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Thursday, July 26, 2001

If training camp goes as the Steelers hope, they'll enter the season with Kordell Stewart as their starting quarterback, Tee Martin as his backup and Tommy Maddox as the No. 3.

For this to come about, Martin, who has never played a down in the NFL, will have to show in the exhibition season he's capable of backing up Stewart. This will allow the Steelers to release Kent Graham, who is scheduled to make $1.4 million, and enable the team to save about $900,000 on the salary cap.

This is known as being penny wise and dollar foolish.

This also is known as a recipe for disaster.

It's hard to believe the Steelers want to enter an NFL season with the hugely questionable Stewart being backed up by Martin, a fifth-round draft choice in 2000, and Maddox, who has not started an NFL game since 1992 and not played in one since 1995.

Sure, it's always nice to trim the payroll when possible, but it shouldn't come at the expense of having this kind of support for a suspect quarterback.

Stewart has been remarkably resilient as a football player. But it takes just one play to end a quarterback's season. Do the Steelers want their playoff hopes in their first year at Heinz Field resting on Martin and Maddox?

Graham is a significantly better choice as a backup.

Graham turned a lot of people in this town against him with his incredible blunder against the Cleveland Browns in the second game of last season. There is no excuse for Graham taking a sack with time running out, which prevented the Steelers from getting their field-goal unit on the field to attempt to tie the score. A rookie quarterback shouldn't make that kind of mistake, let alone one with nine years in the NFL.

But Graham's mistake against the Browns, as large as it was, does not take away from the fact that he played well in the first three games of the season before being injured and is the obvious choice to remain the backup regardless of what transpires in training camp.

Graham threw for 625 yards in those first three games, an average of 208 per game.

Yes, the Steelers lost those games and, yes, the loss against Cleveland fell greatly toward Graham. But in those other two losses, the Steelers were playing the two best teams in the AFC -- Baltimore and Tennessee -- teams with excellent defenses.

Graham threw for 199 yards in a 16-0 loss to Baltimore and 254 yards in a 23-20 loss to Tennessee. That yardage total was the second most by a quarterback against the Titans, who allowed an average of 151 yards per game -- best in the AFC. Graham actually had helped the Steelers to a late lead and an apparent victory against Tennessee before the defense allowed a touchdown that gave the Titans the win.

He was injured late in the game against Tennessee and replaced by Stewart. When he came back after missing two games, Graham was nowhere near as sharp. He played poorly in a win against Cincinnati, completing 13 of 33 passes for 173 yards, and was worse against Cleveland, completing 3 of 12 be being pulled in favor of Stewart.

Understandably, Coach Bill Cowher switched to Stewart at that point and Graham played sparingly the remainder of the season.

Graham's performance last season might not have been enough to earn him a chance to win the starting job from Stewart, but it certainly should have been enough to enable him to lock up the No. 2 job. That's particularly so because his substandard play after the first three games might have been caused by a hip injury that forced him to change his throwing motion and which resulted in off-season rotator cuff surgery.

Graham knows he can't win the starting job, but he's practicing like he can. "I'm approaching it like I'm trying to be the starter," he said. "I think that's a healthy perspective to have and I'm gong to go out there and try to prove that every practice."

Hanging over his head, he knows, is his salary.

"The Steelers told me they would have no problem with my salary if I'm the backup," he said. Left unsaid is, they will have a problem if he's not.

"Hopefully, they will see the value of my experience last year, when I came in here and started until I got hurt and played well until I got hurt."

Considering his competition and his experience compared to theirs, there is no question who the No. 2 quarterback should be.

Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.