Limited Options

Steelers Have No Choice But To Run
By Jerry DiPaola

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Steelers have been making all the right moves toward rebuilding their running game.

Here is how it's done and the Steelers are following the formula:

• Draft a running back in the first round (Rashard Mendenhall in 2008) and, eventually, give him the keys to the Cadillac.
  
  
• Identify the best players on the offensive line (Max Starks and Chris Kemoeautu) and make them rich men (a total anticipated payout of $46.3 million through 2013).
  
  
• Find good, young blockers to fill in the blanks. Rookie guard/center Maurkice Pouncey, drafted in the first round this year, is a start. It marked the first time since 2002 that the Steelers have used a No. 1 or No. 2 choice on an offensive lineman.
  
  
• Trade your best wide receiver (Santonio Holmes) for a bag of doughnuts.

Oh, yeah, one more thing:

• Get your quarterback suspended for, at least, the first quarter of the season.
  Thank you, Ben.

Nothing says run the ball like a passing game gone in the toilet, literally and figuratively.

No offense to the potential of Dennis Dixon and the experience of Byron Leftwich and Charlie Batch, but if the Steelers decide to lean on their arms during Ben Roethlisberger's suspension, they are staring hard at 0-4.

Run the ball, Steelers, as if you still have Jerome Bettis in the backfield.

The Steelers were pointing toward improving the NFL's 19th-best running game even before Roethlisberger lost his mind. The 2009 season mandated that change was needed in an offensive philosophy that failed to deliver even a playoff berth for the first time in three years.

A look at the league rushing statistics shows that the team got away from what made the Steelers special during the 15-year Bill Cowher era.

The Steelers won NFL rushing titles three times under Cowher, reaching the AFC Championship game after each season. They finished in the top 10 in all but two seasons.

With Roethlisberger given unprecedented freedom to flex his passing arm the past two seasons, the running game fell to 19th and 23rd.

Such dependency on the quarterback worked well in 2008 when Roethlisberger made repeated big plays to pull the team out of trouble, including a historic touchdown pass to Holmes that beat the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

But both ends of that play start the 2010 season on suspension—in Holmes' case, that's part of the reason he was traded to the Jets—and the Steelers need to find alternative ways to win games.

Shortly after the season, Steelers president Art Rooney II nudged his coaching staff to improve the consistency in the running game.

"We have to get back to being able to run the football when we need to run the football," Rooney said.

Could he have been looking at the following statistic before making that statement?

The Steelers were tied for 20th in the NFL with only 10 rushing touchdowns. The companion team in that slot nearly two-thirds of the way to the bottom of the league? The Cleveland Browns.

Is that what the Steelers have become?

Wide receiver Hines Ward, who loves when he is catching passes and the spotlight shines on him, said he would gladly set aside some of his personal statistics for a better-balanced offense.

"I mean it's great to put up numbers," Ward said, "but to complement our defense—who weren't as powerful as they normally are—we have to control the ball more."

That won't be easy. There are factors working against the running game:

• Mendenhall still needs a dependable complement.
  
  
• Opposing defenses will focus on the run because the quarterback won't have the respect Roethlisberger enjoyed.

But it must be done and done well, or the start of the season—and perhaps beyond—will be a disaster.