Offense is catching up with defense
PITTSBURGH – While the Steelers enter training camp without many true position battles expected to occur, there will be competition anywhere you look. Steelers coach Bill Cowher made that point quite succinctly during Monday’s pre-training camp meeting with the media.
But how? How can there be true competition when 21 of 22 starters return from a team which rose from the ashes of three consecutive mediocre seasons to the brink of AFC supremacy?
It’s quite simple, according to Cowher.
The greatest battle to be waged at Latrobe’s St. Vincent College, where players must report by 6 p.m. Wednesday, will be as simple as offense vs. defense.
“The competition that exists is not position to position,” Cowher said, “but unit to unit.”
Twelve short months ago, even the concept of Pittsburgh’s offense having a chance of competing with its ferocious defense was laughable. Now, it is so real Cowher didn’t go out of his way to schedule as practices or scrimmages against other teams, not even the Washington Redskins, who train a few hours away at Dickinson College in Carlisle.
“This team has been dominated by defense for a long time,” Cowher said. “But the level of expectations on the offensive side is up to where the level of expectations is on the defensive side. There is a pride that exists and that can be healthy.”
So get ready for a lot of Kordell vs. Kendrell, with some Plaxico vs. Chad and Hines vs. Dewayne thrown in just to spice things up.
Cowher had a very appropriate reference point from last year’s training camp, one recalled by correspondent Jim Wexell in Sunday’s editions of the Herald-Standard. Cowher remembered last year when Joey Getheral torched Chad Scott and hauled in a long pass. That play seemed to ignite the defense (an infuriate Scott) and you could make the argument it led to another memorable moment from training camp 2001. Kendrell Bell’s thunderous hit on Jerome Bettis in goal line drills won’t soon be forgotten.
“You don’t know when it will happen or if it will happen,” Cowher said of such plays. “It can manifest itself in many ways and forms. The fans loved it last year. Everyone loved it, except Chad.”
Scott was torked at the time he was beaten by Getheral, a free agent rookie who didn’t even make the team. But he allowed the play or the memory thereof to linger in his mind throughout what became his best season to date. He led the team with a career-high five interceptions and returned two of them for touchdowns.
Likewise, the offense took its share of licks from the defense last year in camp and after an awful opener in Jacksonville the Steelers lost only twice more before dropping the AFC championship game to eventual Super Bowl champion New England.
Along the way, Pittsburgh’s offense produced a pair of 1,000-yard receivers and a 1,000-yard runner and sent Kordell Stewart to his first Pro Bowl.
So, the question becomes: What better way for the Steelers offense to improve than to work day-in and day-out against the NFL’s reigning top-ranked defense? Likewise, what better way for that defense to stay on top of its game than by facing an up-and-coming offense, with several players bordering on stardom, like its own?
It all sounds great, but there are risks in such a strategy. You don’t want the physical nature of the game to allow training camp to turn into an injuryfest. Nor do you want defensive players hating offensive players or vice versa.
“There is a line that you just don’t cross,” Cowher cautioned. “But you had better get pretty close to it or you’ll never achieve any of the things you set out to achieve.”
There will be daily injury reports coming from camp and each one of them likely will be preceded by a few words about Bettis and his gimpy groin muscle. Bettis wants all of the questions to go away. The best way to do that is to participate in practices and take a few shots.
If his groin can take the pounding Bell and his friends can administer, even Bettis will get a confidence boost. If the groin can’t take the pounding, wouldn’t it be better to find out during camp than in the third game against Cleveland?
Don’t expect a bloodbath in the steambath that is Latrobe in July. This camp won’t necessarily be more physical or punishing than any of its immediate predecessors. There will be fights. There will be trench warfare. There will be a lot of sweating and perhaps a lot more swearing.
All of that has more to do with the Steelers last game than their next one.
“The last game is a very lasting game,” Cowher said, referring to last January’s gut-wrenching 24-17 loss to the Patriots in the AFC championship game. “As satisfying as some of our games were last year, we didn’t get the job done in the last one.”
And the Steelers will get to see plenty of film from that game because the NFL schedule-maker gave them a prime-time opening-weekend rematch with the Patriots.
The Steelers head to work with an ever-confident defense. And even Cowher realizes that “there is a comfort level on offense that wasn’t there last year.”
Let’s not forget the heightened expectations. Many so-called experts call the Steelers the team to beat in the AFC.
“We’ve got to stay grounded and take one step at a time,” Cowher said. “We don’t want to look ahead and, really, there is no reason for us to do that. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. We kind of created this edge last year. We’ve got to keep it going this year.”
Sports editor Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com