Tuesday, September 02, 2003

By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Joey Porter arrived in Pittsburgh from Denver yesterday and some teammates even talked about him watching from the sideline when the Steelers open the season against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at Heinz Field.

	James Farrior will replace Joey Porter at middle linebacker in the Steelers' dime package for the season opener against the Baltimore Ravens. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image.

That's a position Porter is not used to playing, but after the All-Pro linebacker was shot in the buttocks and thigh outside a Denver bar early Sunday, his teammates were looking forward to seeing him.

"He's going to be on the sideline fired up," said Clark Haggans, who will replace Porter at outside linebacker, "just like he would be if he were playing, kicking his boot, getting real crazy and wanting to scream."

The Steelers reported to work yesterday for the first time since their game Friday night in Carolina. They open the season Sunday, but the topic of conversation was Porter and what occurred in Denver.

"A lot of guys have questions and want to know what happened," said linebacker Jason Gildon, who captained the defense last season. "It's just how he's doing personally. We have a game on Sunday. I know Joey's going to want us to go out there this week and get ready to play. That's what we have to do."

When he heard the news Sunday, receiver Hines Ward had one thought.

"Is he alive or what? All we heard was he got shot. We didn't know how severely injured he was."

Coach Bill Cowher talked to his players yesterday morning and told them what he knows and urged them not to dwell on the subject with the news media. The Steelers brought Gildon and Ward forth to specifically talk about Porter, but some players refused to speak about what effects his absence might have on the defense and the team.

Cowher absolved Porter of any wrongdoing, but he did urge his players yesterday to be careful where they go at night.

"As a teammate and person you reflect," Ward said. "It can happen to anybody on any given night. It's rare. Coach Cowher in the meeting wants us to dedicate ourselves for five months, commit ourselves to the season and really be careful when you go out into the nightlife. He was talking about consequences. When you go out, you have to be prepared for anything. You put it on yourself to make sure you take care of yourself."

Ward said many players go out in groups to increase their safety.

"We don't like to go out by ourselves. Anything can happen. People get robbed, there are shootings all of the time. We can't be stuck in our houses all of the time. That's just not possible. We like to go out in groups. We're a close-knit team. When a lot of guys go out, we do it together, as group."

Football players are accustomed to losing teammates to injury. It's the nature of the sport. The 1995 Steelers lost Rod Woodson in the opener when his ACL was torn. They kept a roster spot open for him all season but he did not play until the Super Bowl game. That they reached the Super Bowl after losing such a star, a sure Hall of Famer, was a lesson that served Gildon well. That was his second season.

As Willie Williams did for Woodson at cornerback in '95, Gildon hopes Haggans and James Farrior can do for Porter today.

"That year, we were fortunate to have a guy come in and play well in Rod's absence," Gildon said. "I think it is a very similar situation because guys are going to be asked to do the same thing. Going into the season opener, this is the last thing you would expect to be handling right now. The season is going to go on and guys like Clark and James are going to have to come up and play accordingly. We're expecting big things out of this defense this year, as well as the team, and we can't let this be a step back for us. We have to take it in stride."

Said Farrior, "It's a tough situation, but we have to deal with it. We know throughout the season we're going to be faced with problems. This is just something we're going to have to overcome."

The Steelers' players believe they can overcome it, but they lost a lot in Porter and they still don't know when he will be healthy enough to play again, which could be two months or more. Porter became one of the NFL's elite linebackers last season when he was chosen All-Pro, made his first Pro Bowl and shared team MVP honors with Ward. He is the only player to have as many as nine sacks and four interceptions in the same season. He has missed just one game since he joined the Steelers in 1999, that coming in 2001.

"Yes, we're going to miss him," Ward said. "We lost a great leader in Joey, but our other leaders have to step up their game and get everybody hyped and get ready to play Baltimore."

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