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Tuesday, January 01, 2002

Oh, to have a nickel for every time someone said at a party last night, "I told you Kordell couldn't play! " It would be nice to start the New Year as a rich man.

It certainly seems as if a lot of people around here were waiting for Kordell Stewart to fail. It doesn't matter that he has had a terrific season, that he has won the Dapper Dan Sportsman of the Year Award, that he should win the Steelers' Most Valuable Player Award when it's announced tomorrow and that he will be a finalist for the NFL MVP Award. He's still Kordell. He still can't throw accurately. He's still going to throw interceptions. And he's still going to get you beat and break your heart.

Or so they were all too eager to tell you over the champagne as 2001 turned into 2002.

Easy, folks.

"Don't put a trend to something that's just a one-game thing," Bill Cowher said yesterday.

That seems like especially sound advice when it comes to Stewart.

No, he didn't have one of his better games in the stunning 26-23 overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday. There's no getting around his four interceptions, the most he has thrown in any game. The third one was particularly galling. The Steelers led, 23-10, with 4:01 left when Stewart tried a simple middle screen pass to Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala on third-and-11 from their 49. It was almost unbelievable that he failed to get the ball over defensive end Reinard Wilson, who deflected it and enabled teammate Justin Smith to make the interception that gave the Bengals a chance.

But there's no reason to think that pass or this loss is the beginning of the end for Stewart.

For a long time Sunday, it looked as if he was going to have another big game. He gave the Steelers a 14-0 lead by throwing touchdowns passes of 42 and 28 yards to Plaxico Burress. He gave them that 23-10 lead by throwing a screen pass that Fuamatu-Ma'afala turned into a 37-yard touchdown.

At that point, in his previous 15 quarters, all without Jerome Bettis, Stewart had completed 73 of 118 passes for 1,003 yards, eight touchdowns and no interceptions. He was in no danger of being in anyone's New Year's Eve conversation other than, of course, "Can you believe Kordell is doing what he's doing?"

Then, the interceptions started.

No. 1 -- Stewart's first in 133 passes going back to the game against the Minnesota Vikings a month ago -- came when Burress appeared to give up on a pass down the middle. The second didn't look like a good throw, but Cowher fingered Hines Ward for running the route "a little short." The last one was a desperation heave at the end of regulation.

Stewart did bounce a few passes. Now, that looked like the Same Old Kordell. He also threw one horrible, off-balance pass early in the game that seemed to hang forever and should have been intercepted. Ward saved him by coming back to make a 30-yard catch.

But bad passes and even interceptions are going to happen, especially in frigid, windy weather. Have you noticed the St. Louis Rams' Kurt Warner has thrown 19 interceptions this season? And he plays mostly in a domed stadium.

This game won't shatter Stewart's confidence.

"I'm not concerned about him at all," Cowher said.

A big problem with Stewart's performance Sunday was that the Steelers were cautious with him. There were no quarterback draws and Statue of Liberty plays that they had used effectively all season. There were precious few rollouts that gave him the option to pass or run. He came in averaging 6.6 runs for 35.6 yards per game and had scored five touchdowns. He didn't have a single run against the Bengals.

"Happenstance," Cowher said.

It's much more likely Cowher and Mike Mularkey didn't want to put Stewart in positions to take unnecessary hits. There's nothing wrong with that. If he goes down with an injury, their season goes up in smoke. But he will run in the postseason. He has to run. He's a much better quarterback when he's on the move. The Steelers are a much better team.

The pressure always is on the quarterback in the playoffs, but that especially will be true of Stewart this season. No doubt you were reminded at some point in the party talk last night that he failed badly in his previous postseason game. He threw three interceptions -- two in the end zone -- in the 24-21 home loss to the Denver Broncos in the 1997 AFC championship game.

Stewart has had to live with that game for a long time.

He and Barry Bonds could have some conversation.

Could it happen again? Sure, it could. But nothing that's happened this season indicates it will.

Not even anything that happened Sunday.

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