By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
The Steelers' James Farrior (51) and Casey Hampton sack Rams quarterback Marc Bulger.
ST. LOUIS -- Even before the sobering announcement that Willie Parker had broken his leg got a firm grip on its target audience, there were plenty of ominous indicators about last night beyond the mere fact that the Rams' cheerleaders are no longer called the Embraceable Ewes.
Yeah, now they're officially just the St. Louis Rams Cheerleaders, I guess because you never substitute cleverness when good old perfectly obvious labeling will do.
As for what is currently being substituted for good old Steelers defense, the kind that leads the league and terrorizes the quarterback and engenders feelings of hysterical inadequacy in offensive coordinators coast-to-coast, well, those were the days.
The new thing, without Aaron Smith, without any impacting contribution from the guy who used to be Clark Haggans, and without any recoverable memory of how to get a sack until Casey Hampton backed Marc Bulger into James Farrior and snapped a funk of 13 sackless quarters at 9:36 Central Standard Time, remains in a netherworld of trouble.
The St. Louis Rams, with a fully deserved 3-11 record and an offensive line constructed of battered and rusted secondhand parts, scored on four of their first six possessions last night, forcing the Ben Roethlisberger-led offense into the untenable position of practically having to score every time it touched the ball.
Ben merely had to be perfect, and so he was, slinging another optimal 158.3 quarterback rating.
"Ben was great," Mike Tomlin said 15 minutes after Steelers 41, Rams 24. "He managed the game, took care of the ball, and made some big throws." All true, but the fact that the Steelers had to score on five of their first six possessions to take a rickety seven-point lead into the fourth quarter is not the kind of intelligence that foreshadows an extended January.
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
The Steelers' Ike Taylor intercepts pass against the Rams in the fourth quarter.
It wasn't until Ike Taylor stepped in front of a desperate, high, fourth-down Bulger missile with four minutes to play and returned it 51 circuitous yards across the Edward Jones Dome carpet that Tomlin's defense appeared to have grown the semblance of competence again.
Actual competence may be weeks away, and this team might be history beforehand.
"Casey's sack was huge," said defensive end Brett Keisel of what was only the Steelers' second sack in the previous 153 opponent pass plays. "That really seemed to slow them down and everything seemed to change right then.
"Then Ike's play, that was the final dagger."
To that point, many of the daggers seemed self-inflicted from the standpoint of what was still, statistically, the NFL's top defense, but also the one that had allowed 87 points in the previous 11 quarters.
St. Louis scored on both trips into the red zone in the first half to take a 14-10 lead two minutes into the second quarter, which meant that the Steelers had been scored upon nine times in the opposition's previous 10 appearances inside the 20, seven of those scores being touchdowns.
Isaac Bruce caught seven Bulger throws for just about double the amount of yards he needed to supplant James Lofton as the NFL's third-leading career yardage man, and tight end Randy McMichael caught six others on a night Bulger would go 18 for 35 for 208 yards and three touchdowns. The run defense so demonstrably shredded only four days previous by Jacksonville's Fred Taylor did a decent job on St. Louis stud Steven Jackson, but Jackson still ripped off a 36-yard run and caught a touchdown pass on which he traveled nearly 40 yards laterally with virtually no pursuit.
"First of all, that's a pretty good offense over there," said Steelers tight end Heath Miller when asked if the offense feels like it had to score every time up the floor. "I know they've got offensive line problems, but they've got all their skill people healthy now, and anytime you go up against Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, you know you have to put points on the board.
"I think our defense is strong and they made a lot of big plays tonight, especially in the second half."
Just enough plays to avert a third consecutive loss, and perhaps convince itself that its quality hasn't been compromised, its authority still respected.
"We're good as far as confidence goes," said Keisel. "We know we're a good defense. A couple of teams have had some success against us, but we're not going to let that get us down."
Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.
First published on December 21, 2007 at 1:24 am
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