Thursday, October 30, 2003

By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Hines Ward's speech-making days are over. From now on, he'll be all action and no talk when it comes to finding ways to inspire a last-place football team.

	More Steelers coverage: Steelers Report: 10/30/03

Three weeks ago, Ward stood before coaches and teammates in an offensive meeting and gave a rousing speech he hoped would spur them to better things. Since then, the Steelers have lost two games in a row and have fallen to the bottom of the AFC North Division with a 2-5 record and a four-game losing streak.

"I'm not a big rah-rah guy," said Ward, the AFC's second-leading receiver with 46 catches. "I'm not going to go up and talk in front of the team. I don't want to be more of a deterrent to the team or a distraction to the team, I just want to go out and lead by example.

"We have to go out and practice hard. There's no sense of talking to everybody now. I think everybody on the team knows what we have to do right now. We just have to keep working hard in practice and find a way to win."

The Steelers are doing some soul-searching these days as they prepare to fly to Seattle tomorrow for a Sunday game in a place where they haven't won in 20 years. They have one victory in six tries in Seattle in their history. Some teammates even talked to wide receiver Plaxico Burress about his declaration Sunday that he's open all the time, not getting the ball and that the offense has gotten predictable. They want to prevent the wheels from flying off, on the field and in team harmony because they don't think their playoff chances are dead.

"We're going to try to rewrite the history books," linebacker Joey Porter said. "What it says right now, 2-5 is not supposed to make it. That's what it says."

They might take inspiration from teams that have overcome similar plights to make the playoffs, as recently as last season. One of those teams beat the Steelers in the playoffs to reach the AFC championship game, Tennessee. The Titans were 1-4 and on a four-game losing streak when owner Bud Adams popped off, putting heat on coach Jeff Fisher. The Titans won five in a row and lost only once the rest of the way to finish 11-5 and earn a bye in the playoffs.

The New York Jets started 1-4 with a four-game losing streak and were 2-5 before they won four consecutive games and lost just twice the rest of the way. They were a wild-card playoff team and beat the Indianapolis Colts, 41-0, in the playoffs before losing to eventual AFC champion Oakland.

The Steelers trail first-place Baltimore (4-3) by two games in the AFC North Division.

"You have so many games left that you can turn it around," halfback Jerome Bettis said. "You look at Tennessee last year, I think they were 1-4 and they turned their thing around. It can happen, you just have to be confident that you can do it, your guys can do it."

Ward looked around the locker room and said most of the faces are familiar from two years ago.

"We have the same team that's been to the championship, and last year. We have the same team, it's just, somewhere, we're not clicking with the defense, the offense is not clicking, we're not jelling with one another. And within the offense, we're not playing on the same page with one another. There's some miscommunication everywhere, throughout the whole picture.

"We have to find a way to get better. At 2-5, there's no sense going out there and trying to pep-talk somebody to work harder. We have to win one ballgame, at least get to feel what a win feels like now. I'm still confident we have a great team, I don't know how other guys are going to go out here and take this week's practice. Myself, I'm going to try to get better and help this team out."

Most of these Steelers aren't used to losing on a professional level. Only 14 players remain from the 1999 team that went 6-10, their most recent losing season.

"After going to a championship game two years ago, and the playoff games last year, this isn't fun," Ward said. "Winning solves everything. Winning is the cure. Guys are happy, everybody's happy. But, when you're losing ballgames, everyone's frustrated, down."

As with winning, losing can beget losing.

"It can," quarterback Tommy Maddox said. "I think when you get on rolls like that, you have to step up and stop it. I think that's where we are right now. You win a couple of games, and it snowballs into running off five, six, seven of them.

"That's what we have to do. We have to keep working as hard as we've been working and find ways to win games instead of going out there and hoping to win

"At the end of the game, you have to step up your game and find a way to get it done."

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