Jason Worilds was held without a sack in Saturday’s playoff loss to the Ravens at Heinz Field. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

The Steelers folded up the chairs one final time at their South Side headquarters Monday afternoon, most fanning out across the country but many also sticking around Pittsburgh to take advantage of the facilities and prepare for Latrobe.

“Before you know it, it’ll be here,” Jarvis Jones was telling me in an otherwise mostly empty locker room. “Everything’s right here for me to get ready. I’m staying right here.”

Good for him.

“I’ll be here, too,” Shamarko Thomas chimed in from a nearby stall. “I’ll do some training out in California, too, outdoor stuff. But I’ll be here.”

It matters. Enough that Mike Tomlin was making the rounds asking everyone exactly that.

Here’s another guy sticking around. And if he has his way, it’ll be for years to come …

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Troy Polamalu sits on the sideline in the fourth quarter of what might have been his final NFL game. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

One football team kicked the other team’s collective fanny.

The Nation can cry out and complain and call for firings, releases and mass exorcisms, and no doubt a vocal percentage will do precisely that. But the underlying principle of all that occurred in the Steelers’ 30-17 loss to the Ravens in the AFC wild-card playoff Saturday night at Heinz Field could be summed up with this single thought spoken by Kelvin Beachum: “Kudos to them. They did a good job. They came in here and won in a hostile environment.”

Or, maybe better yet, this one from Joe Flacco in the visitors’ room: “You have to play these games to win. You can’t play not to lose. You have to go out there and let everything go. These games are all extra. You can’t worry about the outcome. Play aggressive football. Don’t have a conscience.”

That’s kind of how it looked, too, didn’t it?

Both ends of it, I mean.

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Kelvin Beachum lines up with the Ravens’ Pernell McPhee in the Nov. 2 meeting at Heinz Field. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

The number of individuals instrumental to the Steelers beating the Ravens in their AFC wild card playoff Saturday night is exactly 53, so I’ll save you some counting. Add to that the coaches, all others with the team and maybe even the 65,500 expected to hang off the Heinz Field rotundas for kickoff, and the picture is that much clearer.

“All hands, man,” Maurkice Pouncey was saying. “All hands on deck.”

That’s the nature of this rivalry, the gold standard in professional sports for the past decade and change, and that’s in a mundane setting, never mind a one-and-done. Toss into the equation that these teams stack up so closely that each has blown the other out of a stadium once already this season — 26-6 Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium Sept. 11, 43-23 Steelers at Heinz Field Nov. 2 — and it’s not impossible to envision, say, long snapper Greg Warren gripping the game in his right hand.

Even so, I’ll isolate on these three individuals tonight:

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Mike Tomlin speaks to reporters at his Tuesday press conference on the South Side. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Mike Tomlin wouldn’t confess this if offered a month’s worth of Baltimore beatings, but man, was he feeling it at his Tuesday press conference.

Asked if Le’Veon Bell riding a stationary bike was a sign he might be ready for the Ravens: “If you’re looking for comfort, it is. But there won’t be any bikes on the field on Saturday night.”

Asked how he’d characterize his feelings toward the Ravens in general and John Harbaugh specifically: “I wouldn’t. They’re the nameless grey faces that we play this week.”

Asked again about the blown fake punt Sunday: “They did a nice job. We didn’t. Namely, me.”

Asked if he’s comfortable with diminutive Dri Archer doing any pass-blocking: “I’m comfortable utilizing him with what he does best. If I want him to block Terrell Suggs, then I’m stupid.”

He’ll be there all week, folks. Try the veal.

No, but seriously, the coach was ablaze. If that microphone weren’t clipped to the table in front of him, he easily could have dropped it for dramatic effect on the way out of the room. It was classic Tomlin, deadpan, bug-eyed as he surveyed the room for doubters, the whole deal.

The coach is very much back in his element.

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Antonio Brown high-fives fans at Heinz Field after winning the AFC North Division title Sunday night. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

In the end, though it really wasn’t the end, there were as many sighs as smiles.

The Steelers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the franchise that once owned the AFC North Division, the franchise built on a foundation of defense and toughness and tenacity, made it back to that summit by borrowing from all three traits on this special Sunday night at Heinz Field and besting the Bengals, 27-17, in a mano-a-mano matchup for the title.

And yes, it was truly special. I choose the term advisedly. Because, like most of the men on this roster, I recall London all too vividly.

“Yeah, London,” Ramon Foster was saying at his stall after all the caps and T-shirts had been doled out, after all the whooping and hollering of a “very happy locker room,” as Mike Tomlin described the initial postgame celebration, had died down. “I remember London. A lot of us do. That was … man, that seems like forever ago now, doesn’t it?”

Sure does, but it stuck with you, too, I’m guessing.

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Antonio Brown fends off the Bengals’ Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones in Cincinnati three weeks ago. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

A striking December sun splashed across the Steelers’ South Side fields Friday afternoon, and the din, somehow, was almost a mano a mano match for it. The adjacent rail line rattled and rumbled with the passing CSX freight train. The construction workers atop a still-skeletal office complex being built across those tracks hacked and pounded, whirred and clattered. And because all of that apparently wasn’t enough to envision how Heinz Field might erupt Sunday night, the young student the team employs to pump recorded crowd noise into practices was blaring four megaphone-sized speakers at 110 decibels squarely in the direction of the athletes.

“Red zone!”

That was Ramon Foster. Still can’t believe I could hear him from 50 yards away.

“Red zone now! Red! Red! RED!”

The big man’s got quite the big voice, suffice it to say, and it only got bigger as the Steelers’ first-team offense strode closer to the goal line. At this point, the ball had just touched the 20.

“Red zone! Red! Red!” came more calls from around the field, then even more after a Le’Veon Bell sprint up the middle pushed them a few yards closer.

And finally, when Ben Roethlisberger rifled the ball to Antonio Brown on a slick slant pattern, it became a crescendo. Even Mike Tomlin piped up.

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