It was easy for Baltimore to be on the minds of the Steelers. After all, they needed to get past one final test -- the New York Jets -- before their nationally televised showdown against the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens.
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Kicker Chris Brown didn't have much to celebrate, but this 38-yard field goal gave the Steelers a 15-7 lead in the fourth quarter. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) |
Not only would a victory against the Ravens effectively clinch the AFC Central Division title for the Steelers, a team that has won an AFC-best five games in a row. It would atone for one of two losses this season -- 13-10 debacle six weeks ago at Heinz Field.
That game was on the minds of a lot of the Steelers yesterday, none more than kicker Kris Brown. And not because that was the last time the Steelers lost a game.
That was a game the Steelers lost because Brown, an 86 percent kicker in his first two NFL seasons, had missed four field goals in a row, the last coming with 14 seconds left that would have forced overtime.
Here he was again, the Steelers clinging to a 12-7 lead, and Brown had already missed two field goals in a row and an extra point. And it was only the first half.
"The bottom line is, you got to believe in yourself," Brown said. "For the most part, it's just getting out there and going through your routine, regardless of what happens, and just trying to bounce back and fight and claw and do everything you can to get the job done."
Brown was able to take what he learned from his humbling performance against the Ravens and change the script against the Jets.
When he had the chance to help put the game away, he did, kicking a 38-yard field goal in the fourth quarter that did more than give the Steelers a 15-7 lead. It gave him a measure of restored confidence, a boost that helped him kick a 20-yarder -- the same distance he badly yanked an extra point -- with 2:17 left that sealed the 18-7 victory.
"You can say he stopped his own bleeding," said punter Josh Miller, Brown's holder. "He's lucky to have the opportunity to come back and do that. For him to come back and bang the next two was a character-builder."
In the end, the game summary will show that Brown kicked four field goals and boosted his season scoring total to 96 points, which will lift him to at least second place in the AFC.
But it will not accurately depict the trepidation the Steelers are now feeling when Brown, who has missed nine of his past 22 attempts, comes out to attempt a field goal.
"That's a concern. I'm not going to sugarcoat it," Coach Bill Cowher said. "We need him to be Mr. Dependable. I would like to think he's going to get that rectified. I know if the game is on the line, I think he'll be there. He made a big kick a couple times in there. It was on again, off again, and I'm just glad that this time it was on again. I don't know what to say. That's just something where he has to get that mind-set where he expects to make it every time that he steps out there because we're going to need him down the stretch. He's a big part of our football team. I'm totally behind him and I think he'll respond."
Certainly Brown did that against the Jets in a game that was beginning to look strangely similar to the loss Nov. 4 loss to Ravens. The Steelers did not have a turnover against the team that leads the NFL in takeaways at 33, held Curtis Martin, the league's leading rusher, to 58 yards on 18 carries, and converted 11 of 18 third-down opportunities without their best player, Jerome Bettis, in the lineup. What's more, they had limited the Jets to 46 offensive plays, including just eight in the fourth quarter.
And yet, until Brown converted a 38-yard field goal with 9:24 remaining, the outcome was still very much in doubt. Primarily because the Steelers, who lead the league in red-zone futility, only added to their misery with just one touchdown in five trips inside the 20.
"I don't know what to say," Brown said. "With the two I missed, I'm obviously disappointed. Those are two kicks that we have to have, and I expect to make. I was fortunate to get some other opportunities in the game, come back and redeem myself, so to speak. The bottom line is, there is no excuse anymore. We are right now in the season where I cannot go out and have games like this. We are lucky. We are very lucky. From now on, it's going to be time to buckle it up and get ready to go because now is the time of year when you have to be able to go out and put points on the board."
Brown did that in the first half when he kicked 26- and 33-yard field goals. But those were overshadowed when he badly pulled an extra point after a 1-yard touchdown by Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala and missed weakly to the right on a 44-yard field-goal attempt near the end of the third quarter.
It has become a recurring theme at Heinz Field, where Brown has converted just 12 of 20 field goal attempts and opponents have made just three of eight this season. Combined, that's a success rate of 53.5 percent at the first-year facility.
"There are no excuses," Brown said. "This is where we play. My job is to go out there and put points on the board. I need to start doing that."
Until that point, about the only thing Brown had done right was drill a squib kick right into the ankle of Jets linebacker James Darling with 32 seconds remaining. But even that ended in disaster when Brown yanked a 40-yard field goal with 17 seconds remaining that would have boosted the halftime margin to 15-7.
"You can't really tell him anything he doesn't know," Miller said. "You just got to remind him he's the same cat who hit 86 percent the last two years and the same cat who hit one from 55 yards [earlier this season]. You just got to remind him, 'Hey, you're no different than you were before. Nothing happened. You didn't get an operation. You're the same kid. You got to knock it out of your head.' As a kicker, you're only as good as your next kick, not your last one."
That's what concerns the Steelers.
Play of the Game: Brown's 38-yard field goal 
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