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Tuesday, November 12, 2002

Get over the old days of pressuring defense and turnovers and field position and grinding out the clock with the run. There's a new football game in town. And it's all about the offense, which, considering the sorry state of Heinz Beach's surface, we should hereby christen: The Greatest Show on Sand.

In the half-dozen games with Tommy Maddox at the Steelers' wheel, this offense stacks up second among the league's scoringest teams (29.8 points per game, behind only New Orleans' 32) and first in total yardage (409.1 per game). This past Sunday, the fellas marched off the most yardage against Atlanta since Sherman -- General William Tecumseh, not Offensive Coordinator Ray -- while Maddox passed for the most since Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana riddled previous Falcons flocks. Not too shabby against what entered Sunday as the NFL's No. 6 pass defense this season.

The Greatest Show had Atlanta defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, son of Bum, scratching his gray pate long afterward. "We couldn't cover them in man to man, and, when we went to zone, they found seams." In other words: We couldn't stop 'em.

No, the Steelers stopped themselves in the fourth quarter Sunday, squatting on a 34-17 lead that transformed into a 34-34 overtime tie.

It's a sign that old-guard philosophies have to change.

These aren't your grandfather's Steelers, your father's Steelers, not even Bill Cowher's Steelers anymore. Shoot, the head coach with the defensive background never before had a Steelers team allow 30-plus points in more than three games of a single season. This year, he has seen his defense give up 30-plus four times already -- with roughly half the season still to go.

Worse, they are at the bottom of the AFC and the third from the league bottom in generously allowing opposing offenses to convert third downs.

Now leaving Blitzburgh.

Welcome to Passburgh.

Mike Mularkey's offense must come to pass every quarter every Sunday, but particularly in that fourth quarter Sunday. Two attempts in 17 minutes doesn't cut it. This unit must continue to take the initiative, continue to dictate the game's tempo, continue to mix in a first- and second-down pass at minimum.

No need to throw deep downfield, as they did on most of their six scoring drives, half of those lasting a Rams-like two minutes or less. Merely stay with that bag o' goodies in Mularkey's hand, namely the five trick plays and the 10 of 17 called first-down pass plays in the previous two quarters of time.

The offense was splendor in the shoddy sod for three quarters, then 3 yards and a cloud of sand. A quick word about that playing surface: It's fine if you're staging pro-beach volleyball. Time to install the rubberized stuff from the indoor facility. Because this grass is so dangerous, players should take Bill Clinton's old advice -- don't inhale it. Now, back to that offense ...

"They got real conservative," Falcons cornerback Ray Buchanan said. "You want to run the ball, run the ball, maybe get something off a play-action pass."

But the Steelers didn't try but two passes, neither really play-action. "I know, I know," Buchanan continued. "What made us nervous, Plex was attacking against the small guys on our team ... " Then nothing. "You can't go out there playing not to lose."

The Steelers' coaching staff went away from their formula in Baltimore and Cleveland in preceding weeks, and it almost cost them victories. They neglected the pass-first plan again Sunday, and it cost them either a victory or a defeat. Pucker up, sis.

You can cry all you want about Cowher failing to call a timeout with 48 available seconds near overtime's end. You can moan about the defense being unable to protect a 17-point lead with slightly less than eight minutes remaining or Hines Ward's dropped third-down pass with two minutes to go. You can wag disparaging fingers at Todd Peterson's missed field goal before halftime and blocked extra point and blocked field goal.

The thing is, the offense could salt away these victories, if only the coaching staff would let the fellas keep on shaking. You have the AFC's leading passer, with a 97.9 rating, the highest average gain per pass and the highest average of touchdown tosses. You have depth at receiver and a Slash-like weapon in Antwaan Randle El. You have the NFL's -- get this -- 18th-best defense statistically compared to the sixth-best offense.

Use it, and when Jerome Bettis returns to health, the unit will be that much more formidable.

In that Falcons fourth quarter, taking the pass away from this bunch was like calling a bunt and removing the bat from the power hitter's hands. Like asking the point guard to defend the other team's big man on the final shot. Like flubbing a par-3 tee shot into a sand trap -- somewhere around the Steelers' 30 -- and telling the best player in any foursome, Tiger, you handle this one.

"It wasn't the defense," Zereoue said. "We had to go out there and put more points on the board. It was a shootout.

"Got to swallow it, learn from it, keep going."

And the lesson here is: Always be offensive, similar to Mike Martz's Rams of the late-1990s, Bill Walsh's 49ers of the 1980s and, well, Chan Gailey's Steelers Slash-and-pass offense of 1995.

The Greatest Show must go on.