Sunday, August 31, 2003

By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The offense the Steelers often disdained, the one they scornfully called the "dink and dunk," the one with seeds planted by the division-rival Cincinnati Bengals a generation ago, is the offense they have become.

	Steelers receiver Hines Ward turns the corner against the Detroit Lions in the first exhibition game. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image. Notebook: Steelers add Milons in trade with Eagles

The Steelers, frustrated in their attempts to return to the Super Bowl the past seven seasons, will unveil their version of the West Coast offense when they open the season a week from today against the Baltimore Ravens at home. They won't call it that, and they do use minor variances, but it is a veiled rendering of the West Coast offense nonetheless.

Apparently, the Steelers' coaching staff has decided that, if you cannot beat them, join them.

Coordinator Mike Mularkey has curtailed the deep passing game in favor of shorter passes with a higher rate of success to control the football. That, in its basics, is the West Coast offense -- the use of mostly short passes to move down the field.

"Mularkey's whole thing is let's go short-to-deep," receiver Hines Ward said. "Whereas, here, I know we were always thinking deep-to-short. With us thinking short-to-deep, we're converting third-and-2s. Those are the ones easy to convert, whereas, if you're trying deep and you get two missed, now you're third-and-long. And those are hard to come by."

The exhibition season can be skewed because so many backups play and because teams play scaled-down versions of their offenses and defenses, but the Steelers' average yardage per passing attempt was way down. Through the preseason, they averaged 5.6 yards per attempt compared to 7.3 last season. That's a 23 percent drop.

Starting quarterback Tommy Maddox's decline in yards per attempt wasn't steep, but he did drop from 7.5 last season to 7.0 this summer. No one is ready to call him Tommy "Popgun," but the change in philosophy in just one season might be dramatic.

"Our whole deal is: Let's be on the field as much as possible, keep our defense fresh," Ward said.

Mularkey and Coach Bill Cowher tipped their hands early when they preached against turning over the ball and then hammered that into their players all summer. On the night they reported to training camp, Mularkey told reporters that he wanted Maddox to not force passes as often as he did last season, when he threw for 20 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. The Steelers were worst in the AFC by losing the football 36 times.

Maddox did not throw an interception in the preseason, although he also threw just one touchdown pass. As a whole, the Steelers lost three interceptions and three fumbles.

"We were pretty high in turnovers," Ward said. "That's our whole mentality this year: Make sure we don't turn the ball over. I think Tommy recognizes it. Everybody was pressing Tommy not to force it in there. Tommy knows we have a great offense and, if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, then we can even be that much more explosive."

Where does that leave Plaxico Burress? Of the top 49 receivers in the league, Burress was at the top of the list last season with a 17-yard average per catch. He averaged 16.8 yards in four exhibition games, but he caught only six passes. Burress caught 78 passes last season, and his total of 1,325 yards was just 4 short of Ward, who caught 112 passes.

"Now, we're going to take our shots still," Ward said, referring to deep passes. "But we're going to be more of ball control. Take what the defense gives us. ... When you put together a 10, 15 play drive, that demoralizes a defense and they have no clue how to stop you. If we do that and keep our defense fresh and let them get three-and-out and take another series 10, 15 plays, that takes a lot out of a team. That's our whole goal. It's just to show them different formations, be exotic, physical and control the clock and not turn the ball over."

In other words, the West Coast offense.

The Steelers' offense will differ somewhat from the offense that made the San Francisco 49ers famous. First, their fullback primarily blocks. In the West Coast, the fullback catches a lot of short passes. Other than that, they have turned into a controlled passing game that no longer uses the off-tackle play as its base weapon

"A lot of people look at it and with Plax, myself, Antwaan [Randle El] and the addition of Jay [Riemersma], why not pass when you have those type of weapons?" Ward said. "At the same time, late in the season, it's hard to be a physical team passing the ball all the time. That's not our nature. Yet, we still have three, four good running backs. We need to go out there and use them as much as possible. My whole theory is let's be well-balanced. When defenses think we're going to run the ball let's pass the ball, and when they think we're going to pass the ball, let's run the ball."

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