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Tuesday, September 11, 2001

"We all stunk."

Jerome Bettis couldn't have been more succinct, more indelicate, more accurate. He couldn't have spat out a better synopsis even if the handful of ink-stained (and byte-marked) wretches had cut up pages of a Webster's and manually inserted them into his mouth. The Bus dropped the dime on teammates and stopped on it Monday.

We asked: Who was at fault for an aromatic 21-3 loss at Jacksonville the day before?

He asked back: Who wasn't?

"I can't give you a name," Bettis said from an empty Steelers locker room Monday, standing in front of his cubicle, standing up. "I can give you all 11 [on offense]."

Forget finger-pointing, because Bettis didn't have enough digits -- hands or feet -- for the offense and defense. Heck, lump the entire Steelers' roster and coaching staff into this malodorous pile. Blame rested uneasily with each and every one of this stinking bunch.

The special teams allowed their punter to get clobbered and Jacksonville punt returners to complete forward fumbles for longer gains. The defense received bad coverage from its secondary and linebackers, not to mention a negligible pass rush from anyone up front. The offense failed to run, failed to pass, failed to hide, forgetting to remember snap counts and left from right and how to put one foot in front of the other (Bettis admits to that trip). The coaches called for too many short pass plays and too many safety-cornerback blitzes against perhaps the biggest and best left offensive tackle in the land, Tony Boselli. The personnel geniuses deactivated free-agent inside linebacker Mike Jones on a day when raw rookie starter Kendrell Bell exited early with a sprained right ankle and the next available athlete was special-teams ace John Fiala, most notable for his No. 57 jersey's appearance in those Heinz commercials for the new field.

And, while we're at it, the towel guys didn't have enough dry ones.

They all reeked.

Even beyond that fetid Jacksonville paper mill.

The best theater Monday was watching Bettis re-enact the horror films that the Steelers watched in the afternoon. No television cameras were there to capture it, so I'll try to paint a word picture. Bettis' version of the crowd reaction went something like this:

Oh. Ugh. Man.

Grimace. Groan.

Both hands clasped to his nose, eyes closed.

Mmmmnn, mmmmmnn.

On nearly every play, somebody did something stupid or inexplicable. Bettis tripped over his own feet. Another back took a step in the wrong direction on a pitch play, and it was the first step, which sort of trashed the play from there. Tackle Marvel Smith twice slipped and fell on the rain-soaked grass, once giving up a sack. Tight end Jerame Tuman jumped offside upon hearing the first sound from quarterback Kordell Stewart, seconds after hearing a snap count that went much deeper. And receivers were unable to corral passes that, pesky suckers, hit them right in the hands.

And this was the film from the first half.

"I know I let one get away from me that could have gotten the whole thing started," receiver Plaxico Burress said later Monday. He was talking about the Steelers' fifth play from scrimmage, a dandy Stewart pass about 20 yards down the left sideline, where Burress leaped over a Jaguars defender on whom he owned a half-foot advantage, yet he barely slowed the football's flight. "That could have been the play that got everything going. I just let the offense down."

Not to pick on the offense here. Because just about everyone else was a prime offender Sunday. Rather, the offense was indicative of the Steelers' stench. The talk-show whiners will attempt to lay this loss on Stewart, who, truth be told, probably graded out among the unit's best Sunday despite neglecting to see a few open receivers and heaving some errant passes and getting little help from his line or receivers.

Worse yet, it wasn't even attributable to new additions to the Mike Mularkey offense. The Steelers' tragicomedy of errors came on plays that Bettis and the fellas have practiced only since Latrobe in late July, if not years longer.

"Not [stupid errors] on your base plays," Bettis said, shaking his head. "Not on plays you run every single play. We're going to run these plays against everybody we play. And if you're making mistakes, I mean, we don't have a chance. Very surprising that we made as many mistakes as we did. Very surprising."

Very unsettling, too. The myriad of mistakes came on offense, on defense, on special teams, on the sideline and in the coaches' booth. They came from old heads and burrheads. Why was everyone at fault? Why was the season opener, into which so much positive Pittsburgh karma seemed pointed, such a raunchy road trip in the end?

"I have no clue. No clue," Bettis said. "We're all veterans. It wasn't like the young guys making mistakes. It was the veteran guys."

So if the whole stinking bunch doesn't come out sparkling Sunday -- on to a roiling Heinz Field, on an ESPN-televised Sunday night, in the Steelers' regular-season Mustard Bowl debut -- and whip Cleveland, we will be left with a clue about how the rest of their season will turn.

Rancid.

You smelled it here first.

In addition to The Big Picture, Chuck Finder writes a general-sports column exclusive to the http://www.post-gazette.com/ every Tuesday. He can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com