Sunday, October 05, 2003

By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Gone are the days when fans would hop into Oldsmobiles, rumble down the connecting Pennsylvania and Ohio turnpikes to Cleveland, buy a cheap ticket at the window outside mammoth Municipal Stadium and watch the Saturday night fights, a k a Browns-Steelers football game.'

	Tommy Maddox has Steelers fans on his side - for now. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette)

They don't play on Saturday nights any more, you can't buy a ticket, they're not cheap and there's no such thing as the Steelers-Browns rivalry. At least, it's not what it used to be. For a long time, this was the best and most-heated rivalry in the NFL; now, it's not even the best in the four-team AFC North Division.

"Ahh, not like Baltimore," Steelers defensive end Kimo von Oelhoffen said.

Even Hines Ward, who once knocked out Browns safety Earl Little with a block and was penalized for standing triumphantly over him, doesn't consider Cleveland the Steelers' biggest rival.

"It's not to a hatred point to where we're disgusted by them," said Ward, who leads the NFL with 31 receptions. "That's more a Baltimore-Pittsburgh thing now than Pittsburgh-Cleveland."

No hatred for the Browns? No disgust? Bobby Layne must be rolling over in his grave.

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It all goes back to that November day in 1995, when the old Browns came to Three Rivers Stadium for the final time before they moved to Baltimore. Sympathetic Steelers fans wore "Save The Browns" armbands in a surreal scene. Since the Browns were reborn in 1999, it just hasn't been the same. The Steelers won seven of nine against the new Cleveland franchise to push their dominance against the Browns to 13 victories in the past 15 meetings.

Tonight, they will clash for the 103rd time when they kick off at 8:30 at Heinz Field.

Perhaps the early-season desperation the teams bring to the game will help spark a renewal of all that hatred and disgust that made the rivalry what it once was. The Browns, who made the playoffs last season, are 1-3 and want to avoid slipping into the NFL abyss. The Steelers, again among the favorites in the AFC, are 2-2 and trying to stay atop the North.

The Browns also are eager for a little payback. The Steelers swept them in three thrillers last season in which they overcame deficits, twice at home, with late comebacks. Tommy Maddox replaced Kordell Stewart at quarterback to lead the Steelers to the tying touchdown drive with two minutes left and then a magical 16-13 overtime victory after the Browns' potential winning field goal hit Von Oelhoffen in the helmet. The Browns led, 14-3, in Cleveland before the Steelers pulled out a 23-20 victory. And the Steelers were on the ropes at home in the playoffs before two touchdowns in the final 3:06 saved a 36-33 victory that Dan Rooney ranked second -- behind only the Immaculate Reception victory against Oakland in 1972 -- among exciting Steelers playoff games.

"They could have won all three games," Steelers linebacker Jason Gildon acknowledged. "Coming into this game, they're going to play with a lot of intensity, a lot of emotion and I think it'll spill out."

It already has. Cleveland wide receiver Quincy Morgan sounded as if he wants a piece of somebody in black and gold.

"We go out and we hit them in the mouth," Morgan told Cleveland writers last week. "We just don't finish the game. It's nothing about 'in our heads.' Nobody is going to intimidate this football team. Nobody is going to kick our [butt].

"We lose by three, seven points. We go out and jump on them early and they take the game from us. We got to keep hitting them in the mouth. We just don't finish. We don't make the plays we need to make at the end of the game. We have to make plays all game."

Coach Bill Cowher's record against the Browns is 14-4, including two playoff victories. That's his best percentage against any team he's faced more than six times, including the lowly Bengals. But he's been stung a few times by Cleveland in the past, including a loss to the first-year franchise in Three Rivers Stadium in 1999. The Steelers were 5-3 and that setback to the baby Browns so shocked them they never recovered. They lost six in a row on way to a 6-10 season, Cowher's worst, and prompted an off-season upheaval in the front office.

Cowher knows a victory by Cleveland tonight would go a long way to putting the intensity back into the rivalry.

"They are kind of re-establishing themselves even though the history of Cleveland and Pittsburgh does go way back," Cowher said. "I am sure ... that the people are still trying to get over from the time frame where they did not have a team. But, every time we play them, obviously the playoff game from last year starts bringing back a lot of memories and a lot of the great games that existed between these two teams."

Neither Cowher nor his players would admit any signs of relief that Tim Couch will line up at quarterback for Cleveland tonight rather than Kelly Holcomb, who is hurt. Couch was not particularly effective in his two games against them last season, throwing four interceptions and one touchdown pass. Holcomb fried the Steelers in that Jan. 5 playoff game for three touchdowns (one interception) and 429 yards passing, third most in playoff history.

Those three games did help put more excitement into the rivalry, even if it still takes a back seat to others for the Steelers.

"The Cleveland-Pittsburgh game has measured up to having great, exciting games coming down to the wire," Ward said. "It's fun, it's getting the fans riled up and the cities still hate each other. As a player, you enjoy playing in games like this."

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