Kevin Gorman: Mike Tomlin strikes a blow with his newest mantra for these selfless Steelers

When it comes to cliches, Mike Tomlin is a master of mantras. The Pittsburgh Steelers coach has coined catchphrases that have become the standard, if you will, for coach speak.

The latest Tomlinism, however, was like a Bud Dupree blindside sack. It came out of nowhere Sunday, just after the Steelers beat the Cleveland Browns at Heinz Field.

We’re looking to strike a blow for team.

I asked Tomlin to elaborate on it Tuesday at his weekly news conference at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, given the circumstances of an injury-riddled season for the Steelers and how it has challenged their depleted depth chart.

“It just means that when you’re faced with adversity, particularly in terms of significant components or contributors, that it doesn’t define you,” Tomlin said. “Football is the ultimate team game. We try to live that out every day. When guys step up and deliver, it’s just verification.”

That the Steelers have won six of seven games despite the absence of significant components and contributors is verification of how Tomlin has turned this team around, following a season of selfishness with one of selflessness.

A year ago, the Steelers had a 7-4-1 record entering Week 14. They had just suffered a seven-point loss at Denver, a game that had Ben Roethlisberger blaming Antonio Brown for running a bad route after throwing an interception by a nose tackle in the end zone with 1 minute, 7 seconds remaining.

They would lose at Oakland, a team with three wins.

A year later, the Steelers are 7-5 entering Week 14. They are coming off a seven-point victory over Cleveland with a former fourth-string quarterback throwing a touchdown to a former No. 4 receiver days after they went duck hunting together, and they clinched the win with a Joe Haden interception with 1:06 left.

They play this week at Arizona, a team with three wins.

The similarities might be stunning but there’s no comparison between that Steelers team and this one, especially when it comes to talent. But the Steelers learned the hard way that superstars don’t win Super Bowls; great teams do. Although this team has shown that it is neither great nor Super Bowl-caliber, you don’t get the impression this team is going to come apart at the seams down the stretch the way the Steelers did last season in losing four of their final six games to miss the playoffs.

No wonder Tomlin expressed his appreciation for his players after beating the Browns. The Steelers did it with rookie backups starting in quarterback Devlin Hodges, running back Benny Snell and wide receiver Diontae Johnson. That’s a far cry from Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown.

No wonder Haden expressed his appreciation for Tomlin’s hands-on approach, noting the nuggets the Steelers coach gives in film study and weekly meetings. Tomlin even mentioned that every conversation he has with his players is intentional, and that to show his confidence in Hodges he avoided talking to him too much.

“He definitely always has the next-man-up mentality but he practices what he preaches,” Haden said. “He always says he doesn’t have backup players — he has starters-in-waiting — and I really do think he feels that way. He bumps guys up and expects them to produce the same way the other guys did. They’re held to a high standard on this team.”

The standard is the standard, after all. But the Steelers set a new standard this offseason, when they made it clear that no player is bigger than the team and that selfish behavior won’t be tolerated. The Steelers no longer have the Killer Bs, but they also don’t have anyone killing the team concept with selfishness, either.

“It’s been a weird season so far, back and forth, with injuries. At this point, we’re just having fun with it,” Steelers right guard David DeCastro said last week. “This isn’t bad at all. This has been kind of a fun year. No one really believes it. There’s nothing else to talk about but football.”

If football is the ultimate team game, it’s the team-building that has separated the Steelers this season.

They suffered a training-camp tragedy when receivers coach Darryl Drake died in his dorm room at Saint Vincent College. They lost a future Hall of Fame quarterback when Roethlisberger had season-ending elbow surgery and a rising defensive star when Stephon Tuitt tore his pectoral. The Steelers beat the Browns without three Pro Bowl players, as running back James Conner and receiver JuJu Smith were out with injuries and center Maurkice Pouncey served the second of his two-game suspension for his role in the Nov. 14 brawl with the Browns.

Somehow, the Steelers won.

As Duck Hodges was sitting before a microphone for a post-game press conference, Tomlin walked into the room and smiled. Tomlin shook his head and laughed, almost in disbelief that the Steelers are winning with an undrafted rookie quarterback from an FCS program who didn’t make the final cut out of training camp and was on the practice squad in Week 2.

That’s a credit to Tomlin and his coaching staff for finding ways to win with marginal talents and to the players for meeting the standard by delivering what their coach might call varsity-level performances. The Steelers continue to smile in the face of adversity, laughing all the way to their next game.

Believe it or not, the Steelers are making football fun again.

“For us, we love football,” Tomlin said. “We acknowledge that and we work at it. Football is our game but our job is to win. Regardless of circumstance, we’ve got a job to do. So we openly talk about that and then we go to work.”

Tomlin and the Steelers are doing a masterful job in striking a blow for team, one win at a time.

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