If Kordell Stewart were a pitcher, he would have been Rick Ankiel Sunday. He could not throw the ball for strikes.
He was the Wild Thing in "Major League." He was Steve Blass in 1973. He was Steve Sax and Chuck Knoblauch trying to throw to first base.
The reason Stewart was able to complete 68 percent of his passes against the Bills was Hines Ward, who performed as if he were double-jointed. Remember Franco Harris catching the Immaculate Reception at his shoe tops? That was how Ward caught many of his nine passes in Buffalo.
"I had to make some hard catches yesterday," Ward said, laughing.
"Oh, man. I told him, you're killing me, Kordell."
Ward could laugh because in the two Steelers games in which there was little passing attack, he was virtually the entire passing attack. He has 16 receptions. He also could laugh because the Steelers won, 20-3, to even their record at 1-1.
But how much longer can they go with a passing game that looked as if it were a beanbag toss?
"With three weeks off, you could see some rust," Ward said.
That called for some good body men for help and that is what they got from their offensive line and running backs Jerome Bettis, Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala and Amos Zereoue. Somehow, the Steelers got 170 yards rushing without a threat of a pass. But how long can they continue to do that as teams jam eight and nine players around the line of scrimmage to stop the run and dare them to pass?
"Kordell has to throw it a little better," Ward said. "He knows that. We're going to keep working at it. ... We have a long ways to go in the passing game."
The Steelers haven't been going a long way, though. They have been dinking and dunking -- Ward called the passing game the Rink-a-Dink Sunday. The team has 288 yards passing in its first two games. Receivers have averaged only 8 yards per catch and Stewart has averaged only 4.88 yards per attempt. As a comparison, they averaged 5.5 yards per run in Buffalo.
Teams are daring them to pass, and they cannot do it, not short, not long, not anywhere.
"They were really trying to force us to throw the ball," offensive tackle Wayne Gandy said. "Fortunately, we were still able to get 5- and 4-yard runs."
But the Steelers will not abandon the passing game or stop trying to go deep even though they've been unsuccessful. Coach Bill Cowher told his team yesterday that if at first they do not succeed going deep, they will try, try and try again.
"Coach said it best today -- whether it's working or not working, you still have to make them feel like you're going to throw the ball downfield," Gandy said. "Throw it, regardless whether you complete it or not. They still have to honor it.
"Sometimes, especially in my first two years here, we'd just kind of give up on it."
That was not the case Sunday. They tried to throw deep but were unable to complete any. Stewart had Plaxico Burress wide open in the end zone for what would have been a 20-yard touchdown but he bounced the ball to him.
"That's something we can't afford to do, especially against good teams," Ward said.
Yesterday, Stewart accepted the blame for that and said he made the mistake of trying to aim the ball when he saw Burress open even before the defensive back fell down.
"I was trying to throw it to a certain area, trying to aim it and it was short and wide and Plaxico never really had a chance," Stewart said.
"I didn't throw the ball that well in the last game. There were a couple throws I wish I had back."
He threw no interceptions, although one pass bounced off a linebacker's hands.
Burress said it was not all Stewart's fault. He admitted to dropping one and said he was getting open for a touchdown on another when he was tackled for pass interference.
"If it ain't one thing, it's another," he said.
Gandy said it's right there for the taking, that teams are giving them so much room to run slants it's mouthwatering.
"All you need is for somebody to catch the slants, break a tackle," Gandy said.
And somebody to throw them.
"There's really no reason to panic about anything," Stewart said. "We're 1-1 and it's early in the season. I'm not going to panic. The passing game is going to get where it used to be."
Steelers' passing still off target 
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