You’ve got most of two weeks to get all worried up over the Steelers postseason, so here are about five things to begin fretting about immediately as I’m sure you’ll come up with the next 555 on your own.
Normally when an NFL team goes 13-3 and 6-0 in its division and earns a playoff bye, there’s a relative dearth of anxiety at the arrival of January, but this is Pittsburgh, after all, where the disappearance of a bicycle can set off a city-wide panic if it happens to belong to a poor young man earning only $400,000-plus in salary aside from that $1.2 million signing bonus.
JuJu Smith Schuster, who has since claimed a driver’s license and re-claimed a bike, electrified still another Steelers audience Sunday as Mike Tomlin’s team delivered still another pie-in-the-face to the Cleveland Browns, who lost for the 16th time in 16, uh, tries. Well, I guess they weren’t trying to lose, but how could we tell, really?
So let’s start there, with JuJu Smith Schuster and the comfort he brings, perhaps best illustrated by a 96-yard touchdown on a kickoff return, the first such Steelers curio in seven years. Is that enough comfort to erase the anxiety of Antonio Brown missing the past two games with a calf injury about which next to nothing is known?
I thought not.
“Honestly, we treated this week the same as [the Christmas Day game at] Houston,” said JuJu. “When Antonio Brown isn’t here, we take his plate and eat off of it.”
No earthly idea what that means, but it’s probably doing nothing for your nerves.
If you don’t want to pace over that, try the fact that Browns quarterback DeShone Kizer, who smuggled a smelly 57.9 passer rating through his first 14 starts as a rookie, blistered the Steelers secondary for 314 yards, two touchdowns, and a passer rating of 98.5 on Sunday.
That would include pass plays of 56 and 54 yards, and if Corey Coleman would not have dropped a perfect fourth-down conversion pass with 1:46 remaining, the Browns might have gotten out of here 1-15.
“I’m pretty confident,” said Steelers nickel back Mike Hilton, who had a team-leading third interception ripped away in the first half. “People might say we give up a lot of big plays, but it’s gonna happen. Offenses are gonna find a rhythm; we just to do our best to contain ‘em.”
That sound reassuring?
Here, swallow this.
“I’ve felt great about this team from day one,” said dime back William Gay, who caused one of the last two Cleveland turnovers in a turnover-filled season. “When you get to single elimination in the playoffs, you don’t have to be perfect or almost perfect, you just have to get a win.”
Right, and that should be a lot easier with Maurkice Pouncey back at center instead of B.J. Finney, who slid over from guard as Tomlin rested a flock of offensive starters. Finney blocked and snapped well but left with an injury in the second quarter, which was when second tackle/third center Chris Hubbard took over with the ball and snaps began going through Landry Jones’ legs and over his head.
Fretting Finney’s status is not a waste of time.
Then there’s the likelihood that the Steelers’ first playoff opponent will not be engaged in the kind of flags-flying pratfalls that kept the Browns from winning their first road game in only 26 months: Delay of game, neutral zone infraction, grabbing the facemask, roughing the passer, false start, horse collar — and that was just in the tunnel right before the introductions.
“This team has given me everything they have,” said still-the-Browns-coach Hue Jackson.
Oh my. That’s everything?
But let’s worry about one club at a time.
In the minutes after his 116th win in 11 years as Steelers head coach, just one fewer than Hall of Famer Don Shula had in his first 11, Tomlin insisted he hasn’t yet begun to worry.
“We’ll get a chance to think and revisit on Tuesday, our normal weekly press conference,” he said. “I’ll talk about some of those global things, but really it is just what we were able to get done today and with this group.”
I generally go to Foreign Policy magazine for my global wrap-ups, but Tuesday on the South Side is good for me.
Finally, you might as well start worrying about this, even though you’ve never really stopped.
Foxborough.
“At some point, you have to do it,” said tackle Alejandro Villanueva about the most likely venue for a conference title game in three weeks. “We’re not really worried about the Patriots right now. We’re worried about the next time we have to play.”
In two weeks, that will have seemed prudent, provided the Steelers’ post-season doesn’t end on the same day it begins. Then the serious worrying can begin.
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.
First Published: January 1, 2018, 12:37 a.m.
