In the aftermath of what transpired yesterday at Heinz Field, when the Steelers had their five-game winning streak snapped by a team that managed just 183 yards, Coach Bill Cowher was not about to misfire on what he considered the most damaging element of a 13-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
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Holder Josh Miller, above, watches kicker Kris Brown's field-goal attempt fall well short after Brown is hit hard by Ravens cornerback Chris McAlister in the third quarter yesterday. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) |
He had just watched his kicker, Kris Brown, miss four field goals, any one of which would have forced overtime. What's more, he saw Brown have a 33-yard field goal that would have given his team a 13-7 lead get partially blocked -- the third time in seven games the Steelers have had some type of kicked blocked or altered.
On top of all that, he watched Ravens returner Jermaine Lewis, one of the best in the NFL, set up Baltimore's only touchdown with a 53-yard kickoff return. That Lewis also returned three punts for 39 yards only added to the frustration, to the anger, that was building inside Mount St. Cowher.
So when Cowher was asked about the failures in his postgame news conference -- "Were you happy with your special teams?" -- he didn't need a lot of time to line up the answer.
Nor was he wide right with the response.
"I was not happy with them at all today," Cowher said, firing off one of those jaw-jutting glares that scare dogs. "We had too many breakdowns."
None, though, bigger than the one at the start of the third quarter of this AFC Central Division slugfest.
To be sure, it would take a team of trained psychiatrists to determine if Brown's missed 35-yard field-goal attempt with :08 left -- his fourth consecutive miss -- could be directly attributable to the 33-yarder deflected by cornerback Chris McAlister early in the third quarter.
On the play, Brown bruised his kicking knee when his right leg hit McAlister's left elbow as the third-year cornerback was diving through the air. But the damage to Brown's leg might not have been nearly as severe as the damage to his psyche.
Brown missed two more field-goal attempts after that -- "I look at him and I didn't think it would affect him and I didn't think it did, to be honest with you," Cowher said -- but the damage had been done.
After going on a 15-play drive in which they went from their 23 to the Ravens' 15 to start the second half, the Steelers squandered an opportunity to take a six-point lead on the defending Super Bowl champions. In a game featuring the Nos. 1 and 2 defenses in the NFL, such a margin would constitute a cushion the size of one of those ketchup bottles above the scoreboard.
In the end, it didn't matter that the Steelers had outgained the Ravens, 348 yards to 183, or had 21 first downs to the Ravens' 10. Or that the Steelers held the Ravens to 41 yards rushing on 26 attempts and sacked quarterback Randall Cunningham three times.
What really mattered is that McAlister, a former No. 1 draft pick, came untouched from the left side and deflected enough of Brown's kick to keep it from reaching the goal post. The player he went around was tight end Mark Bruener, who was overcompensating to the inside to make sure Woodson, who lines up to McAlister's right, did not come free up the middle.
"He almost blocked the first one," Bruener said of Woodson. "It's something we had to be aware of."
Bruener is the last line of defense on the right side. If someone comes clean from his side, there is not another blocker to pick him up.
That's what McAlister did.
"We just didn't get out there," Cowher said. "Mark overcompensated because the first time Rod jumped."
Asked if he detected what the Steelers' problem was on the play, McAlister said: "They didn't touch me. That was the problem right there."
Make no mistake, the block ultimately shaped what would transpire in the final moments of the fourth quarter, when Brown missed two field goals in the final 4:22. But it was Cowher's comment about the poor play of the special teams that illustrated one of the lingering problems for a team that still carries the division lead to Cleveland Sunday.
As for Brown, who has missed five of his past eight attempts?
"He'll bounce back," said punter Josh Miller, Brown's holder. "He's won two games for us already this year. We'd be 3-5 if it wasn't for him."
Play of the Game: Cause and deflect 
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