn't begin in any sustainable way until mid-December, after which the final four games saw the Steelers limit opponents to 333 total yards. That included Nick Chubb, J.K. Dobbins and Josh Jacobs, three of the league's best running backs, carrying a combined 44 times for a mortal 214 yards.

Not great, but a real upgrade. Benton, Herbig and, yeah, even Porter at outside corner will be further upgrades in this regard. (As will absolutely anyone taking snaps in place of Devin Bush, but hey.)

"This is Steelers defense. This is what we're about," Porter would say on the subject, his "we" emerging effortlessly. "Hard football. We're gonna smack you in the mouth. We're gonna play aggressive. And I feel like that fits my game style. I’m gonna get in your face, I'm gonna talk a little trash ... but we're gonna play."

That's what I'm referencing. Each individual player paraded through our press room on the South Side had something similar to say, none of it feeling forced. As did the individual coordinators and assistant coaches. As did the brass that made it happen.

Way, way faster than any of us would've foreseen.