The Baltimore Ravens could envision the headlines hours before newspapers were going to press.
"Oh, yeah, I can see it now: 'Kicker missed field goals,' 'Baltimore got lucky,' 'Baltimore scraped one out,' " cornerback Chris McAlister said. "I don't care. Anyone can say what they want to about it. We won."
That much was evident on the Heinz Field scoreboard yesterday, the Ravens having edged the Steelers, 13-10. But no less obvious was the significant role played by Steelers kicker Kris Brown, who failed to convert four field-goal attempts, one blocked and three wide right.
The Ravens recognized this, naturally, but that didn't mean they didn't want partial credit for having rattled Brown.
The way they saw it, that began late in the second quarter, just after the Steelers scored their lone touchdown. Brown had missed a 41-yard try a few minutes earlier, and Baltimore was eager to pressure him again on the extra point. Cornerback Rod Woodson was able to knife through the line and get one hand on the ball to deflect it slightly, but the kick was good.
"Right through my fingers," Woodson said.
Brown's next attempt came midway through the third quarter, this time from 33. McAlister had a good idea that, because of what had happened the previous time, Steelers tight end Mark Bruener would focus more on Woodson than him.
"They had to adjust," McAlister said. "They couldn't come out and block me and get Rod at the same time. So, on this one, I got out of there just as hard as I did on the first one, and Bruener collapsed down on Rod."
With that, McAlister collapsed on Brown, his left elbow striking Brown's knee on his kicking leg. He tipped the ball, and it fell 10 yards shy of the goal post.
From there, the Ravens felt they had Brown spooked.
"When you block one, you create doubt, maybe a little bit of hesitancy," Coach Brian Billick said. "We almost got that extra point, too, so I think that makes you think a little bit. How much it affected him, I don't know."
The players seemed a bit more certain of that.
"If he even thinks I'm coming off that corner -- which I always am, with Rod in the middle -- he's going to keep thinking about that collision," McAlister said. "Maybe it'll only be for a second, but he's going to be worried about it."
"I don't know if what we did shook him up or what, but it put a little pressure on him," Woodson said. "Then, after the block, we started coming at him from the other side, and he started hanging them wide right for us. Lucky for us."
Brown muffed another kick, from 48 yards, with 4:32 left in the fourth quarter. And he had a final shot at redemption, from 35 yards, that would have tied the score with eight seconds left.
Billick called a timeout to freeze Brown, but he said that had nothing to do with having seen Brown struggle to that point.
"You just do it. Somewhere in the coaching handbook it says you've got to call a timeout before the other guy tries to kick a late field goal."
By the time the Steelers lined up, Baltimore tight end Shannon Sharpe said, he wasn't exactly fretting that the game was headed to overtime.
"No. The wind was going across. He would have had to start it out way to his left and hope for the wind to blow it back in. He was missing them all day. I wasn't even worried. I mean, I rolled both of my socks down, had my gloves off ... that's how confident I was he was going to miss that field goal."
Sharpe was right, and Brown was wide right.
The closest Brown came to sympathy from the Ravens' locker room was, predictably, from his counterpart, Matt Stover.
Stover was perfect, connecting on an extra-point attempt and field goals of 25 and 39 yards. But that didn't mean he didn't have difficulty with the elements, too, notably the east-to-west wind.
"Pretty brisk," Stover said. "This field is soft, too, and that didn't help. It was tough out there."
Tougher by far, he added, at the open end of Heinz Field facing the city. All three of Brown's misses came at that end.
"I'll tell you, that wind is really coming through there hard, and it's a hard left-to-right for a right-footed kicker like Kris," Stover said. "He has a natural tendency to keep the ball right, anyway, and ... well, it was just one of those days where it didn't go in for him."
Stover, who extended his NFL record of consecutive games with a field goal to 34, was asked if he could recall experiencing something similarly distasteful.
"I haven't had four, but I've had a few. When it happens, you've got to keep the trust in your ability, don't panic. He's a good kicker. I've seen his form. He's done a good job for the Steelers, and I know he'll bounce back. You learn from mistakes and don't make them again. It's a roller coaster of a career, man, I can tell you that."
Ravens had a hand in rattling Brown 
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