Brett Keisel: the team must stay grounded

After a convincing win over the Carolina Panthers, there's a lot of confidence flying around about the Pittsburgh Steelers. In Pittsburgh, I've heard people blasting Roger Wood's "Pittsburgh's Going to the Super Bowl" twice from their car. If you call into local radio shows, where last week most callers and radio personalities thought the team was on the verge of being 6-10, the talk is now about how the Steelers could be 6-1 when they host the Indianapolis Colts in Week 8.

Steelers veteran defensive end, Brett Keisel, knows this certainly cannot be the mentality in the locker room where this team needs to stay hungry and take it one game at a time.

"Hopefully we can enjoy this win and not be like, ‘Ah, we're the greatest team ever,' " Keisel said according to ESPN's Scott Brown. "We've got to continue to stay grounded. We've got to continue to work hard. We've got to continue to have a chip on our shoulder and continue to work like we're underdogs."

This arguably could be the team's best win since the Steelers' last playoff season of 2011. It's the first time the Steelers have beaten a team that made the playoffs in the previous season while also obtaining a winning record, albeit a Week 3 record, since their 2012 victory against the Baltimore Ravens when Charlie Batch helped the team to a 7-5 record.

Though it's something to be happy about, head coach Mike Tomlin's sentiments after the game on how the team must treat the win were much like Keisel's.

"I'm not going to crown them tonight," Tomlin said. "They did what was necessary. They hung together. There's a lot to be learned from that and a lot to be gained from that, and hopefully we will."

Tomlin knows this team was hungry for their Week 3 matchup against the Carolina Panthers, and not just to win but to play well and win. The embarrassing Week 2 loss to the Baltimore Ravens squelched any positivity the team had after its Week 1 victory against the Cleveland Browns. The Thursday night loss made for an extended week of practice as the Steelers got ready for their Week 3 game. Arguably, this extra time may have been an ignition for the team to be ready for improving its play drastically against the favored Panthers.

To continue their success from Sunday night, the Steelers must keep the same drive going that led them into this week and put that into every week moving forward.

"You've got to stay humble," Keisel said. "You've got to have that urgency when you come to work and prepare. It's gotta be a weekly thing."

Before anyone thinks about this team being 7-1 hosting the Colts, 6-1 going to play the Houston Texans, 4-1 in a rematch with the Browns, or even 3-1 as the team goes to play the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Steelers must get a win this week over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to go 3-1. The Bucs are coming off of their own embarrassing loss on a Thursday night football stage against the Atlanta Falcons and they'll have the same extended week the Steelers had going into their own Week 3 matchup.

Hopefully the message from Tomlin and Keisel is not lost on the players on this younger roster, and the team will realize it's in no position to overlook anyone.