Collier: Using Steelers' Dixon like using spare tire
-
Steelers quarterback Dennis Dixon.
Share with others:
Officially, the National Football League season does not begin until Thursday night in New Orleans with the first kickoff of a long Kickoff Weekend, but, for me, it always starts the moment the head coach of the Steelers throws out the ceremonial first Tomlinism at his first regular weekly media irrigation.
Only when I hear the haunting September siren that the Steelers plan to be "thoughtfully non-rhythmic," in their approach to something am I assured that the NFL's planet is rotating reliably on its axis. It's a natural and necessary counterpoint to my own plans, it happens, which are so much closer to being rhythmically non-thoughtful.
While the quarterback situation locally has just gone to a Stage 3 Civic Emergency (I believe the G-20 fracas was contained at Stage 2), Mike Tomlin again turned up calm and linguistically capable Tuesday afternoon in a sky blue dress shirt and silver cufflinks, dealing his off the cufflinks analysis much in the manner he said he would like to see Dennis Dixon operate against the Atlanta Falcons in the opener just four days off: "fluid, natural, comfortable."
That's why he misplaced nary a single modifier in rattling off typical observations praising Falcons defensive end John Abraham as "a disruptive force," Falcons defensive tackle Kroy Bierman as "a relentless pursuer of the football," and Falcons running back Michael Turner as the kind of a player who will necessitate a "hit and wrap-up week," for the Steelers' defense, to say nothing of the imperative to get "multiple hats to the ball."
So it was more than a little illuminating, I thought, to hear the head coach describe the general atmosphere at 3400 South Water Streets as "very edgy."
That's because, no matter what anyone in the organization might say between here and 1 p.m. Sunday, they simply don't know what they're going to see from a Bruce Arians offense that will be operating on the quarterback equivalent of one of those little donut spare tires.
In a Steelers season nearly talked to death before it began mostly due to One Night In Milledgeville, nothing has driven home Tomlin's predicament quite like the early betting line on Falcons at Steelers.
First Published September 8, 2010 12:00 am
