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Friday, November 27, 1998 By Gerry Dulac, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
PONTIAC, Mich. -- On a bizarre day in which the Steelers contend the officials saw a facemask penalty that wasn't and heard a coin-toss call that wasn't, maybe the most telling event of all was the reverse that couldn't .... or shouldn't. In keeping with the Thanksgiving Day tradition, it was, in effect, the moment the Steelers got stuffed in the Silverdome.
It occurred in the fourth quarter of what would be a 19-16 overtime loss to the Detroit Lions, and it had its auspicious beginning, strangely enough, on a harmless extra point that seemed like the most benign play in a game that had anything but.
It was at that moment that the Steelers were headed for another holiday carve job by the Lions.
"It was probably a poor call and probably poor execution," Bill Cowher would say afterward, wearing the squirmy look of a person who sat in mashed potatoes. "Probably a combination of both."
In a game in which not a lot of people were getting not a lot of things right, the Steelers coach was, in hindsight, 2 for 2.
There were occasions in the Noisedome yesterday when the Steelers saw a potential victory slip from their collective grasp in much the same manner the officials saw Charlie Batch's facemask slip from Chris Oldham's grasp in overtime. There was even a moment when they heard it slipping away, that being the moment when the Steelers were cruelly on the end of a game of "Heads you win, tails you lose." But when it all really started to unravel was on the kickoff following the Lions' touchdown, with 6:36 remaining, that tied the game, 13-13.
That was when running back Richard Huntley, in the game because the Steelers did not think David Dunn should be handing off on a reverse with a broken hand, took a high, hanging kickoff a yard deep in the end zone and attempted to execute a reverse that was as ill-fated as the overtime coin toss.
By the time Huntley had taken a couple steps and met up with Will Blackwell, the player who would take the handoff, the Lions' Lamar Campbell blew up the exchange, the play, the game, maybe the season. The ball came loose, linebacker Scott Kowalkowski recovered at the Steelers' 9, and the Lions were given a gift 35-yard field goal and a 16-13 lead.
"I was trying to get behind the wedge," Huntley said. "One of their guys got through. I never saw him."
Then Huntley offered the most succinct words: "It never got started."
Give the ball back to Kordell Stewart there, and who knows what happens? Maybe a 15-play, 74-yard drive like the one he engineered in the final 4:33 that ended with Norm Johnson's 25-yard field goal with one second remaining that forced overtime, and forced the NFL's first-ever need for, uh, audio replay. Perhaps a deflected pass for a touchdown, like the one to Blackwell off Jerome Bettis' fingertips in the third quarter. Who knows?
But the Steelers never got a chance.
The play was doomed to failure almost from the time Dewayne Washington jumped offside on the extra point on the previous play, giving Hanson a 5-yard head-start on the kickoff. Instead of kicking from the 30, he teed off from the 35.
And instead of booming the ball in the end zone, he lofted a high, lazy kick designed to give his cover team a chance to pin the Steelers inside their 20. They went one better.
"In their last four home games, nine times out of 10 his kick goes deep in the end zone," said special teams coach Ron Zook. "No question - that was a designed kick on their part."
Fred McAfee, the special teams captain, said: "The higher it stays in the air, the more opportunity they can push downfield. Now you give them 5 extra yards, that makes it even tougher."
Campbell, who lined up on the left side of the Lions' coverage unit, was the first player down the field. He arrived at the point of exchange almost at the same time as Huntley and Blackwell, like he was on the invitation list for dinner.
"It was a high, long kick," Huntley said. "But we still could have run the reverse. That was a called play. That's what I was doing."
That, though, was the problem.
Huntley should never have attempted the reverse.
Zook said the players are told to only run the reverse if the kick doesn't go in the end zone. But Huntley caught the ball in the end zone, 1 yard deep, and proceeded out.
Campbell hit him about the 9.
Kowalkowski recovered at the 9.
Jerome Bettis called tails.
The Steelers were deep-sixed.
"Hindsight is 20-20," Zook said. "It was a good play on their part. They kicked the ball high, where they could make a play on it."
On this occasion, the Steelers couldn't even find fault with the officials.
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