CINCINNATI -- Take one inspirational movie clip and one uninspired opponent, mix them together and the magic just oozed out of the Steelers yesterday.
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Nose tackle Casey Hampton rumbles 36 yards with a fumble recovery before being pulled down by Bengals running back Corey Dillon yesterday. Hampton's play set up a touchdown by the Steelers. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette photos) |
Coach Bill Cowher pulled a Hollywood stunt Saturday night that left his players shouting to the Hyatt Hotel rooftop. Then they went out and kicked around everyone's pet, the winless Cincinnati Bengals, 34-7.
Just like that and the Steelers are back in first place in their division. They're not back to even yet, but their 2-3 record is good enough for a tie with Baltimore for first place in the AFC North after the Ravens and Browns lost yesterday.
"That is the reality of it," said Cecil B. Cowher.
Cowher was inspired by, of all things, the news media after he snapped at reporters last Wednesday for asking a simple question. He felt badly about it afterward, then decided that he was angry about losing and he wasn't going to take it anymore.
He ordered an assistant to rent the 1976 movie, "Network." Saturday night, to close his team meeting, he told his players to play angry. Then, for the first time as a head coach, he showed a clip from the movie where actor Peter Finch shouts out a window, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Players started shouting the words themselves and, "If we had windows in that meeting room everyone would have been yelling out the windows," tight end Mark Bruener said.
It may also have had something to do with the winless Bengals (0-6), but the Steelers played their best game of the season. Jerome Bettis, who suddenly looks a step faster, had his first 100-yard game since last Nov. 11, and ran for two touchdowns, including one for 41 yards as the Steelers displayed their running game with 211 yards.
Rookie Antwaan Randle (Sensation) El returned a 99-yard kickoff for a touchdown, the team's longest in 33 years. Plaxico Burress caught a career-high 8 receptions for 149 yards. Casey Hampton, a 330-pound nose tackle, returned a fumble 36 yards, running with the ball for the first time since he was a high school fullback. Even fullback Dan Kreider got into the spirit of things, catching his first NFL touchdown pass and scoring for only the second time in his career.
Safety Lee Flowers, who often sounds like Peter Finch shouting from a window, matched his career total with two interceptions. Defensive end Rodney Bailey had 2 1/2 sacks and linebacker Joey Porter tacked on two more as the defense, stung by a poor start to the season, responded as if it were 2001.
And quarterback Tommy Maddox, throwing for 216 yards, picked up his first NFL victory as a starter.
"Today is just what we did last year," said Hines Ward. "We were able to run and throw the ball."
Said Flowers, "That's the team, hopefully, you guys will see the next couple of weeks. I thought our offense played really well. We established our identity. We're a running football team. If you pass the ball pretty well, you're going to open up the run."
The Steelers did virtually everything well yesterday and made it look easy against Cincinnati, where the media have put a watch on the job of Coach Dick LeBeau as the Bengals head into their bye week.
"We're the laughingstock of the league," said Bengals fullback Lorenzo Neal. "It's embarrassing. It's a disgrace."
After Neil Rackers missed a 46-yard field goal try to end the Bengals' first series, Maddox threw a 31-yard pass to Burress on the Steelers' second play and the rout was on. Bettis ran five times in a row after that reception to cover 22 yards including a 1-yard burst into the end zone for a 7-0 lead.
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Rookie wide receiver Antwaan Randle El breaks loose for a 24-yard run. He also returned a kickoff 99 yards for a score. | |
The turnovers and the scores just kept coming in the second quarter. Todd Peterson kicked his first of two field goals after Flowers' first interception of Jon Kitna. Four plays later, Flowers had his second interception and four plays after that, Bettis went careening off left tackle from the Bengals' 41 and down the sideline. Bettis picked up blocks by Burress, Ward, Kreider and Alan Faneca but, with one man to beat, he put a Barry Sanders-like cutback move on strong safety Marquand Manuel
The 41-yard touchdown run was the longest of Bettis' career and propelled him to 109 yards rushing, more than he had in his first three games combined.
"We threw the ball deep down the field, made some big plays, opened up the running game," Bettis said. "Once we started to pound the ball, they had to adjust to the running game and it opened up the passing game again. We're really back to the form in terms of doing what we want to do and that's to dictate to the defense what we want to do."
They dictated yesterday better than Napoleon.
Bettis' 41-yard run staked them to a 17-0 lead that did not last long.
Kitna, sacked five times and intercepted thrice, dropped back from his 48 on the next series and Porter roared from behind. Porter smacked Kitna's arm, causing a fumble that popped right into the meaty hands of Hampton. Showing those old junior high runner's moves, Hampton looked like Bettis without the speed. But there was the will to get into the end zone right up until he was caught from behind by guard Matt O'Dwyer and running back Corey Dillon.
"I couldn't believe he stayed on his feet for that long," Cowher said. "He hasn't run that long since his run test in Latrobe. He was probably hoping someone was going to catch him. He only had so much left."
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Safety Lee Flowers steps in front of Bengals wide receiver Danny Farmer to make one of his two interceptions. |
Not so, said Hampton, who was pushed out of bounds at the 7.
"I was trying to get into the end zone. Dude had the angle on me."
Kreider, whose only previous time in the end zone came at Baltimore last December on a 4-yard run, turned the Porter/Hampton play into seven points. He caught Maddox' only touchdown pass yesterday, from 4 yards.
That made the score 24-0. Peterson blew a chance to widen the lead by halftime when he hooked a 31-yard field-goal try, but the kicking game produced some excitement to start the third quarter.
Randle El looked Sensation El on the kickoff to start the quarter. He faked a reverse to fellow rookie Lee Mays, cut down the left side, broke free and outran some Bengals nipping at his heels for a 99-yard touchdown return.
"I've been close all season," Randle El said. "I've been close on punt returns, everything. To finally get one feels really good."
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Hines Ward stiff-arms Bengals cornerback Artrell Hawkins after making one of his four receptions yesterday. | |
The score was 31-0 and Bengals fans streamed down the escalators and out of Paul Brown Stadium, leaving thousands of Steelers fans to shake their Terrible Towels.
Dillon, otherwise stuffed and held to 57 yards, broke the ice for the Bengals with a 2-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. It came after an off-target Maddox pass tipped off the outstretched left hand of Ward and into that of Cincinnati cornerback Jeff Burris for an interception at the Steelers' 9.
The Steelers closed out the scoring on Peterson's 30-yard field goal late in the game after rookie Verron Haynes' 11-yard touchdown run was canceled by Faneca's holding penalty.
The only ones who could stop the Steelers yesterday were Steelers. The Bengals surely could not do it.
"I'm so frustrated," Neal said. "Guys ain't gonna call me a bum. I refuse to be a loser."
They all are losers in the AFC North, at the moment, anyway. But there are losers, and then there are the Cincinnati Bengals.
Steelers take out anger on winless Bengals 
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