PITTSBURGH — "Big-boy pants! That's what we're going to put on!"
Sean Davis is one seriously smart young man, especially when it comes to football. He's a second-year starting safety in the NFL at age 24, and that's not happenstance. He thinks the game at an elite level.
And yet, the above was his most meaningful contribution to our rather lengthy conversation Wednesday related to the Steelers' plan for slowing down Rob Gronkowski this weekend at Heinz Field.
What's more, the line wasn't even his. It's how the defense was being admonished all through the afternoon's practice, according to Davis, by John Mitchell, the man who's now in his 24th season as defensive line coach and who, clearly, wanted to reinforce that there's really only one way to take out the Patriots' all-universe tight end.
"Old school," Davis told me. "And when you're talking Coach Mitch, you're talking old, old school. Go at him. Hard. Get him down. He's a handful, but you've got to go for it."
That's it. Davis stands 6 feet 1, 202 pounds, Gronk 6 feet 6, 265 pounds. Davis will bear the brunt of both the assignments and the collisions themselves.
Let's start there, because that's the plan.
Well, not all of it. I raised this subject with several members of the defense -- not exactly seeking to smoke out company secrets, although I might have seemed suspicious in wearing a hoodie -- and the consensus was that Keith Butler's schemes won't make anything obvious, even to the smartest men in the history of civilization on the opposite sideline. There will be multiple looks, multiple roles, multiple defenders involved. And those will see, at times, Bud Dupree drop into pass coverage or, at other times, Dupree do all he can legally do at the line of scrimmage to delay Gronk's route.
Which isn't terribly different, by the way, from how they've handled tight ends all season.
"It's all about the signal that we call," Robert Golden, Davis' fellow safety, was telling me. "We've got a lot of people stuff, moving in and out. Whatever play we call, whoever's number gets called, that's the man who's got to get it done on the tight end."
But no gimmick for Gronk?
"No, sir," Golden said.
"We're playing our game," Davis fairly echoed.
So now that's all of it: An edge rusher will offer a chip, and a teammate conceding 60 pounds will take it from there, with maybe a few strategic wrinkles in the mix.
Sounds ominous.
Except, of course, that few teams in the NFL have fared better at defending tight ends than the one based in our city limits:
The only real damage done by any individual was by the Titans’ Delanie Walker last month at Heinz Field, with six catches for 92 yards, including a long of 42 yards. He had a fine day. At the same time, that’s the norm for Walker, a long-underappreciated standout at his position.
Exempt that performance, and the Steelers have allowed an average of four catches per game by tight ends. More recently, in Cincinnati, they allowed two by Tyler Kroft, one by C.J. Uzomah, and Sunday night they allowed one to the Ravens' Nick Boyle.
Baltimore's starter, Ben Watson, was targeted only once by Joe Flacco, and it didn't exactly end well:
OK, so Davis was flagged for that body slam, one he never would have tried had he known Watson didn't hold onto the ball. But that up there was also as much as Watson threatened offensively all night.
A much better example of Davis' effectiveness against tight ends came in Detroit, when his late swat on the Lions' Darren Fells proved to be the game's most pivotal play:
None of these tight ends are Gronk, obviously, including Walker. This is a transcendent player, with his dizzying trio of size, speed and skill. Even though he was suspended for the Patriots' 27-20 loss Monday night in Miami, he remains Tom Brady's primary target and the team leader in catches with 55 and touchdowns with seven. His 849 receiving yards average out to 15.4 per catch, 77.2 per game. What's more, his 307 yards after the catch average out to 5.6 additional yards until he's tackled.
He's a load.
He's also clutch: His catches have resulted in a team-high 45 first downs, or one of every 4.28 times New England moves the yardsticks through the air. Tellingly, without Gronk on Monday night, the Patriots went 0 for 11 on third down.
As Davis put it, "There's only one of that guy."
No question. But it still can't take a village to bring him to the ground, and that's where Davis' pants size enters the equation. Because the Steelers aim to build as much pressure as possible on Brady, and that'll mean bulldozing as many bodies into the backfield as they can. Which means that those who aren't in on the pass rush -- secondary guys in more man coverage than ever, plus Davis and others on Gronk -- need to be ... well, big boys.
"We've got to man up, do better than the man across from us," Dupree was telling me. "It won't just be me on the tight end. It won't just be S.D. It never is. But when it's our time, we've got to turn it up."
They've got to do the job. Without help. Without complaint. Without worrying about the 60 pounds of bulk they don't have.
It'll be a challenge, but give the Steelers' defenders credit for already having done a whole lot of precisely that.
Dejan Kovacevic is the columnist/creator of Pittsburgh's pioneering sports journalism site/app, DKPittsburghSports.com, the independent media site/model that BSJ is based on. DK has covered sports in the Steel City for over 30 years.