I’ve decided to take a break this week from dissecting X and O’s. Geoffrey and Flip can handle the breakdown duties. I’m sure, as usual, they’ll do a fine job analyzing the play on the field versus the Colts. I’m going to focus on the men responsible for that on-field product instead.

I was listening to some local sports radio Sunday morning as I drove around running errands. The commentators were discussing the success Indianapolis is having in the wake of Andrew Luck’s surprise decision to retire just before the start of the season. They universally praised head coach Frank Reich for keeping the team together, rallying around Jacoby Brissett and having the character to win a bunch of close football games. Reich, they said, deserves to be in the discussion at this point for Coach of the Year.

Sunday afternoon, the Steelers defeated Reich’s Colts 26-24 in a back-and-forth affair that wasn’t decided until Indianapolis kicker Adam Vinatieri shanked a 43 yard field goal in the final minute. The win allowed the Steelers to reach the halfway point in the season with a 4-4 record. It also put them the in thick of a crowded AFC wild card picture.

Let’s be honest: when it was announced after the Seattle game that Ben Roethlisberger would miss the remainder of the season with an elbow injury, how many of us really believed the Steelers might be in this position today? At that point, they were 0-2 and had been outscored 61-29. The defense was struggling to tackle, communicate, defend the middle of the field and create turnovers. The offense looked sluggish even with Roethlisberger at the helm. How, then, could the team be remotely competent minus its star QB? With a typically-solid Ravens team the class of the division and the Browns a media darling, it seemed realistic to peg the Steelers as a five or six win team that would fight with Cincinnati to stay out of the division’s basement.

And yet, here we are. 4-4 is nothing to pop champagne over. Still, the team has won four of its last five with the sole loss coming in overtime to the Ravens. On offense, the running back rotation has been disrupted by injury and the two quarterbacks who have led the team in Roethlisberger’s absence had thrown zero NFL passes prior to week three. On defense, a bold trade to land stand-out safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and the integration of rookie Devin Bush and free agent signee Steven Nelson into the starting lineup has forced the unit to re-make itself on the fly. Given these obstacles, it has been a pleasantly-surprising run of success for the Steelers, who have remained relevant far longer than many expected once Roethlisberger went down. For all of those eager to heap praise on Reich for keeping the Colts together, maybe some should look at the job Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert have done with the Steelers.

That may not be a popular opinion in some circles. Tomlin did win a Super Bowl back in 2008 and led the Steelers to another one in 2011. But he has gotten the team past the first round of the playoffs just once since then. With a roster often loaded with top-end talent, especially on offense, many believe he is either over-rated, has under-achieved, or both. Calls for Tomlin’s dismissal are a mantra-of-sorts at BTSC.

As for Colbert, who arrived in Pittsburgh in 2000, the record is similar. His first decade with the Steelers was an unmitigated success, as he constructed three Super Bowl teams, two champions, and successfully rebuilt the roster after the key players from those teams retired. But Colbert’s handling of the salary cap, which always seems to leave the Steelers as bargain shoppers in free agency, his strike-outs on some of those bargain purchases (Ladarius Green, John Bostic, Donte Moncrief), and the perception that recent Steelers drafts have not been strong have led many to question whether it’s time to move on from Colbert as well.

I am no Tomlin apologist. And I have scratched my head at times over some of Colbert’s personnel decisions. But make no mistake about it — parting with either would be foolish.

The first half of the 2019 season is exhibit A in their defense. How many franchises could go 4-2, losing only to the undefeated 49ers and 6-2 Ravens by a combined seven points, behind a pair of backup QBs who had never thrown a professional pass entering the season? Or with a backfield so banged up its leading rusher in the win over the Colts had 48 career yards entering the game? Granted, the offensive production has hardly been prolific in Roethlisberger’s absence. Mason Rudolph went 26-35 for 191 yards against Indy — a paltry 5.5 yards per attempt — and dinked and dunked the ball as though throwing it down the field demonstrated a breach of etiquette. Rudolph and his backup, Devlin Hodges, have turned the three-yard completion into an art form. They are the Picasso's of check-down passing.

It’s safe to say, then, that the Steelers have not been winning games because of their backup quarterback play. The thing is, they haven’t been losing because of those backups either, which, in backup QB world, is half the battle. Everyone knows the offensive recipe when starting a backup quarterback: run the football, control the clock, don’t turn it over and hope the defense keeps you in the game. The Steelers have followed those instructions like scripture. Rudolph has thrown four interceptions in his five starts (two of which deflected off the hands of his receivers on catch-able throws) while Hodges threw one in his fill-in versus Los Angeles. In the six games since Roethlisberger was injured, the Steelers are +11 in turnover margin. Much to the chagrin of the fan-base, they are not pushing the football down the field. But they aren’t turning it over, either, which, though less sexy, is actually more important.

The running game looked dead in the water the first few weeks until Colbert made a smart trade for Nick Vannett, a quality second tight end who immediately helped upgrade the team’s in-line blocking. In Vannett’s first three games in Pittsburgh, the team has rushed for 372 yards, which is more (333) than they totaled in their first five games combined. The fact they have done this without a full compliment of running backs, as injuries to Jaylen Samuels, Benny Snell Jr. and James Conner have kept the rotation in flux, is all the more impressive.

Colbert’s other big in-season move was the acquisition of Fitzpatrick, who has been sensational in his time in Pittsburgh. Fitzpatrick changed the momentum of the game against the Colts on Sunday with a textbook robbery of a seam route thrown by Brian Hoyer that he converted into a 96 yard touchdown return. It was Fitzpatrick’s fifth interception in six games as a Steeler. For the sake of perspective, no Steelers’ defender has had more than three interceptions in an entire season since 2010, when Troy Polamalu registered seven.

Colbert’s off-season signing of cornerback Steven Nelson was another boon to the defense. The unit is now second in the league in takeaways, third in sacks and is in the top 10 in fewest yards allowed against the pass. Better still, they are young and, with nine 1st round draft picks among them, loaded with top-end talent. They are a vastly superior group to the one that surrendered 45 points to a Blake Bortles-led Jaguars team in the 2017 playoffs.

Some could argue Colbert wouldn’t have had to make these moves if he had done a better job constructing the roster in the first place. The safety, tight end and backup QB situations were shaky entering the season. Why didn’t he address those issues in the spring rather than scrambling to fill them once the season started? The truth is, every team in the NFL has holes. Even the vaunted Patriots are still struggling to get their receiver situation settled. A salary cap and a 53 man limit makes it impossible to be stocked with great players up and down the roster. It’s unfair to credit the Patriots for making the necessary moves to address their weaknesses while criticizing the Steelers for having weaknesses in the first place. No roster is perfect. Therefore, the adjustments a team makes as the season evolves are important. Colbert has been excellent at adjusting this season.

As for Tomlin, consider the following comments from Jaylen Samuels after Sunday’s win over the Colts. In an interview with ESPN, Samuels was asked about the team’s 0-3 start and how they have recovered to get to 4-4:

“This team is a brotherhood in that locker room,” Samuels said. “Everybody believes in each other. When something goes bad we pick each other up and we just keep going.”

These are not sentiments that have been associated with recent Steelers’ teams. There are no more Facebook Live incidents, Gatorade bucket tosses or passive-aggressive radio shows. This group seems to like each other, seems to have fun playing together and seems to be rallying around the voices of team-first veterans like Cam Heyward and Ramon Foster. The 2019 Steelers seem like a tighter, less ego-driven group than their predecessors of the past few years.

Who deserves the credit for that? Mike Tomlin, of course. In recent years, Tomlin has been accused of “losing the locker room,” being too lenient on his star players and over-looking seemingly inferior opponents. This year, there has been none of that. The culture seems, by all accounts, tremendous; the remaining star players are routinely humble; and the Steelers have yet (knock on wood) to play a clunker of a game against a bad team while pushing elite teams like the 49ers and Ravens to the limit. We could nick-pick over the quality of the opponents we’ve beaten, the fact the offense doesn’t “look good,” and how Tomlin still struggles with replay challenges and managing the clock. The bottom line is this: the Steelers are winning football games. The discipline, attitude and culture Tomlin has established this season is a big reason for that.

The season is only half over, and things could certainly go south from here. The Steelers face a good Rams team next Sunday and will likely be underdogs at home. Don’t count them out, however. The general manager has assembled enough pieces on defense to keep them competitive against just about any opponent and the head coach has fostered a locker room that believes it can win no matter who is carrying the football or taking snaps from center. Tomlin and Colbert haven’t always been perfect but they represent greater competence at the primary leadership positions than most franchises can dream of. Few teams could have rebounded from the loss of a player like Roethlisberger as well as the Steelers have thus far. To be talking about the team as a potential playoff contender is pretty remarkable considering the state of things following the Seattle game. If Tomlin and Colbert get the blame when things go poorly, they should get the credit when they go well. Considering how most people expected this season to unfold once Roethlisberger went down, I’d say it’s gone about as well as could be expected. For that, we should tip our hats to Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert.