BALTIMORE Compared to the Baltimore Ravens, who didn't score a touchdown during the month of October, the Steelers probably look like the St. Louis Rams. And they've scored just three touchdowns in the past three games.
The Ravens haven't crossed the goal line since the Orioles were still playing across the parking lot in Camden Yards, since the leaves were still green, since the Steelers were 0-3 and looking as if their season was over.
And they weren't going to come any easier against the Steelers, who hadn't yielded a touchdown in their past three games and were coming off back-to-back shutouts for the first time since the Super Bowl days of 1976.
Same was true for the Steelers.
They had produced just one touchdown in each of their previous two games and also were switching to a new starting quarterback in an attempt to jump-start some life into a moribund offense. And they were facing a Ravens' defense that had shut them out in the first meeting and was ranked No. 1 in the AFC.
"None of us were really scoring a lot of points," tight end Mark Bruener said. "A game like this, every play matters. Getting in the end zone is vital because you never know if you're going to get back there again."
Yesterday, only one player visited the end zone in PSINet Stadium. His name was Hines Ward, and he made the only play that really mattered in the Steelers' 9-6 victory against the Ravens.
It came in the third quarter, and it was a 45-yard touchdown pass from Kordell Stewart, the only time he threw deep against the Ravens. The play worked just as the Steelers had hoped, too -- with Ward running a lazy comeback route in an attempt to suck in cornerback Duane Starks, then quickly turning and heading downfield. It is known as a double move, and Starks bit on the play.
"We knew their cornerbacks were vulnerable to biting on double moves," Bruener said.
Sure, Kris Brown missed the extra point, the first time he has done that since his first NFL game in Cleveland. But he atoned for that one series later, when safety Scott Shields recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, with a 24-yard field goal.
On this day, against this team, no more points would be necessary.
About the only way the Ravens will get someone in the end zone, it appears, is if Donald Kroner, the man who crashed his plane into the upper deck at Memorial Stadium in 1976, tries it again.
"We knew it was going to be pretty hard to score a touchdown," Stewart said. "So we had to catch them when they were falling asleep."
"It was something we thought we could do today," Coach Bill Cowher said. "We tried to stretch them."
The Steelers did little else right against the Ravens. Jerome Bettis, who had three 100-yard rushing games in a row, was held to 65 yards on 18 carries. And Stewart, who is 6-0 lifetime against the Ravens and 3-0 as a starter this year, completed 9 of 18 passes for 133 yards.
But Ward, who has two of the team's three touchdown receptions this season, quickly turned the game around with just less than 10 minutes remaining in the third quarter. When he wrested the ball away from Starks, he also allowed the Steelers to wrest second place in the AFC Central Division away from the Ravens.
"He made a great play," Starks said. "I got a hand on the ball; he just got both hands on the ball. He had a good grip on the ball."
Here was the situation:
The Steelers, trailing, 6-0, had taken possession at their 41 after a 41-yard punt by Baltimore's Kyle Richardson. On first down, Bettis had his longest run of the day, going 14 yards to the Ravens' 45. Now came the key moment.
The Steelers had noticed that each of the Ravens' cornerbacks, Starks and Chris McAlister, who is also a former No. 1 draft pick, liked to play aggressively in man coverage. The corners could afford to do this because the Ravens generate a lot of pressure with their front seven and quarterbacks don't have a lot of time to wait for their receivers to come open.
"We never had time to try and make some of those plays," Ward said. "They had a good pass rush."
This time, though, Stewart bought himself enough time by faking a handoff to Bettis in what appeared to be a run formation -- the Steelers had two tight ends in the game -- and rolling to the right. When Ward started running what appeared to be a comeback route, Starks took the fake and started coming back with him.
"I ran the route kind of lazy," Ward said. "I was inviting him to bite on it."
When he did, Ward quickly turned and took off. Starks slipped, leaving Ward wide open down the right sideline. Starks said he thought the Steelers were running a play he had studied on film.
"If they run the play I saw on film all week, I'd have had a better bead on him," Starks said. "But they did something different."
The double move.
But, because Stewart was throwing into the wind, his pass hung in the air longer than normal, allowing Starks to recover. But Ward still made the play, taking the ball away from him at the Ravens' 5 and walking into the end zone with the day's only touchdown.
"Maybe it was an ugly win," Ward said. "But we're going to take it."
Just like a touchdown.
Steelers' 'double move' lands a win 
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