Anyone still wondering how stung the Steelers' management must be over those final few games of the 2024 schedule?

Especially over the run defense getting gashed in Baltimore for those -- repeat after me -- two ... hundred ... and ... ninety ... nine ... yards?

Yeah, let's just say that figurative cat's now formally out.

This, my friends, was Mike Tomlin when asked tonight here at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex about the Steelers minutes earlier having made all 6 feet, 5 inches and 311 pounds of Derrick Harmon, a defensive tackle out of Oregon, their top pick in the NFL Draft: "He has Steelers DNA. For us, it starts inside and up front, and this is a guy who's capable of dominating that space versus the run and the pass. We're really excited about having him."

And this was Tomlin when asked if the team felt urgency to bolster the defensive front entering this event: "Extreme urgency, to be quite honest with you. There's no substitute for young talent. You don't have a chance to fill a quality defense unless you're stout up front. This is a guy that has the opportunity to look to the likes of Cam Heyward and put his hand in that pile and be a significant contributor for years to come."

And this was Tomlin when asked to elaborate on his wholly-without-precedent "extreme urgency" remark: "The tape is the tape, and so we're behaving appropriately. You don't have a chance to have a top-notch defense unless you're smashing the run and getting after the quarterback, and this is a guy whose résumé says he's capable of contributing in both areas."

And this, for that matter, was Omar Khan when asked about prioritizing the trenches now in all three of his years as GM: "You've heard me talk about the big guys, and it just doesn't apply to the offensive side, obviously. The defensive side is an opportunity, and those big guys, they're not easy to find. When you have an opportunity to get a good one, we're going to get him."

All right, then.

Look, I'd been reporting for weeks that there was no appetite in this building to take a quarterback in the first round, and I'd really ramped that up in recent days. I'd also ramped up that, upon all the requisite internal deliberation, the focus had narrowed to one bunch of players at one position that, blissfully, happened to coincide with the clear strength of the class.

They were going to get an interior defensive lineman. And, because of the class, they wouldn't have to abandon the best-player-on-the-board process that, as they seem to be acknowledging on the inside more and more, they never should've abandoned as they had for the entirety of this decade to date.

You know ... Najee Harris because a running back was needed, Kenny Pickett because a quarterback was needed, back-to-back offensive tackles Broderick Jones and Troy Fautanu because those were needed ... whereas only the latter were seen as strengths or semi-strengths in their respective years.

This one, as Tomlin's fond of saying of Heyward, checks all the boxes. This one's the right player at the right time at the right position, and for all the right reasons.

I don't like it. I love it.

Aware of most of what's above in advance, I'd advocated in the end for Harmon or Michigan's Kenneth Grant. I'd have been equally happy with either. And when the latter went to the Dolphins at No. 13 overall, followed closely by Ole Miss' Walter Nolen to the Cardinals at No. 16, and the only defensive lineman remaining from the crop's cream was Harmon and ... one can only imagine the nerves in that big room down the hall.

"Yeah, obviously, we're watching it, like everyone else is, and we don't know what those other teams are going to pick," Khan would recall. "And it just worked out for us."

When I followed up by asking Khan if there'd be any deliberation at all once their turn arrived: "We knew before. It was easy. We were taking him."

Love that, too.

I'm not going to pretend to know how Harmon will perform over the long haul. But I'm plenty comfortable applauding an apparent return to a back-to-basics approach that'd served this franchise well for the better part of a half-century.

Not to mention doing so at the position where it all started.

• I love the player, as well. There's nothing to not love, actually.

Harmon's got the size, obviously, but he was also just timed at a fabulous-for-his-frame 4.9 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis two months ago, and he accumulated these statistics in starting all 14 games for Oregon: 45 tackles, 27 solos, 10.5 for losses, five sacks, four pass breakups, two forced fumbles, two recovered fumbles and -- my favorite by far -- he led all FBS interior defensive linemen with 55 pressures generated, per Pro Football Focus, or 11 more than any other player.

• Nothing, of course, cuts like film:

• Our Chris Halicke takes it further with a fresh Chalk Talk:

• Character's not easily measured over a conference call, but there couldn't have been a soul in that media room unmoved by hearing Harmon break up over his mother, Tiffany Saine, being on life support at a hospital near where Harmon and other family and friends had gathered for draft night in his native Farmington Hills, Mich. She had a stroke during his freshman year in college, one that paralyzed her left side, and subsequently required several brain surgeries.

Here's what a grounded young man sounds like: "After all those brain surgeries, man, she did not give up. She still took me to practice, still went to work. And I always, in back on my head from the beginning of my college career, was like, 'Why can't I keep going if I'm tired, I'm injured, whatever it is? Why can't I keep going if she can get up and she can keep going after brain surgeries?' Just her resilience and her hard work."

My goodness.

• Small wonder both Tomlin and Khan spoke not only in praise of Harmon as a person but also in a subdued tone throughout their dual press conference. Same goes for Tomlin's call to Harmon. They didn't say so at the time, but it'd become clear later why nobody was whooping it up. This was very much, as Harmon called it, a "bittersweet" convergence.

• The meetings matter. The visits matter. Both happened with Harmon, including flying to Pittsburgh and having a full physical with the Steelers' doctors to check his shoulder that some had cast as a question mark. He also made a personal impression.

"His intangible qualities are very attractive," Tomlin would say. "He's a smart guy. He's a football guy. He's got natural leadership skills. The people at Oregon were really blown away by his ability to fit in and not only fit in but led in a short period of time. He had a similar reputation at Michigan State, and so the tangible things are obvious, but we were equally impressed with his intangible quality, his intelligence, his relationship with the game, his natural leadership qualities."

• If waterboarded on this count, I'd confess that my preference between Harmon and Grant would've been the latter, but only because Grant's more of a nose type, and that would've allowed Keeanu Benton to adapt to a role that'd limit him more to the pass rush. Tomlin was quick to reject nose work for Harmon, which strongly suggests Benton will stay put when there are three down linemen. We'll see, I guess.

• On a purely petty note, because I'm never really above that: There couldn't have been anyone in this building who didn't burst out laughing when the Chargers, the team that signed Najee out of free agency, still drafted another running back, Omarion Hampton, with the very next pick at No. 22. Let it be lesson to all: Never light fires on the way out. Karma bites like a ... female dog.

• Day 2 might not be as much fun, with the Steelers having only the one pick in the third round, but a quarterback's a real possibility, so ... never mind. Still, I'm seeing a running back as more likely. That's the one position, I've been told, is a certainty this weekend.

• But repeating one final time for emphasis, because I've got a feeling this one of those narratives that'll gain its own legs: They weren't going to take a quarterback in this round. Not Shedeur Sanders. Not any of them.

• That said, my quarterback lean keeps leaning toward Will Howard of Ohio State.

• Thanks for reading my football coverage.