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Monday, October 15, 2001

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Somehow, it seemed appropriate the game came down to one final running play. Make 3 yards and win. Come up short and face the very real possibility of overtime or even defeat.

Three yards.

It must have seemed like a mile yesterday to Steelers offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey during the two-minute warning. The Steelers led the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-17, and had the ball on their 27. The Chiefs were out of timeouts. Everybody in the house knew a running play was coming. That's what the Steelers do best.

But what running play?

Mularkey's first thought was a quick pitch to Amos Zereoue. Spread the field by lining up two receivers to the left and two to the right. Put Kordell Stewart in the shotgun. Let the Chiefs think a quarterback draw was coming. Get the ball to Zereoue outside.

The Steelers ran the play a few times to the left. Mularkey decided to go right this time, not so much to fool the Chiefs, but to take advantage of his best blocking receiver.

"Hines Ward really crunched the guy," Bill Cowher said later.

Defensive end Eric Hicks.

"I knocked him all the way past the center," Ward said, grinning.

Zereoue saw the block and quickly cut upfield. He got the 3 yards and 7 more. The Steelers got a huge road win.

"As wide receivers, we'd love to have better stats," Ward said. "But this team is going to run the football. We're not the St. Louis Rams. We're the Pittsburgh Steelers."

Make that the first-place Steelers.

There are different ways to do it in the NFL. The Rams win with that high-tech pass offense. It's no wonder Ward is envious at times. The Steelers are winning by playing power football, by asking their big linemen to knock defenders backward and by giving the ball to Jerome Bettis and, increasingly, Zereoue.

"It might not be majestic to look at," Cowher said, "but it's effective."

Effective will do.

It's the right plan for the Steelers, the right plan for any team, really, that must play outdoors in November and December. Beyond that, the players love it. They love being known as a physical football team. Who wouldn't in their brutal, macho world? They love not just beating teams, but beating them up.

"It starts the week before the game, actually," Wayne Gandy said. "Teams see the tape. They know we're coming."

Still, the Chiefs couldn't stop the Steelers. That's amazing, isn't it? The Chiefs knew what was coming, yet they couldn't stop it. Like the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills before them, they couldn't stop the run.

It was Zereoue at the end.

"I like the change of pace he gives us," Cowher said. "He's just matured so much. He probably had a hard time accepting his role at first. But he's worked so hard. When people apply themselves like he has, you reward them accordingly."

For most of the game, it was Bettis. The Chiefs stopped him early, holding him to 31 yards on his first 10 carries. But Mularkey kept calling his plays. Bettis kept banging away. Eventually, the Chiefs broke.

"Look at it this way," Gandy said. "You're a 190- or 200-pound safety or cornerback and you have this 260-pound giant coming at you full speed. You might come up to tackle him once. You might even come up a second time. But by that third time, you're trying to bring him down from the side instead of head-on. That's when he turns those 2- or 5-yard gains into 12 or 15 yards."

Bettis' final nine carries produced 81 yards. His 112-yard total made it three consecutive 100-yard games for him. Three holding penalties cost him 26 yards. And who knows how many more he would have had if Zereoue hadn't had eight carries?

"That doesn't bother me at all," Bettis said. "I'm not one of those guys who wants all the carries. I love that Amos is playing. He helps us as a team and helps me personally. I'm not as young as I used to be. I need to take some blows. That kept me fresh in the fourth quarter."

Add Stewart's 47 yards and the Steelers finished with 203 rushing yards. They averaged an astonishing 5.8 yards per carry. There is not a better running team in the NFL.

It has taken the Steelers to high places, all the way to the top of the AFC Central standings, a place from where the view can be described with only one word.

Majestic.

Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com.