He must wait more than two months, but linebacker Earl Holmes is eager to get his return shot at the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Jaguars credited Holmes with firing them up by taking a cheap shot at wide receiver Keenan McCardell with the Steelers holding a 3-0 lead in the second quarter Sunday in Jacksonville.
Holmes hit McCardell after a pass play away from the ball and the two got into a scuffle. Jacksonville tackle Tony Boselli was flagged for a 15-yard penalty when he then retaliated and hit Holmes in the back.
On the next play, quarterback Mark Brunell hit Jimmy Smith wide open in the end zone for a 34-yard touchdown pass, the first of three in a row that sent the Jaguars to a 21-3 victory.
The Jaguars thanked Holmes for it all.
"That play sparked me and it sparked the whole team," Smith said in the Florida Times-Union yesterday.
Said McCardell: "They come in and try to be the bully. Either you're going to get pushed around or you're going to do the pushing."
You haven't seen anything yet, Holmes replied after the Steelers concluded their postmortem meetings yesterday.
"Next time, when they come to Pittsburgh, I'm going to fire them up again, but it's going to be a different outcome."
The Jaguars also accused Holmes of telling Brunell that the Steelers were going to take him out Sunday.
"They're out there talking the whole game saying what they're going to do, who they're going to take out," Boselli told the Times-Union. "What are we supposed to do, say, 'Please stop?'"
Holmes said it wasn't as bad as Boselli painted it.
"I remember Brunell and Joey Porter were talking. I wasn't really yacking what I was going to do to the quarterback. I just told him to protect himself. I mean, we're coming today. It wasn't nothing like 'I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.' We're coming today.
"That's fine. If they say I fired them up, so be it. But they have to come up to Pittsburgh."
The Jaguars will play at Heinz Field Nov. 18.
Sparks fly as Jaguars credit Holmes for win 
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