Tomlin's Debut Turns Out Nearly Perfect - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

It's a preseason game where wins and losses don't matter, but Mike Tomlin's first game looked better than I would have ever expected. The team played hard, played physical and maybe most importantly, played precisely. They executed well, they took advantage of opportunities and they looked way more polished than you would expect for a team that has only been practicing for a little over a week.

Sure there were some mistakes: Nate Washington dropped too many passes, it wouldn't be a Steeler game without Max Starks giving up a sack and Jeff Reed missed a field goal, but all in all it was an outstanding effort, especially in the second quarter when Steelers second and third-teamers were outplaying a lot of the Saints starters.Here were some of the highlights and lowlights of the first preseason game at first glance--I'll be going back over the game with a fine-toothed comb later.

It's too soon to see someone else wearing #55. When Joey Porter was a rookie, they handed him #95, but he asked for another number when the season began because he didn't want to be compared to Greg Lloyd. It was a smart choice, and it would be just as smart for LaMarr Woodley to request another number when the regular season begins. I'm not saying that they need to retire #55 forever--if they still hand out #82 and #88 they can use #55, but give it a couple of years--Porter's long service as a Steeler has earned that.

• There may be no bigger Nate Washington fan than me, but it's time for him to start catching the passes that hit him in the hands. It was yet another game where he showed flashes of greatness and great aggravation.

• So that's the Najeh Davenport we'd hoped to see: a 250-pound back who runs over a safety to score a touchdown instead of the 260 pounder who tried to dance around tacklers last season.

• Davenport's hard-running took a back seat to Carey Davis, who seemingly ran over every DB who was foolish enough to try to tackle him.

• Defensive end Derrick Jones seems pretty active with a non-stop motor. That may not be enough to make the team, and he looks a little too skinny and undeveloped in the arms and chest to be a 3-4 end right now but he has some skills (maybe a good practice squadder?).

• If Mike Tomlin is looking for physical players, William Gay helped himself a lot when he laid out Saints first-rounder Robert Meacham. Gay may be small but he packs a big punch. The late interception was just the icing on the cake for the fifth-round pick.

• Rookie defensive end Ryan McBean swapped numbers (he's listed as #67 but he's wearing #69). Unfortunately that was the only way he was noticed. He didn't seem to make much of an impact.

• Kevan Barlow sure looks like an slow, plodding afterthought. He can start having his agent call around to find somewhere else to try to play because he's not making Pittsburgh's roster.