NFL: Steelers try to run MNF home mark to 11-0
October 31, 2005
By ALAN ROBINSON / Associated Press
PITTSBURGH ? When it comes to a virtual guaranteed victory in the NFL, nothing beats the Pittsburgh Steelers at home on a Monday night. They play the Baltimore Ravens tonight.
The Steelers are 10-0 in Monday home games under coach Bill Cowher, and haven't lost a Monday night home game since Chuck Noll was the coach in 1991. The losing quarterbacks in those games, almost none of which were close, include Jim Kelly, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning ? not exactly a positive sign for Baltimore's Anthony Wright as he tries to turn around a Ravens season that is fast slipping away.
With Pittsburgh's defense now back on its game, Wright and the offensively deficient Ravens (2-4) would seem to be catching the Steelers (4-2) at exactly the wrong time, even in an AFC North rivalry where records and resumes don't always mean much.
The Steelers sacked, harassed and upended Texans quarterback David Carr so many times during a 27-7 rout last month that Carr began yelling at his linemen. Similarly, the Steelers so disrupted Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer on Oct. 23 that the league's top-rated passer couldn't lead a touchdown drive until the final 2 minutes of a 27-13 loss.
That day, Wright didn't direct a single touchdown drive in a 10-6 loss to Chicago that left the Ravens another loss or two away from all but falling out of the division race. The Ravens haven't scored a touchdown in seven quarters, a worrisome slump for a team that goes into Pittsburgh with a six-game road losing streak and without its two best defensive players, injured middle linebacker Ray Lewis and safety Ed Reed, as well as fullback Alan Ricard.
"I don't know, for whatever reason the chemistry's not there," with the Ravens, Steelers receiver Hines Ward said. "And they've got a bunch of great guys out there."
Ward probably should have said the Ravens have a lot of great players out. Even coach Brian Billick is talking about the perilous position his team is in, with two games each against division leader Cincinnati and Pittsburgh in the next five games and his team without the NFL's last two defensive players of the year.
"It's likely that a 10-6 season is needed to make the playoffs," Billick wrote in his online diary on the Ravens' Web site. "That leaves us with the narrowest of margins for getting there" and, he wrote, a task that is "ambitious at best, some might assume impossible."
Wright, himself a former Steelers player, knows how Pittsburgh's defense can make the best quarterbacks look bad when it detects signs of weakness or a breakdown.
"We know we have to come out ready for a brawl," Wright said. "As long as we come out with that mentality, anything can happen and we can pull this thing out."
Getting into the end zone would be a plus, something the Ravens haven't done since the first quarter Oct. 16 against Cleveland. One problem is the running game hasn't produced enough to keep defenses from focusing away from Wright's throwing; former 2,000-yard rusher Jamal Lewis hasn't had a 100-yard game all season and was held to 93 yards on 39 carries the last two weeks.
"We don't really have an answer for it," Wright said. "We have to keep pushing until we break through."
For Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger isn't throwing because he doesn't have to. Roethlisberger, 17-1 as a regular season starter, threw only 14 times against Cincinnati as the Steelers ran for 221 yards, with Willie Parker getting 131, and Roethlisberger has only 40 passing attempts in his last two starts.
Ravens linebacker Tommy Polley said the Steelers' passing isn't nearly as big a worry as their running, saying cornerbacks Samari Rolle and Chris McAllister will neutralize wide receivers Ward, Antwaan Randle El and Cedrick Wilson downfield.
"We feel comfortable with our two shutdown guys, Samari and Chris," Polley said. "I don't think we're too much worried about the outside. We're worried about the inside. It's going to be a physical game."
The Steelers' biggest worry might be disinterest. After their last-minute 24-22 Monday night win at San Diego three weeks ago, the Steelers were sloppy and mistake-prone in a 23-17 overtime loss at home to Jacksonville on Oct. 16 ? their second successive home loss. They are 1-2 at home after going 8-0 last season, also losing to New England 23-20 on Sept. 25.
The Steelers felt they re-established themselves as the team to beat in the division by manhandling Cincinnati, so the risk of relaxing against a depleted and underachieving Baltimore team is there. Plus, the Ravens are 4-1 on Mondays since moving to Baltimore in 1996, and have won two of their last three against Pittsburgh.
"Maybe they're just laying low," Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis said, referring to the lack of back-and-forth talking common in previous Ravens-Steelers meetings but absent from this game. "But you'd better believe when Monday night comes they're going to be ready. This is the biggest rivalry in our division, and they'll be ready and we'll be ready."
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