The Steelers' Road To Success
Statistics Tell Only Part Of 2001 Story
By Jerry DiPaola, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The numbers are difficult to dispute.

Kordell Stewart set a team record for completion percentage (60.2) and threw for a career-high 3,109 yards.

Jerome Bettis ran for more than 1,000 yards again, this time in an 11-game season that was abbreviated by injury.

Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress combined for 160 receptions, 2,011 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Jason Gildon registered 12 sacks and Chad Scott had an impressive 204 yards on five interception returns.

Those are the numbers, impressive to be sure. But they only tell part of the story of the Steelers of 2001-2002.

The Steelers were special for even deeper reasons:

+ They were 4-1 without Bettis, who missed the final five games of the regular season – proving they were more than just a good team on the surface.

+ They bounced back from a miserable, season-opening 21-3 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars and won five in a row and responded to a 13-10 defeat to the Baltimore Ravens with a seven-game winning streak. Cowher/Edwards Receiver Troy Edwards and Bill Cowher had a lot to celebrate in the 2001 season.

+ The Steelers were all about passion (anyone who watched the trash-talking practices at training camp can attest to that). "You can see it, you can smell it, you can taste it," strong safety Lee Flowers said.

+ And they were all about focus (they managed to compile the best record in the AFC at 13-3 when many critics wondered if they could finish .500). "I will say this," coach Bill Cowher said at the end of the regular season. "The last 15 weeks we were 13-2 and in those games, I don't think there's a game that you can say that we probably should have lost."

Where did all this success come from after the team had missed the playoffs for three consecutive seasons? That's an easy question to answer. The source for all of the Steelers' success – the ultimate source – had been there all along. It just took a new stadium, and the increased revenue streams that it provided, to tap it.

Steelers' president Dan Rooney and his son, Art II, the team's vice president, opened up their corporate bank account and wrote checks totaling nearly $40 million to sign several key players and Cowher to long-term deals. Rooney also allowed Cowher to add a key member to the coaching staff, former Canadian Football League and Notre Dame quarterback Tom Clements – who became the team's first quarterback coach since 1973.

The stability created by the Rooney largesse had as much to do with the Team's AFC Central championship as Stewart's rebirth. In fact, it may have helped lead to it by creating an atmosphere of calm and confidence in which players could thrive.

"Since I've been here, Dan Rooney has always been committed to winning," Cowher said. "Dan Rooney has never been one to make decisions based on the best financial interest of the football team. Now, he's very prudent in what he does. He understands the game, but certainly his commitment is to winning.

"He understands this city, too. This isn't about trying what's in the best interest of his family. It's what's in the best interests of this city."

Rooney has been accused of being thrifty, as if that is a bad thing, but in years past, he has spent truckloads of money to keep players such as Levon Kirkland, Dermontti Dawson, Mark Bruener and Stewart.

"When you look at this football team," Cowher said, "we've always been right at the cap. There have been guys who have left because you can't sign everybody. And sometimes the decisions that we've made, I think, unfairly have been put as being done because of financial reasons. It's always been looked upon in terms of what's best in terms of football.

"You want to make sure you have a plan and he has a plan."

The Steelers of 2001 may have been a surprise to many people around the league, but there was no shock among team officials or in the locker room. The Steelers were 9-7 in 2000, with victories in nine of the final 13 games. Of those seven losses, three were followed by telephone calls of apology from the NFL for mistakes made by game officials in close games. The Steelers believed in their hearts that they deserved to have 12 victories.

But the key point in the resurgence came late in the season when theSteelers were trailing the Oakland Raiders, 17-7, at halftime in a game at Three Rivers Stadium. In the first half, Stewart suffered a knee injury that, upon an immediate diagnosis, was expected to keep him out of the next two games.

Stewart didn't believe it was that bad, but he was reluctant to re-enter the game with a sore knee. "I didn't know where people stood with me," ESPN The Magazine quoted him as saying. "I didn't know if the guys were going to block hard. I'm scared my knee is going to fall out of the socket."

But in the locker room, several teammates approached him and told him how much he was needed – showed him the kind of love that he has craved since he last led the team to the AFC Championship game after the 1997 season.

"We at least need you on the sideline, man," wide receiver Will Blackwell said. "Stew, brother, we need you, baby," Flowers said.

After that there was no decision to be made. Trainer John Norwig taped up the knee and Stewart played the second half with gusto. The Steelers won, 21-20, on a touchdown pass in which Bruener rode a Raiders defensive back five yards into the end zone and a 17-yard scoring run in which Stewart shook off a missed tackle by the Raiders' Anthony Dorsett.

After that, Stewart started playing with confidence and he became a team leader. It carried over to this season when Stewart threw only five interceptions in the first 14 games, of which the Steelers won 12.

Meanwhile, the changes that Cowher had made in his offensive coaching staff paid immediate benefits as wide receivers coach Kenny Jackson, hired from Joe Paterno's staff at Penn State, reached young receivers Plaxico Burress and Troy Edwards. Burress scored a touchdown every 11 times he made a reception and Edwards, though not starting, scored on a run from scrimmage and a fumble recovery on a kickoff and averaged nearly 15 yards per catch. Ward narrowly missed being voted onto the AFC Pro Bowl team with a team-record 94 receptions.

Bettis' injury was barely a factor as Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala filled in capably, if not spectacularly, and totaled 453 yards and three touchdowns and helped the Steelers win the league's rushing title. A large part of Ma'afala's success was a cohesive offensive line, something the Steelers haven't had in many years, as Alan Faneca made the Pro Bowl at left guard and Marvel Smith manned the right tackle spot that had been so hard to fill for so long. Offensive line coach Russ Grimm, a veteran of Super Bowls and Pro Bowls with the Washington Redskins, gained respect throughout the game.

On defense, the Steelers were ranked No. 1 overall and against the run and kept every opposing rusher, with the exception of NFL rushing champ Priest Holmes, short of 100 yards.

Gildon was the only Pro Bowl player on defense, earning his second consecutive berth with 12 sacks. But the money spent on cornerbacks Chad Scott and Dewayne Washington – more than $10 million in signing bonuses – paid off. Washington had a solid year, with most teams throwing away from him, and Scott was the dynamic, big-play defender the Steelers had lacked for so long, when he wasn't having lapses in concentration.

The Steelers put together every piece of what had been a ragged puzzle, including the difficult task of player procurement, improvement in the passing game and attitude.

"There were a lot of good things that were accomplished," Cowher said. "I'm very happy about where we are and, more importantly, the future that's in front of us."