Daniel Ekuale tips the scales at 310 pounds, Esezi Otomewo at 282. Tender tulips they're not.

Both are backups on the Steelers' defensive line, both do their business in bulk, and both ... dropped into pass coverage on this play that'd see Jaylen Ramsey surge forward for a sack:

Uh ...

"Hey, we're athletes," Ekuale would tell me, wholly unapologetic. "And we're gonna do whatever the team needs us to do."

But a Dick LeBeau-looking zone blitz that leads into coverage?

"Whatever the team needs."

"I'm an end, and Dan's interior," Otomewo would tell me, "so it's a little easier for me."

Easier? At 282 in coverage? On Jerry Jeudy running a crossing route?

"We're athletes."

OK, I'll take the hint.

I'll also take ... my goodness, every isolated and collected morsel of this 23-9 stomping of the Browns on this still-summery Sunday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium, as I'll continue to insist, with each week, that this team's being defined less by a 4-1 record and first-place standing in the AFC North, and more by its very real progress on all fronts.

Put it this way: A month ago, all the defensive fuss was over communication and the players pleading for simplicity ... and here, they had backup linemen on exotic-blitz duty.

"We're never doing that a month ago," Joey Porter would tell me. "No chance. But a lot's changed since Ireland and, if you want to know the truth, it's been changing all along because we just keep getting better and better."

Not peaking. Not getting hot.

I loved how Otomewo worded it with a gentle smile: "We're getting warm."

____________________

Warm sounds cool. Warmer than Dublin, warmer than the week before ...

Rewind to Saint Vincent College, and the prevailing theme was how to make something sensible of all these big names Omar Khan and Andy Weidl had amassed all spring and summer and, within that, whether they'd get it done within the span of a single season. Because it's one thing to add an Aaron Rodgers and a Jalen Ramsey, and it's quite another for Rodgers to craft virtual poetry after this game to praise Ramsey for being ready for this game -- and the next one, coming fast Thursday in Cincinnati -- despite a lingering hamstring injury: "Take away the incredible player ... I think he just showed all of us the kinda guy he is."

That's warm and cool. On both counts.

But I've long insisted that the tangibles precede the intangibles, that the success fosters the confidence and belief, rather than the other way around. And I wasn't about to buy anything this locker room was selling through the 2-1 start, tangible or intangible, if only because they were, in all bluntness, playing brutal football.

Now, they're looking stronger, in the form of a firmer fundamental foundation and better health. And, as those figurative wings spread further, they're looking a lot smarter, as well.

The offense, though hardly dominant, keeps taking legit strides.

That begins, always with this team, on the line. And on this day, all six of the regulars -- Broderick Jones, Isaac Seumalo, Zach Frazier, Mason McCormick, Troy Fautanu and the new sixth man Spencer Anderson -- acquitted themselves quite well. Say what one will about these Browns at 1-5, or about the Cleveland franchise in general, but they entered this place with what just might've been the NFL's No. 1 defense, and they exited with zero sacks and zero takeaways. Myles Garrett likely will still be named Pro Football Focus' Defensive God of the Week, but here on Earth, he'd register two stinking tackles, zero solo, zero anything else.

Of note: In Ireland, Anderson and Darnell Washington were assigned to serve as bailout bookends. This time, Anderson was out there for 17 of 59 snaps, right around the same ratio as against the Vikings, but Washington was used far more often to run routes. So at least one of the training wheels was semi-shed.

"I know people wanted everything from us right away, and we wanted that, too," McCormick would tell me of the line. "But it takes time. It really does. We're getting there."

The priority, as all involved would acknowledge afterward, was to run. There'd be no softening up the Cleveland defense, not with Jim Schwartz jamming nearly everyone into the box, by out-clevering anyone.

Although this sure made for an inspired out-clever on the very first snap from scrimmage:

That's a gem from Arthur Smith. It's a level of offensive playcalling not seen around here in far too long, as Rodgers would recognize, saying, "Art's done a nice job the past few weeks of mixing the personnel groupings and formations a lot, and it's put some stress on the defenses. We started today with an action keeper that blew wide open."

The run still had to come, and it sure did: There'd be 100 yards in all, adding up Jaylen Warren's 52, Kenny Gainwell's 22 and Kaleb Johnson's 16 that included an eye-popping 9-yard spurt on a first down.

"Everybody had to do their part," Johnson told me. "The line, all three of us running backs, everybody. And we knew that's how it was gonna be against these guys."

The pass had to come, too, and it couldn't just be more of Rodgers' rapid-release sideways stuff seen in Dublin. It needed to go downfield, even deep. It needed to feature DK Metcalf. It needed to reincorporate all three pass-catching tight ends. It needed to represent a threat, not a decoy.

So yeah, Rodgers completed 21 of 30 passes for 235 yards and two terrific touchdowns, Metcalf caught four of those for 95 yards, Washington stayed in the receiving mix with three for 52, Jonnu Smith had three for 18, and Pat Freiermuth emerged anew with an 11-yard catch.

Check, check and still more checks.

"I think we're playing pretty smart football," Rodgers would say when asked about the offense's evolution. "When we take care of the football, we're gonna have a chance in any game. Then, if we can control the line of scrimmage, we're really going to be playing downhill."

The defense, though facing a negligible challenge by comparison, did the job, too.

Tomlin would concede afterward that the staff's principal concern on the Cleveland offense would be rookie running back Quinshon Judkins, whose yardage totals kept rising each week, and he'd be throttled for 36 yards on 12 carries, an average of 3.0 and a long of 6. Noticed him about as much as I did Garrett.

From there, the Browns' passing game, such as it is, was forced to go front and center, and Dillon Gabriel, another rookie, was 29 of 52 for 221 yards and no touchdowns while being sacked six times -- Nick Herbig and Ramsey with two each -- and hit a startling 16 times. 

"It takes some time to mesh, to come together," Herbig would say. "But I think we're all starting to figure each other out, to play off each other, to play with a lot of energy together."

Health helps, of course. The first half of this game marked the only two quarters all season in which the intended starting defense was fully available, only to have that foiled anew in the second half with minor injuries to Porter, Darius Slay and Brandin Echols.

Regardless, the one facet from Ireland I appreciated most from the defense was a resumption of the swarming they need -- and want -- to be most dangerous. It's not just one player near the ball anymore. It's a bunch. And they tend to be moving in full motion.

I brought that up with Payton Wilson overseas, then again here:

"Yeah, I just think you see the fluidity now," he'd say. "When we're in man, everything's adding, people are flowing, right? I don't know how else to say it. It's just flowing really good."

That's perfect, actually. As I'd been complaining through the first three weeks, there hadn't been hardly any of that. Everyone was spread out, everything looked too loose and, worse by far, the schematics followed suit by pursuing an embarrassingly passive stance.

That's not this.

And yet, when asked if this was how the defense had been hoping to perform all along, Herbig gave his own we're-getting-warm response: "Not really. Everybody in this locker room knows what we're capable of. I still feel like we haven't played up to our potential yet. We're just scratching the surface. Once we're firing on all cylinders ... I'm excited for that."

____________________

Which, to reiterate, is where the intangibles enter.

What's the most fun about being around this group of late is that they believe, in all three phases, what Herbig laid out up there. That they're not where they need to be. And, as a result, that they need to press that much harder to get there.

These are the updated AFC North standings, my friends, after everyone else lost again:

DKPS

Hey, they can't say this, because it'd come across as overlooking the Bengals, but I will: That ain't the bar. And that shouldn't be the bar.

Not that the Steelers have anything locked up, for crying out loud. One only needs to go back to, oh, the winter of 2024 to understand why. But they do have an opportunity, and a real one at that, to put themselves into position to ... well, think big.

That takes camaraderie. That takes chemistry. That takes a sense of not only self-sacrifice, but also that others in that same environment are giving the same.

Rodgers gave credit to Ramsey for that, as I mentioned above, but listen to my conversation with Connor Heyward about his winning touchdown ...

... and all the work that went into it:

I'm not typing out that transcript. I want that one to be watched. It's wonderful. Press play.

One can laud Rodgers for how he's carried himself in Pittsburgh based on what he says or does in formal settings. But when the fourth-string tight end, who seldom sees the field with the regular offense, reveals to me that those two had been working on that sequence to such an extreme that they'd developed a playful code to describe it ... yeah.

I've got another to share, and it comes from Metcalf.

On one snap, he'd covered 60-plus full-go yards in pursuing a throw from Rodgers, one that'd tap out probably nine of 10 wide receivers. Not this one. Not only did Metcalf run right back to the huddle, but he also executed this on the very next snap:

His response when I reminded him of this later: "Gotta be there. I'm not looking for a break."

That's a hell of a lot more than hot air.

"What I wish more people knew," Otomewo would tell me unsolicited, "is how much the veterans on this team mean to what we're doing, how much they teach us, how they bring us together. They spend so much time with us, helping us to be better."

Patrick Queen, Mr. Green Dot on the defense, happens to be one of those. In fact, maybe nobody's been nearly as demonstrative and outspoken about both what these Steelers can become against what they've been.

"I'm getting stoked. I'm feeling this," he'd tell me in a way only he can. "It's not there all the way, but guys are where they're supposed to be, and then they're just flying. You feelin' me?"

I'd say, respectfully, I'm warm.