There are examples of bad combinations everywhere:
Can't walk and chew gum at the same time; small, but slow; hair everywhere but on the head; charging tolls to drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Then, there's the one involving the Steelers: Can't run, can't stop the run.
"Oh, man," moaned Jerome Bettis, "it's a deadly combination."
The Steelers, once famed for being among the best in the NFL at both, had the worst rushing total in the league Sunday. Their 30 yards rushing against Baltimore were their fewest in 18 years. Bettis ran nine times for 8 yards, only the third time in his 110 pro games that he has averaged fewer than 1 yard per carry. The other two occurred in 1994 and 1995 with the Rams.
The Steelers also could not stop the run. Priest Holmes ran 27 times for 119 yards.
"You can't survive not being able to run the ball and not being able to stop the run," Bettis said.
It did not work last season and it certainly did not work Sunday. Last year, the team that once led the NFL against the run tumbled to No. 26. Only five other defenses were worse.
Holmes has made a reputation running against the Steelers. He had 130 yards Dec. 12 in Three Rivers Stadium. He was one of five backs that topped 100 yards rushing against the Steelers in 1999. Three others had 90 to 98 yards.
So, Sunday merely continued a trend.
"I don't think we'll have any problem stopping the run," said linebacker Levon Kirkland. "Yesterday was one of those days where we weren't at our best, physically. We had guys injured and guys trying to tough it out."
Kirkland was one of those. He had a sprained right ankle, left the game, but then returned. Yesterday, he had a boot on the injured foot that he will wear all week. He will not practice and likely could not play this week if the Steelers did not have an open date. He hopes to play Sept. 17 in Cleveland.
Earl Holmes, next to Kirkland at inside linebacker, also had an ankle sprain, and the defensive line used various combinations because of a sprained ankle to Kendrick Clancy and exhaustion on the part of nose tackle Kimo von Oelhoffen.
"We have to stop the run in order for us to open up our defense, so to speak," said defensive end Kevin Henry, forced into service at nose tackle for the first time in his eight-year career.
"But we missed a lot of tackles; we didn't tackle well at all. That kind of had a lot to do with the extra yards they were getting. It was a long day for us, on both sides of the ball."
The Ravens ran 11 more plays than the Steelers and had the ball 10 minutes more.
Although he only ran nine times and caught one pass, Bettis looked and sounded weary yesterday, as if he were coming off a 30-carry day. Bettis had only 13 carries in the exhibition season because of a bruised knee.
"You know what, about four of those nine times I got hit square in the mouth," Bettis said of his play against the Ravens, who haven't allowed a 100-yard rusher in 18 games. "Another couple times they had a blitz coming in and [Rod] Woodson was diving on me.
"I caught the ball a couple times and got what-a-doozied a couple times. So, it's crazy. We knew it was gong to be a physical game. I don't know if I'm sore from the physicalness of the game or the knee actually hurting."
Bettis said until the Steelers pass better and until they make fewer mistakes, the running game and the offense will go nowhere.
"If they beat you physically, that's one thing. But when you're playing great defense that you can't make a mistake on, and you do make mistakes we made, you don't give yourself a chance at all.
"There were missed assignments, missed blocks. Those are things that killed us."
As Kirkland believes the Steelers can stop the run, Bettis believes they can run, despite their feeble attempt at it.
"For so many years, we've been a team that predominantly runs the football. I don't think it's a situation where we're losing our identity as it is teams are saying, we're going to take away your run and make you throw the football."
It's an old story -- defenses stacking against the run, blitzing to stop the run. They're doing a good job of it.
"I'm not saying we're going to be a fun-and-gun offense throwing the football," Bettis said. "But we're going to have to show we can throw the football and can hurt you throwing the football. Right now they know we can hurt them running the football, so they won't allow it."
Steelers' ground attack, run defense struggling mightily 
