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Tuesday, January 7, 2003
Tough enough

By By David Fleming

I caught up to Pittsburgh rookie receiver Antwaan Randle El near the smeared and carved up Steelers emblem at midfield inside Heinz Field. The first thing I noticed was the giant cleat mark across the white No. 82 on the back of his jersey. The stitching around his name had also begun to unravel and he was covered by a me'lange of dirt, grass, paint, mud and blood. His hat was soaked in sweat. And his face was covered in equal parts smudged black eye glare and a tired, relieved smile.


	Randle El is the latest addition to the hardcore Steeler receiving crew.

Nearby, fellow Steelers wideout and team MVP Hines Ward appeared to be in the exact same condition, dragging himself off the field with his arms dangling limp by his side and his right leg a half-step behind the rest of his body. "Complete physical and emotional exhaustion," he said. In the background Bachman-Turner Overdrive's classic "Taking Care of Business" was thumping out of the stadium's loudspeakers.

Watching the Steelers receivers leave the field to this oh-so-appropriate tune -- tired but triumphant -- was quite a post-season epiphany for Pittsburgh.

For the first time since I started making what seems like annual post-season trips to this town about 10 years ago, this franchise's legendary toughness is no longer embodied by its coach, its defense or its running game but by, of all things & it's wide receivers.

Down 17-7 at the half, offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey gathered his wideouts in the locker room and told them, "It's up to you guys to win this game." With the defense struggling and a banged up Jerome Bettis parked on the sidelines, the players knew this was coach-speak for, 'buckle your chinstraps, fellas'.

The Steelers simply had no choice but to spread the field and throw into traffic to try and claw their way back into the game. This, of course, meant Randle El, Plaxico Burress, Ward and veteran Terance Mathis were gonna get crunched, blindsided, kneed, and, yes, even stepped on.

And they never flinched. Not once.

How perfectly fitting is it that with a chance to put the game away, a wide open and untouched Browns wideout, Dennis Northcutt, stone-handed a pass that QB Kelly Holcomb had dropped right into his breadbasket while the battered Steelers receivers caught everything within 10 feet as if they were carrying nets -- no matter the certain post-catch yard sale that awaited them?

Flem Gems

I thought I had found a nice empty spot near the Steelers bench -- snow falling, downtown peeking around the west corner of the stadium and Styx on the stadium loudspeakers -- to enjoy the final :54 of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland insta-classic. (Unlike many Stillers fans I had not left the game early.) Then one of Pittsburgh's finest decided to chat me up. "Ugly win," he said, "but we'll take it." Don't speak too soon officer, I warned him. "Naw, we got this one," he continued. "I'm a big fan. I decorated my Rudolph out front of my house with a Steelers jersey. Then I had him mounting another reindeer dressed in a Browns uniform." Yes, if you're wondering, this man was carrying a gun. & From a distance Butch Davis' team seemed to be a scrappy bunch of never-say-die types that always seemed to find themselves in close, bizarre games. Up close and in person they're actually sloppy, undisciplined and lack the savvy to put teams away. & When the Steelers enter the red zone at home two giant Heinz bottles open up and soak the JumboTron with red ketchup. ... Whatever the ending, Kelly Holcomb may have just pulled a Tom Brady on Tim Couch in Cleveland. This seems like his team now. &

With three weeks left in the season Pittsburgh leads in my unofficial mullets-per-capita NFL standings. & Another Only in the 'Burgh: One pregame column was devoted entirely to examining what it would feel like to lose to the Browns. & "Boos don't bother Tommy [Maddox]," said Mathis. "Man, ya'll gotta understand where that guy has come from. He took the hard way back to this game. You think a few boos are gonna bother him?" & How many billions upon billions of dollars does the NFL rake in this time of year? And knowing that, how can teams still be forced to play on such horrid fields in places like New York and Pittsburgh? Between the hash marks Heinz was more or less mud on Sunday. Although I do give them credit for not spray-painting the mud green just to make it look good on TV. & Maddox explained to me a few weeks ago that he needs to struggle a bit early before getting in a zone; needs to get to that point where he has nothing left to say except, 'screw it, I'm just gonna start flingin' it.' Before setting a Steelers record with 473 yards against the Falcons he missed Plaxico Burress on a wide open deep route. Problem is, if he struggles early again against the Titans, who must be licking their chops at the prospect of facing the Steelers' anemic pass defense, Tennessee has too much savvy to let them creep back into the game. ... "Keep me in your prayers," banged up Pittsburgh DB Mike Logan said on the way out of the locker room. Mike, I'm afraid it's gonna take more than that against a hot Steve McNair. & "waesrdtfyg123", this part of the column was written -- honest -- by an 8-year-old girl standing in the isle of my USAir flight who reached over and just started typing on my computer. & This column was written while watching U2's mind-blowing DVD, Elevation 2001, live from Boston. If you do not have a DVD player this concert alone -- and in particular, Bono's violent, poetic spotlight soliloquy on gun control in the middle of Bullet the Blue Sky -- is worth the pricetag of upgrading your equipment.

"If we have to win these games by passing the ball, well, we have the players to do that," said Ward after the game, leaning against his locker with his right leg wrapped almost entirely in tape. "All day our wide receivers made big plays. With the game on the line, they caught everything."

Ward, who set the Steelers' team record with 112 catches this season, finished with 11 grabs for 104 yards. Burress, dressed in an old-school Chargers jersey after the game, and Randle El combined for another 11 catches and 185 yards. (Randle El also returned a punt 66 yards for a TD.) Mathis pulled in three catches for 40 yards, all on one key drive in the fourth quarter.

Most of these grabs came in traffic, over the middle of the field or near the sidelines where three head hunters dressed in orange always seemed to be lurking. When it comes to creating an aura of toughness, big hits on defense are obvious attention getters. Same goes for battering ram backs bulldozing through the line of scrimmage.

But what may take far more, uh, intestinal fortitude, is crossing the kill zone in the middle of the field with your eyes on the QB instead of the 250-pound linebackers waiting to knock your block off. These days in the NFL Cover 2 defenses create a real-life version of Frogger for the wideouts brave enough to venture into the middle of the field.

Irving Fryar, an ordained minister who made his living over the middle for 18 years in the NFL, still refers to that part of the field as The Valley of the Shadow of Death for wideouts. Hall of Famer Steve Largent told me catching passes there is like those old Wild Kingdom shows where tigers and lions stalked their weaker, smaller prey.

And that's where Ward's finest moment came on Sunday as well -- and it didn't even involve a catch. With 3:30 left to play a frustrated Cleveland safety, Robert Griffith, tried to de-cleat Ward with a late helmet-to-helmet haymaker. Result? A 15-yard penalty that helped keep a key Steeler drive alive.

Ward stayed on the ground just long enough to see the yellow flag fly overhead, then he jumped up with a priceless smirk on his face. Three plays later he caught a 5-yard TD to close the gap to 33-28. (Later, it was the threat of the Steelers' suddenly unstoppable spread offense that opened up the middle of the field for running back Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala's go-ahead plunge.)

"Hey, you're gonna get hit, so our rule is you might as well catch the ball too," says Ward, who is perhaps the best, yet most anonymous, receiving threat in the NFL post-season. "You make a great catch, take a big hit and then jump up and laugh at the defense. Nothing discourages a defense like that."

Head coach Bill Cowher is all business this time of year, but his face just lights up when you mention Ward. To him Ward embodies the very spirit of the Steelers. And in more ways than one. A third-round pick in 1998, he is yet another draft gem uncovered by Pittsburgh and groomed into a Pro Bowl player. He plays hard and he studies even harder. A former QB at Georgia, Ward knows the offense so well folks in the organization refer to him as "coach" and he occasionally tells quarterback Tommy Maddox when to check out of certain plays at the line of scrimmage.

Oh yeah, he also runs without an ACL in his knee, has worked through numerous maladies including an appendectomy and is the nastiest blocking wide receiver in the NFL.

"I'm banged up, and yeah, I'll be the first one in the training room tomorrow at 7:30 a.m.," Ward said. "But we all play like each game is gonna be our last. Maybe that's our key to getting to the next level. I'm hurting, but man am I gonna enjoy this victory."

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at FlemFile@carolina.rr.com. But watch out -- you could be the WHYLO of the Week.