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Column: Le’Veon lifts Steelers to next level

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Pittsburgh Steelers v Tennessee Titans

Le’Veon Bell tiptoes through the Titans’ front seven for some of his 204 yards Monday. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The offensive lineman in football is at the epicenter of it all. He doesn’t just experience each play. He feels it. He doesn’t just execute each play. He understands how every cog contributed.

Be sure, then, that Ramon Foster felt every fantastic facet of Le’Veon Bell’s 33-carry, 204-yard burst onto the national scene Monday night in the Steelers’ otherwise tepid 27-24 tipping of the Titans at LP Field.

“That young man was just an engine,” as the effervescent guard would put it, “an absolutely unstoppable engine.”

Asked to elaborate, Foster added, “There’s just this sense that you get when it’s clicking, this feel between an offense and a running back. You build confidence. You get a little cocky. You get on a roll. You’re pushing, not retreating. It’s …”

He smiled broadly.

“It’s a blast, man.”

“That’s energy,” Maurkice Pouncey chimed in from the next stall. “That just makes you want to go to the next snap and get up on the guys again and see if you can do it again. It was awesome, man.”

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Column: Steelers motivation? Take your pick

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Tennessee Titans v Pittsburgh Steelers

Ben Roethlisberger is sacked by Jurrell Casey in the Titans’ 16-9 victory last year at Heinz Field. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Breaking down the Steelers’ Monday night matchup with the Titans — 8:30 p.m. kickoff, LP Field — isn’t about how Dick LeBeau dominates rookie quarters and will lengthen that legacy against poor Zach Mettenberger, or how Mike Munchak knows Tennessee’s roster so well, or how Ray Horton knows Pittsburgh’s roster so well, or how Ben Roethlisberger and the boys should romp against the NFL’s No. 22-ranked defense, or how only the winless Raiders have a worse offense than the Titans.

Fact is, it’s all so much simpler from the Steelers’ standpoint than any handsomely compensated football guru would be comfortable confessing.

At least it is if one accepts the following three stances as truth:

• The AFC North is there for the taking, with the Bengals first at 6-3-1 and all the rest at 6-4. The Browns’ reign atop the division lasted all of a week. Both of the Steelers’ meetings with the Bengals remain, meaning they drive their own destiny.

• The Titans stink. Don’t be afraid to say it, either, for there’s no other way to explain a 2-7 record and a seven-game nosedive in which their lone triumph came by two points over the Jaguars.

• The Steelers will finally take such an opponent seriously.

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Column: On mayhem, making amends, Malkin

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New York Rangers v Pittsburgh Penguins

The Penguins mob Marc-Andre Fleury after his save ended — for real — Saturday’s shootout. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The ending to the Penguins’ 3-2 shootout victory over the Rangers on Saturday night came amid such mayhem it might be best summarized by noting that the second word of this sentence actually should be pluralized.

Endings.

Because there were two: The Penguins lost, and then they won.

And unlike Dewey defeating Truman, this wasn’t a matter of faulty reporting but a matter of fact. At least for a minute or so.

“Crazy. So crazy,” Evgeni Malkin would describe the scene later. “We were all in locker room, and they tell us, ‘Go back! Go back!’ “

That crazy.

If you were inside Consol Energy Center, you still might not have believed what you witnessed. And not just because there’s an excellent chance you left before the contest was legitimately decided, fairly thinking that it already had been because, oh, you know, the winning shootout goal was pushed behind Marc-Andre Fleury by New York’s Dan Boyle, the final score was lit up on the big board, the final horn blew not once but twice, both benches emptied, Henrik Lundqvist was high-fiving all his fellow Rangers as they filed off, all three stars had been announced and, in what really should have sealed the deal, Dan Potash had set down his microphone because there would be no happy postgame interview with a home-team player.

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Column: Colter vs. cancer? Nothing but net

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Derrick Colter shoots over Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday on Saturday. — DAVE DeNOMA / DUQUESNE ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

No sooner had the basketball been launched from Derrick Colter’s fingertips than he was hacked by Bluefield State’s Avery Holliday. Hard enough that Duquesne’s gifted junior guard fell back onto the A.J. Palumbo Center court and was wholly horizontal by the time that ball touched twine.

Even with the rest of his body prone, Colter’s arms shot up, raised in triumph.

Did he see the 3-pointer?

“Just kind of felt it,” he’d confess to me later with an aw-shucks grin. “All I saw was ceiling.”

Quite the raise-the-roof moment, if you will.

And no, not because played an infinitesimal part in the Dukes pounding a badly overmatched opponent, 91-51, in the university’s 99th season opener Saturday.

Not because it would be one of a career-high seven 3-pointers, one shy of the school record.

Not because he’d spike up to a career-high 26 points after averaging 9.3 last season.

Not even because the game of his life was occurring on this extraordinary young man’s official return from a five-month battle with cancer — non-Hodgkin lymphoma — that involved 20 consecutive days of radiation treatment.

“It was the shot. That’s it,” Colter said. “When I put up a shot, I want it to fall. So when it went down after I got knocked down, yeah, I enjoyed it a little.”

Believe it.

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Column: A.J. makes it all feel so real … again

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Atlanta Braves v Pittsburgh Pirates

A.J. Burnett tips his cap to the PNC Park crowd in 2013, a familiar scene after so many starts. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

“I want to win a ring, and I want to win it with Pittsburgh.”

See, that used to be a real hoot around here, spouting stuff like that. Because the ‘ring’ in this statement is a World Series ring. And ‘Pittsburgh’ points to the Pirates, the franchise that was Major League Baseball’s perpetual laughingstock. At least until A.J. Burnett arrived in 2012.

Which is precisely why it isn’t funny anymore.

Especially when the man himself is saying it.

“It’s about winning,” Burnett was telling us reporter types in a conference call this evening, minutes after he and the Pirates signed his one-year, $8.5 million, miles-below-market-value contract to return to the place he said made him the happiest. “It’s about being in a place where I know I can win it all. It’s about how many years I’ve got left. It’s about my family and my heart. To be able to get out where I want, I’m so lucky to have that opportunity. There’s nowhere I’d rather finish my career than in that city, with that organization and those people in that locker room.”

Anyone else flings out phrases like that, especially in a no-nonsense town like ours, and they’ll get called on it. Not this guy. Not the way he always makes it feel so real. Not after all he’d already done to win over Pittsburgh in his initial stint, and most certainly not after all he did to open a second — and yes, closing — chapter.

Let’s start there: Burnett will turn 38 and, as he made abundantly clear several times in the call, he’ll pitch one more season and call it quits. He’d hinted as such before but never this bluntly.

“One more,” he said. “This will be it.”

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Column: A tip of the (salary) cap to Martin

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Pittsburgh Pirates v Atlanta Braves

Russell Martin is doused by champagne in Atlanta for the Pirates clinching a playoff berth. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Russell Martin will leave the Pirates someday soon, in all likelihood. My belief is that the Pirates will be true to their word and put forth their legitimately best effort, although, like everyone else, I’ll want solid proof. I’ll want the numbers. I’ll want them independently confirmed by Martin and/or his agent.

Still and all, he’ll be gone.

Bob Nutting will be blamed. Martin will be blamed. His agent will be blamed. Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington will be blamed. Nutting will be blamed some more.

And barely a soul will dare discuss the real reason Martin is leaving.

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Column: Steelers’ worst loss since … the last one

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Pittsburgh Steelers v New York Jets

The Jets’ T.J. Graham pounces on Antonio Brown’s fumbled punt return late in the first half. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It’s painfully tempting to place sole blame on the players for the Steelers’ latest debacle of a letdown, this by a 20-13 count to the two-win New York Jets.

It was, after all, solely the players who set foot on the field Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

It was solely Ben Roethlisberger, after two weeks of a dozen touchdown passes and a mounting discussion about his MVP candidacy, who this week faced maybe the NFL’s worst secondary but still threw two ugly interceptions, took two bad sacks and, in a phenomenal twist, was outperformed by whatever’s left of Michael Vick. Or, as he’s known around here, Geno Smith’s backup.

Roethlisberger was terrible.

On the second of those interceptions, he dropped a dying quail into triple-coverage even though he had time to make intended target Markus Wheaton his third look.

“I took a little too much off that ball,” Roethlisberger said.

He took too much off his whole game, actually. A rollback from mega-fantatastic was fairly expected. Not this. Certainly not against the league’s bottom-ranked pass defense.

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Column: Penguins breathe fire right back

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Pittsburgh Penguins v Winnipeg Jets

Rick Tocchet and Mike Johnston argue the referees’ call on a hit by Winnipeg’s Dustin Byfuglien. — GETTY IMAGES

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — There’s something about the hockey soul that savors, that celebrates what the men inside the sport simply call “a good hockey game.”

When they cite the phrase, they do it with spirit.

They do it with respect.

They do it with … I guess you could call it reverence.

Who won and who lost, in the most genuine way imaginable, becomes secondary.

“That game had its own unique personality,” Paul Maurice, the Jets’ coach, was saying late Thursday night at MTS Centre. “Skating, speed, scoring, goaltending, heavy hits, lots of chirping on the benches … it was a good battle … fun to be a part of.”

He then slightly smiled.

“I just liked that game.”

And this was the guy whose team lost, 4-3 by shootout, to the Penguins.

“That was one well-played hockey game,” Mike Johnston was saying in a near-echo down the hall. “If you look at it from an entertainment point of view, it had everything. It had physical play, it had speed, it had scoring chances, it had big saves, it had special teams with both teams doing well on the penalty-kill. … I give Winnipeg a lot of credit. They came at us.”

And this was the guy whose team won preferring to talk about the competition as a whole.

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Column: Fleury extension born from fresh fire

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Photo-illustration of Marc-Andre Fleury — ALEX MESSMER

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — I’d never seen Marc-Andre Fleury so furious.

No, not Wednesday, of course. If anything, he was the same impish Flower we’ve  known forever upon the Penguins signing their franchise goaltender to a four-year, $23 million extension minutes before taking the ice at MTS Centre for practice. He was poking teammates playfully as they’d pass through his crease, shouting jokes the length of the rink, the whole deal.

And why not?

In addition to all that bonus wealth, he also had peace of mind. No longer is there a chance he’ll leave through free agency at the end of his current contract that expires next summer. No longer is there a chance that he’ll pull on any sweater than the only one he’s known in the NHL. And maybe most important, no longer is there any doubt that the men who are his teammates as well as those running the operation — all the way up to Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle — believe in him.

Now, he knows.

“It’s a good feeling,” Fleury said after that practice, surrounded by cameras and microphones at his stall. “I’ve been with this team so long, known some of these players so long … it feels like home.”

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Column: Penguins on serious power trip

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Pittsburgh Penguins v Minnesota Wild

Nick Spaling, center, is congratulated on his first-period goal Tuesday night in St. Paul, Minn. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Penguins wrapped up their Tuesday night at Xcel Energy Center barraged by pucks and, in a totally you-had-to-be-here-to-believe-it scene, a comparable barrage of debris from the typically docile Minnesota fans as the visitors mobbed Thomas Greiss’ crease to celebrate their 4-1 flattening of the Wild.

Ugly all around, right?

“Nah, not at all,” Thomas Greiss was saying after peeling off his pads from a sound 33-save performance. “We won the game, and it was no goal.”

Well, yeah. Count those as two more quality rejections, then.

Here are some more: Nick Spaling and Brandon Sutter scored always-welcome third-line goals in the opening 23 minutes, the power play struck yet again on the sweetest of setups from Evgeni Malkin to Chris Kunitz, and the Penguins at one stage had a mind-blowing streak of 18 unanswered goals as well as a 3-0 lead on the NHL’s stingiest outfit.

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