The sweat was streaming off Markus Golden's brow -- akin to a flowing fountain, no joke -- as he stepped off the practice fields of the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on this searing Labor Day afternoon. His helmet in one hand, a soaked headband in the other, he strode into the Steelers' mercifully air-conditioned locker room, turned a hard left straight to his stall, plopped onto the stool and sagged his head slightly forward.
"Man," he'd say after a deep breath, barely audible. "Look at me."
I did. It was ... something. Kinda like how one might envision an NFL edge rusher would look after two hours and 24 minutes of a Mike Tomlin practice, with those final 24 minutes having been unscheduled and all this amid a feels-like temperature of 97 degrees, no shade in sight and, on top of all that, endless seas of those stupid spotted lantern flies flailing all over the place.
But good luck uncovering a complaint.
"No, no, it's good. I'm good," Golden would respond when I'd bring up the setting. "It's go time. That's now."
I'd proceed to ask a few other players about the conditions, about the workload ... and everyone essentially echoed what's above: This was the first practice of Week 1, with the 49ers, an NFC finalist in 2022, arriving through our tunnels this weekend and kickoff set for 1:02 p.m. Sunday at Acrisure Stadium. Leading into that, there'll be three more practices, then the standard Saturday walkthrough, and then the real thing.
Those who follow this franchise, passionately or even just peripherally, want to know who's going to win that game. And the Monday nighter that comes next against the Browns. And everything after that. Everyone wants a prediction, a regular-season record, a ranking within the AFC North, a postseason outlook all the way through the Super Bowl.
But trust me, that isn't happening in this room.
As Gunner Olszewski told me on this day, "Everyone wants to look ahead. All the fans. I'm sure you're doing the same. Part of your job."
I'm no exception, I affirmed.
"Well, we're not. We just aren't," he'd continue. "We're looking at Sunday and everything good that can come from winning Sunday. Because if we do that ..."
Brief pause.
" ... we're going to be that much stronger, that much more confident as a football team."
That's it. That's really it. Much stronger. Much more confident. And within both of those, even more firmly rooted in a foundation of working, working, working to make, as Mike Tomlin loves to say, "the routine plays routinely."
See, if there's one sense I'd had about this team all summer, it's that they aren't confident just because of the talent level, though all concerned will acknowledge there's more of that than in recent years. And they aren't confident just because Tomlin or someone else is instilling it, even if that's always part of the process. And you'd better believe they aren't confident just because of a 3-0 preseason.
Rather, they're confident because, as Mitch Trubisky would tell me, in a way only he could: "Our trust in one another, and our ability to execute plays."
There it was.
"Just being more comfortable around each other," he'd keep going. "From Year 1 to Year 2, a lot of guys have more experience. Once you feel like you’ve got the offense and the defense down, you know it like the back of your hand, and you’re able to just do what comes naturally and let your talent show. When you’re able to go out there, play fast and play smart, you’re able to play confident and let your abilities take over. It takes time, but it’s that camaraderie, that trust you build with the teammates next to you, and then just going out there and trusting those abilities."
And that's in play now?
"I feel like we’ve got a confident group right now. We’re excited to kick off the season.”
Now give Mason Cole a chance:
“Our confidence level is high, and I really think it’s because of training camp," he'd say. "We had such a competitive camp here -- an iron-sharpening-iron type of thing. When you practice against our defense, and the way we practice here in Pittsburgh, the intensity and the speed of it, you get in the game and it feels slower at times. I’ve said this before, but that’s a credit to Coach Tomlin and the culture here. It’s built confidence for everybody.”
Keanu Neal also credited Tomlin for the mindset.
“I think it starts with the leader," Neal would tell me. "It starts with Mike T, and the way he leads men, the way he leads this team. His job and what he does is very important to this. It correlates to what we do. And you can see that by how we play and how we handle ourselves. We know who we are. We know what we can do. We know the type of talent we have on the team."
He appropriately motioned toward his fellow safety, Minkah Fitzpatrick, seated to his left.
“But that confidence also comes from the work we’ve put in through OTAs, training camp. We took it day by day, and took advantage of each opportunity that we had. Mike T put us in positions to handle certain things that’ll happen in a game. Like he always says, it's not mystical. Those things showed. We went out there, we were comfortable, we felt good. It was preseason, so let’s not forget that. But the work that we put in was all the same, and now we’re just building on that and getting ready for Game 1.”
This isn't the sexiest subject matter, I know. I'm sure that, as the week goes by, I'll cite schemes, statistics, historical precedent and ton of other tangibles related to what's ahead. But in this moment, I'm so much more moved by the singular focus on the simple act of executing a play.
When I was asking questions after each of the preseason games, from here to Tampa to Atlanta, there wasn't a gosh-wow reaction to any of it. Not even when George Pickens would pull off the seemingly impossible.
"Ha!" Trubisky came back when I brought that up. "If anything, you just expect it from George. Him doing something incredible is just part of the playbook."
It's about all 11 knowing what they're supposed to do, and then following through. Executing a play.
And then executing another play.
And then another.
And the satisfaction, the strengthening and the confidence ... it's a byproduct of that. Not just the outcome.
Let's be real: Not so long ago, we all witnessed the Steelers starting out 11-0. And there wasn't a soul anywhere who took it seriously. All the flaws were laid bare every Sunday. All the fourth-quarter comebacks had far more to do with Ben Roethlisberger than any meaningful buildup. And sure enough, once that balloon had burst, everything crumbled in short order.
Those were outcomes. This is more. This is substantive.
When Kenny Pickett's rolling to one side or another and he sees a couple targets, he'll make his choice based on an array of variables properly prioritized, and he'll then make a pass he'll now have made to that particular receiver a zillion times. It'll be two actors nailing lines that've been rehearsed in middle-of-the-night sleep. It'll be sliding a piece on the chess board.
Does that make this team different than others in the recent past?
Honestly, yeah, it does, at least to an extent. Because it's all connected. The strength and confidence comes from the work, and the work comes from a collective commitment.
Without complaint.
“I say it starts with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the organization," Golden would tell me. He's a 32-year-old veteran and one of the newcomers, a fine addition as depth, along with rookie Nick Herbig, behind T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith. "When you come here, man, you have no choice but to get on board. It’s been like that since I first got here. From Mike T leading the way, guys like T.J., Alex, all the guys ... these guys, man, you can tell it’s real. They believe here.”
I pressed for more. A lot of these guys have represented the Steelers for a while, and there still hasn't been a playoff victory since those six field goals in Kansas City forever ago.
"I'm just being honest," Golden would come right back. "It’s the Pittsburgh Steelers, man. I wish I could say this or that, but that’s just the simple truth. That’s just the energy. I bet you know that, too, from being here."
I acknowledged as much.
"I can feel it. If you ask me personally, I can feel it because of that. And then I can feel it because of how we work every day. Usually when you’re confident and you believe in something, you work like it."
OK, now we were getting somewhere.
"That’s how everybody is here, from offense to defense to special teams. Everybody’s grinding. Everybody’s working. Everybody’s got something to prove, and they want to prove that we’ve got a great team.”
Executed play by executed play.
