Right around this time a year ago,

a little bit after the playoff loss in Orchard Park,

I was part of a small group of reporters that was invited

by the Steelers to the south side to meet with Art Rooney to talk about, well, really anything related to the franchise.

And within that conversation, the following words were spoken by Rooney.

I'm going to read this to you directly. There's an urgency.

I think everybody, myself, Mike, guys who've been on the team for a while, everybody,

we've had enough of this. It's time to get some wins. It's time to take these next steps.

End quote. He was talking about the playoffs and winning in the playoffs. Good morning to you. Good. Thursday morning. I'm Dan Kovachievich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into hockey and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of the other two teams in town that I cover,

the Penguins and the Pirates, and I hope you'll check those out as well.

Steelers versus Ravens is 8 p.m. Saturday night, M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

And that meeting will represent the first chance for Mike Tomlin and those players to do something regarding that admonition from the man who owns the team.

Now, I'm bringing this up now before the game, because I don't want to be

accused of conveniently bringing it up after the game, since it's really, theoretically,

anyway, a very big deal. Wherever it is that you happen to work, chances are excellent you don't want to make a habit of disappointing the boss, especially when the boss speaks publicly as strongly as I felt Rooney did in that room that day.

He didn't have to get specific.

He didn't have to say we need to start

getting some wins in these playoffs. He didn't need to reference Mike Tomlin by name. He didn't

need to reference those players who've been here a while because everybody knows that he's

talking about T.J. Watt, Cam Hayward, and a couple others.

But he did that. And it was, or at least it felt at that table, to be methodical.

It's not like he wouldn't have known the issue was going to come up.

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