If you're throwing a party, you might want to finalize the guest list, buy some supplies and make sure the decor is all in order.
But there's a first step that comes well before all of those plans. And in a football sense, that's the key for Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy this week in anticipation of hosting an AFC North bash with the Cincinnati Bengals.
"It doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter what number they wear. We understand the challenges that they're going to bring to us each and every week, but let's just make sure we're cleaning our own house each and every week," McCarthy said Monday afternoon. "It's early in the season. It's two games. When the information is consistent two weeks in a row, you have to pay attention to that. We've had some mistakes that have been repeated, and those are the things we need to clean up.
"Football is not perfect, but you train in the mindset of perfection to achieve your goal, and we just have to stay in tune with how we're doing things."
That was part of McCarthy's message to the team in the wake of Sunday's 20-3 loss at New England. The preparation process is pivotal, but execution on game day will always be what any coach or player is judged by once the season begins.
McCarthy was critical of himself at the podium and took accountability first and foremost after the defeat at Gillette Stadium. He doubled down on that from behind the podium at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex a day later, stressing the need for him and his assistants to home in on technical precision while keeping some bounce in their collective steps.
"We don't have a talent issue," McCarthy said. "If I felt we weren't able to do things based on our talent level, we would be playing differently. That's not our challenge. We just continue to work.
"We've had some first-year bumps, which is the responsibility of the coaching staff. That's what I was referring to yesterday. Our job is the details, and our job is to teach and demand and make sure they're ready to go. Just because you cover a certain play against a certain defense 10 times during the course of a week, that's not where your job ends. That's really where it starts. It's the in-game adjustments, it's the energy, it's the confidence."
Any coach likely needs to find that balance between the two forces that push and pull coming off of a loss. On one hand, flush it and move on so it doesn't fester. On the other hand, absorb what went wrong and make the necessary corrections so it doesn't go wrong again.
Where, exactly, a team should fall on that spectrum at any given juncture in the season is what coaches must have a feel for with their group. That's part of the reason why McCarthy has talked so much about paring down how much he's asking his players to do on offense.
"I have coaching principles that I believe in. One of them is less volume, more creativity, and I felt that during the course of the week," McCarthy said.
So, how does one thread that needle of being more creative without as many items on the menu?
"That's really what game-planning comes down to," McCarthy said. "You never want to go into a game where you don't feel like you have enough ammunition to complete the task. That won't be the case, [but] we may have been guilty of being able to play double-headers with some of the volume because of the ability of our quarterback."
In other words, the Steelers have installed so much because four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers can handle so much. McCarthy doesn't want to be overly reliant on that uncanny amount of knowledge and savvy.
But what won't change is constructing the offense around Rodgers in general. That's another of McCarthy's philosophies, and two games of inconsistent play on offense won't knock him off of it. He and Rodgers will go back to the drawing board, highlighted by their weekly Thursday night meeting to talk football, play calls, life and everything in between.
"Every offense I've ever designed is about making a quarterback successful," McCarthy said. "We have a quarterback that has an incredible wealth of experience, and we've built this offense based on his experiences and to play to his strengths. He knows that, and I'm committed to it."
On the injury front, McCarthy acknowledged that Michael Pittman Jr. has made progress with the foot that kept him out of the Patriots game. He added that Pittman will be evaluated Wednesday morning to determine a practice plan, but it's too early to say whether the leading receiver from Week 1 will return for Week 3 against the Bengals.
