Q. Last week we talked about how you decide whether to practice outdoors or indoors at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. This past week, you held practices at Acrisure Stadium. What was your thinking there?
A. We needed the elements, we needed the weather, we needed the windage, but we also needed a safe environment from a footing standpoint. The ground is heated over at the stadium very much like Game Day playing surfaces, and so we went for realism. We took the short trek over to the stadium, got a couple of good days work, got a chance to work in the elements, got a chance for ball placement and ball tracking in the elements, while at the same time not compromising health and safety from a footing perspective.
Q. I understand that weather is an issue for both teams, and that makes it fair, but does weather, or the threat of weather, impact the week's preparation in terms of what you may or may not include in the plan?
A. Without question. You want to take the mystique out of it, and so that's preparedness. If you're anticipating a lot of rain, you work with wet balls, for example. If you're anticipating windage being an issue, you don't run from that in prep you run to it. And so you want preparation to be as game-like as possible. And so those are some of the things that you do in terms of being able to change practice times and locations in an effort to best simulate Game Day activity.
Q. Because wind is not constant, does that make it the trickiest of all of the potential elements to prepare for and then execute in?
A. Without a doubt, because you can't anticipate the gust but you better be prepared. There better be a preparedness, there better be an agenda, there better be an understanding based on it. As examples, this is our field goal line when we go in this direction because of potential windage; this is our field goal line going in that direction because of potential windage. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have windage when you're there and you're approaching and you're making the decision about whether to kick. But you better do your due diligence from a preparedness standpoint pregame in terms of some of those things. How does the windage carry the deep ball? Is it gonna push it out of bounds? Is it gonna push it towards the middle of the field in a certain direction? It's a myriad of things, but it becomes somewhat routine when you've been in it for a while.
Q. A week of preparation in the playoffs – does it feel different? More urgency? More focus? More recognition of the fact that it's a win-or-go-home scenario?
A. It's probably a little bit more of that, but probably less for us than some others because we've been at a real heightened and urgent state for some time now for obvious reasons. Certainly it is different, but we've probably been in more of that state than some of the others in the field over the last two or three weeks.
Q. Is it more exciting, more fun?
A. I love playoff football. I always do. I love when the football season comes to a close but we're still partaking. High school football has been over. College football most recently is over. Now over half the National Football League is on vacation – 18 teams – and so you just really respect and appreciate being a part of football when it's scarce. As the road gets narrower, you're still in it. And if you love it, if you love competition, you really appreciate being a component of that.
Q. Mason Rudolph is the starter today. What can a quarterback do from a physical preparation standpoint to deal with or combat the elements?
A. Work. Get on an accord with receivers, and that's what this week was about for us. We've been inside some in recent weeks because of weather conditions and so forth. And it was just good to be out in it for him to gauge his deep ball and things of that nature and see the effects of windage on it. Get on the same page with receivers relative to those things. And so it's really no secret that confidence is steeped in preparation, and preparation is based on repetition.
Q. Is there any truth to "this quarterback's arm strength gives him the ability to cut through the wind, where this other quarterback cannot," or is that just people talking?
A. To a degree, certainly. There's a value in arm strength, a guy who can power a football. There are varying degrees of it. How significant it is, it depends on how significant the windage is. Ben (Roethlisberger) for example, I know that he loved inclement weather, because just about in every circumstance he was going to perform to more normalcy than the opposing quarterback no matter who it was, because that was just reflective of his arm talent. And not only his arm talent, but his experience as a Northwest Ohio boy, he was used to the elements.
Q. T.J. Watt is out with a knee injury. Your other outside linebackers are Alex Highsmith, Markus Golden, and Nick Herbig. What do you need from them today, and is there such a thing as any of them trying to do too much to compensate?
A. I don't know that we're worried about them doing too much in this particular instance. I think all of those guys know they're not T.J. But we need them to play well, and we need them to make the plays that they need to make. It's not only a player responsibility in terms of replacing a player the caliber T.J. It is probably more importantly a coach responsibility. Oftentimes we use cliches like, "If you've got red paint, you paint your barn red." The loss of T.J. is significant. The schematics change. A lot of things change. The way that Buffalo intends to attack us will change. When they were in one-dimensional passing moments prepping for this game, I'd imagine that they had eligible receivers helping their right tackle in terms of securing that edge. When there's no T.J. over there, they've got more latitude in terms of decision-making in one-dimensional passing moments. And so there's a lot of things that are affected by his presence, or lack of presence, and the player component is just a fraction of it.
Q. Today's opponent is the Buffalo Bills, and the player who immediately comes to mind is quarterback Josh Allen. What kind of designed quarterback runs do the Bills utilize with Allen?
A. They use some gap-scheme runs, they pull the tackle a bunch in an effort to gain a blocker at the point of attack. That allows them to keep the point of attack cleaner, so there's less clutter, and I'm sure it's designed to safeguard him, to keep him healthy. But he is a competitor. He is really talented. They run him a lot to be quite honest with you. He's got 15 rushing touchdowns, and so that talks to you about an area on the field specifically where they run him, but they don't run him on possession downs in an effort to get a new set of downs. They're really thoughtful and good about the utilization of his talents in that way.
Q. Is minimizing his running similar at all to minimizing Lamar Jackson's running?
A. In some ways, yes. In their willingness to use schematics to highlight it, it makes it 11-on-11 football. There's a difference between the athletic quarterback who ad libs as plays break down and turns passing concepts into potential running concepts than there is in a design run component. You can play traditional football and manage quarterback mobility from a scramble standpoint. You have to throw schematics at designed quarterback running, and in that way they're similar to Baltimore. There are some designed quarterback runs where you have to match the mathematic component of it. If you've got Minkah standing in the middle of the field, and they're utilizing the quarterback as a runner, then you're playing 10-on-11, and so you're going to lose some of that unless people are whipping blocks and making tackles. And so the schematic run component of quarterback play really changes decision-making from a defensive perspective and in that way they're similar to Baltimore.
Q. In the passing game, Allen frequently looks to his two tight ends – Dalton Kincaid, who has 91 targets and 73 catches, and Dawson Knox, who is 6-foot-4, 255 pounds. How are they utilized within the Bills offense?
A. They control the middle of the field. But while I say that, they're also very flexible in terms of moving people around. They're a "matchup-oriented group" is probably the best way to put it. And a guy like Stefon Diggs absorbs a lot of attention, particularly in weighty moments. He gets the attention of multiple defensive backs, double-teams and so forth. And really it just provides one-on-one opportunities for other guys. When you talk about a guy like Kincaid, who's a late first-round pick, oftentimes he is too athletic for linebackers to cover. And so if two guys are occupied by Stefon Diggs, there's a one-on-one matchup (for Kincaid), the Gabe Davis matchup is a one-on-one matchup, the James Cook, who is really talented in the passing game, is another one-on-one matchup. And so they've done a really nice job of surrounding Josh Allen with a bunch of credible guys who can win one-on-one matchups, and when you've got a special guy like Stefon Diggs, who usually absorbs the attention of two, then they have their pick of options. And when you got high pedigreed options, as you mentioned, like Knox and Kincaid, who were drafted relatively high and are really thought of well in the passing game, they're positioned to produce the type of targets and numbers that you mentioned.
Q. Is there a particular unit, or particular players on your defense who will do the heavy lifting in terms of covering those guys?
A. You're not going to reinvent the wheel. Linebackers and safeties are responsible for tight end coverage globally in the National Football League. Depending on down and distance and circumstances and the potential for a running play or not, that determines whether it is a linebacker or a safety. You're not going to have cornerbacks in there in most circumstances, because you're giving up too much regarding the run in the run game component of it. And so it'll be a mix of linebackers and safeties for us, but I didn't give you any fruitful information because that's always the case. (Laughs)
Q. This will be the fifth game vs. the Bills for the Steelers in a 5-year span, and as you have mentioned there is a lot of tape to digest. Do you see that familiarity as an asset, or as an additional challenge?
A. It just depends on perspective. In terms of being in the same space and how the athletes match up, the pedigree component of it, it is very useful. If you're looking at the schematic component of it, you can trick yourself. Over that 5-year span, they've gone from (Brian) Daboll to Ken Dorsey to now Joe Brady in terms of offensive play-callers. On the other side of the ball, they went from Leslie Frazier to Sean McDermott. And so you can seek comfort in that familiarity, but the play-caller, the architect, if you will, how they land that plane, some of the details and the things that might represent them from a personality standpoint in weighty moments could be dramatically different. And so you better not assume anything, and that's the spirit in which I prepare, even with familiar opponents. Every week, I start again anew. I think that's the appropriate way to proceed in the National Football League. When you start assuming, you set yourself up for failure.
Q. The Steelers' last win in the playoffs came in 2016. Is ending that streak a rallying point?
A. Not necessarily for our guys. That's my story. That's not Herbig's story. In 2016 Herbig was probably in ninth grade. A guy like Elandon Roberts was playing for another team. It's not their burden to bear. I don't ask them to tote my luggage. I don't project my luggage onto them. This is the 2023-24 Pittsburgh Steelers, and I'm concerned about this journey and rallying cries as it pertains to this group. And sometimes you're kidding yourself if you think history like that is important to guys who weren't a part of it. It's not.
