Steelers show their character

Not much has gone right for the Steelers since their most recent Super Bowl appearance after the 2010 season. They won just three playoff games. They endured their most embarrassing postseason loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars at home after going 13- 3 during the 2017 season. They missed the playoffs the past two seasons and in four of the past eight. There were laughed at by the football world because of the unseemly fiascoes surrounding franchise icons James Harrison, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown.

That’s why the events of the past weekend are so important to note.

I’m not sure the Steelers have ever been better.

It had nothing to do with a Ben Roethlisberger touchdown pass or a T. J. Watt sack or a Minkah Fitzpatrick interception. It was much bigger than the game of football.

The Steelers took a stand to try to make the world a better place.

It started before their scrimmage Friday night at Heinz Field. The team had been talking internally about ways to combat systematic racism and social injustice since the death of George Floyd at the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis on Memorial Day weekend. It decided it had to make a public statement after the shooting in the back of Jacob Blake by a white policeman Aug. 23 in Kenosha, Wis.

Mike Tomlin was picked to deliver it for a few obvious reasons. One, he is Black, one of just four minority coaches in the NFL. Two, he is one of the most powerful and respected voices in the game. And three, like many of his players, he has kids who live in fear because of the color of their skin.

“Regardless of how big and

important this game is for us, it’s small in the big scheme of things,” Tomlin said standing at midfield, flanked by Art Rooney II and Kevin Colbert and in front of his players whose arms were locked in unison. “But we also realize that we’re privileged to have a platform. We’re committed to taking action and being a part of the solution to face social injustice and prejudice that we all face …

“We stand before you acknowledging that we are blessed and privileged. But that privilege does not shield us from sadness. That privilege does not shield us from shock or outrage. It does not shield us from fear — fear for our safety or our loved ones or an uncertain future. … We wanted to pause and to share with those that are hurting tonight that we see you, that we hear you, but most importantly, we stand with you.”

It continued Saturday when Cam Heyward and Vince Williams met with the local media via Zoom. Football wasn’t mentioned one time. A better life for all Americans — Black and white — was the topic. Heyward and Williams spoke at length, eloquently from the heart.

“We can’t be blind to what’s going on,” Heyward said. “We’ve seen too many injustices to be silent. Our communities hurt day in and day out. We’re left with the question: Why?

“For us to stay idly by and not make a difference, that’s a responsibility we can’t give up. … Education and community investment [ in getting people out to vote, with police forums and by demanding accountability with the police] … we understand we have to invest in our community. We understand we have to invest in our children. Through these opportunities, those are the ways we can make change.”

No one has done more for Pittsburgh by giving back his time and money than Heyward. That’s why he was the Steelers’ nominee for the NFL’s prestigious Walter Payton award three times in the past five years.

No one has done more trying to create a better relationship between police and the Black community than Maurkice Pouncey. “The police sometimes have a stigma and people in the neighborhoods sometimes have a stigma,” Pouncey told me in December after he was the Steelers’ 2019 nominee for the Payton Award. “We’re trying to get them together to show there are great people on both sides and have them understand you’ve got to have a relationship no matter what.”

Pittsburgh is lucky to have Heyward and Pouncey. Because of their ability to play a game that brings the city closer than anything else, sure. But also because of their character. They care.

Tomlin and the Steelers have come a long way since that September afternoon in 2017 in Chicago. That was the weekend when President Donald Trump said on Twitter and at a rally in Alabama that players should be fired if they refuse to stand for the national anthem as a form of protest against racial injustice. That led to many more players sitting or kneeling during the anthem.

The Steelers had an emotional team meeting the night before they played the Bears. “You have no idea,” Ramon Foster said the next day. They agreed to act as a team and stay in the tunnel for the anthem, but, somehow, war hero Al Villanueva ended up separated from the group and was visible alone, his hand over his heart. It didn’t help that Tomlin went to the sideline and stood with some of his coaches for the anthem. Team unity?

It sure didn’t look like it to the rest of the football world, which criticized the Steelers for horribly executing their plan.

“I didn’t appreciate our football team being dragged into politics this weekend,” Tomlin growled after the Steelers’ 23- 17 loss.

I’m guessing Tomlin will tell you now that he realizes that weekend wasn’t as much about politics as it was about racial inequality. Trump fanned the flames with his comments, but the act that first prompted them — Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the anthem before an exhibition game in 2016 — was strictly about humanity.

Certainly, Roger Goodell realizes that now.

“The first thing I’d say is I’d wish we had listened earlier, Kaep, to what you were kneeling about and what you were trying to bring attention to,” Goodell told Emmanuel Acho last week during Acho’s “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” digital series.

It’s a good thing that the entire NFL seems to get it. Finally.

“[ White people] don’t know enough, and they need to be coached up and they need to be educated about what the heck is going on in this world,” Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Saturday during a powerful monologue that lasted more than 14 minutes during his news briefing. “Black people can’t scream anymore. They can’t march anymore. They can’t bare their souls anymore to what they’ve lived with for hundreds of years …

“The really amazing thing I’ve learned is Black people know the truth. They know exactly what’s going on. It’s white people that don’t know. And it’s not that they’re not telling us. They’ve been telling us. We know what’s right and what’s wrong. We just have not been open to listen to it.”

As Heyward noted Saturday, “It’s not going to be done in one day or two days.”

It’s going to take time and it’s going to be a constant fight.

Pittsburgh should be glad Heyward, Pouncey and Tomlin are on its side.