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Tuesday, November 28, 2000

Kordell Stewart caught a little of the infamous spittle Sunday in Cincinnati. Earl Holmes faced the coach's similarly wet wrath.

The jaw flapped.

The finger pointed.

The words blew like horizontal rain.

Yes, Bill Cowher is saliva and well.

What do you mean, you don't see the same emotion from the Steelers' coach anymore?

"Sometimes he'll yell at guys, sometimes guys yell back at him," Stewart said Monday of the sideline social captured by CBS cameras before halftime, the gesticulating coach and the frustrated quarterback. "A lot of things were going on, and he asked me a question. It was nothing like [the public spat at] Tampa Bay two years ago. But sometimes TV can lie. He's still being Bill Cowher the way I knew him when I got here. He's never going to change."

"I've seen the same Coach Cowher," Holmes added with a smirk. The coach yanked this same linebacker amid a rocky showing by the run defense in the eventual 48-21 Steelers triumph. Of that one-on-one discussion, Holmes continued: "It was OK. Coach Cowher wants to win just as much as I do. When he says something, of course you listen. A great communicator. A great motivator. You want a coach out there like that. When you do something good, he pats your back. When you don't, he's on your butt."

The coach needs to ride some ample Steelers posteriors this week. He needs to slap a few wide shoulders. The Oakland Raiders invade Three Rivers Stadium Sunday, a team vying for home-field advantage clear through to the AFC championship game, a team owning the best record in the NFL alongside Minnesota at 10-2.

Coach Glower's club returns home with a one-game winning streak and fleeting playoff hopes. The Steelers are 6-6 in a conference where 10 victories still might not get your postseason ticket punched. They are in desperate need of a Three Rivers victory. They are, worse still, losers in back-to-back home games, four of six this season and 12 of their past 16. Home used to mean a field advantage, an opponent's noisy and intimidating trespass into Steelers country, rather than a gracious invitation into some sort of Three Rivers Club --it's a cozy place, warm and friendly, but just steer clear of Stewart when the boo-birds begin circling: Three forks.

If ever the Steelers needed a coach noted for motivation, if ever there came a moment in the past three seasons' slide that the situation cried for an emotional hoist, the time is now.

It's Cowher's hour.

Sixty minutes Sunday against the Raiders.

Center Dermontti Dawson notices a small irony in this collision between the two long-ago rivals, the two former defensive pillars of the NFL. Jon Gruden, once a Pitt assistant under Paul Hackett, is Oakland's firebrand coach. He is the league's new poster boy for sideline emotion. Feel his power, baby.

"I kind of see a little Coach Cowher in him," said Dawson, out with a hamstring injury. "He gets into the game.

"But Coach Cowher? That was the thing at the start of training camp, people talking about him. Coach has not lost his fire at all. Sometimes you guys don't see it. Maybe it's because he doesn't do as much on the sidelines as he used to."

A year ago, the Glower was gone. It was mostly pursed lips and looks of frustration. Lack of discipline ruled. Steelers getting ejected and arguing with officials, constantly jumping offside and raising jersies to reveal Superman T-shirts. Taken separately, they weren't heinous crimes. Lumped together, they smacked of laissez faire leadership -- and it didn't help that Cowher looked the part.

Earlier this season, against Cincinnati, the coach so publicly berated his Steelers offense along the bench early, the first few Three Rivers rows behind them stood and applauded.

Fans and media don't catch it, but linebacker Levon Kirkland claims the same old spittle has been flying.

"This year, he's done an excellent job," Kirkland added. "We've taken different directions as far as practices, how we stretch. Wednesdays, man, it's a big-time struggle. There's more hitting. You're giving your all. We've been doing that the last couple of weeks. And we've been preparing better, watching films more. It has been a big change, actually. I think it's paying off. Unfortunately for us this year, we've been in a lot of close games, and we haven't come out on the good end."

There is something to be said for a coach instilling confidence, creating a groundswell, that raises a team to prevail in the end. You surely cannot say that about the last-minute losses at Cleveland and at home to Tennessee and Philadelphia.

Go ahead and chirp about bungled officiating in those games, but coaching and confidence can overcome that, too. Certainly, the Cleveland game shouldn't have reached the juncture where bad officiating interceded on already lacking Steelers clock management. As one NFL offensive coordinator wondered later, "They ran on first down?"

Cowher talks often about overcoming adversity, about maintaining perspective.

Heck, he talks often about a lot of things.

This is the week to find out if the Steelers listen, if the Steelers obey.

"I've been around awhile," began Dawson, a 13-year veteran, "but still I get spurred up when he talks about certain things. The things he says, they're true. You just have to believe it. Over 16 weeks, though, there's not a whole lot of different things he can say. You just have to believe what he's telling you."

If they don't believe this week, the New York Giants and Washington Redskins will use the Steelers as their postseason entrance ramp the following two weeks, and the three-year slide will reach four.

It's Cowher's hour. Time to make spit happen.