Oct 27, 2002 5 min read

BALTIMORE – No one is willing to admit it just yet, but the Steelers are on a bit of a roll. Granted, back-to-back wins and three wins in four games do not a season make, especially when they have to go overtime to beat Cleveland at home and when another of those wins comes at the expense of Cincinnati, the league’s worst team.

But shouldn’t we recognize this by now? Shouldn’t we all realize that this is how Steelers coach Bill Cowher operates? Cowher is seemingly incapable of starting a season with a few wins, regardless of how much or how hard he professes to want to do so.

The last two times the Steelers opened the season 2-0 they finished 6-10 (1999) and 7-9 (1998). Obviously, that didn’t work out so well.

This is Cowher’s next-best approach. Lose a couple of games you could have won coming out of the chute, then regroup and preach the old it’s-us-against-the-world talk that has worked so well in the past.

Cowher is working his magic again. He’ll tell you until he’s blue in the face about how tough the Ravens are and about how difficult it is to be dominant in this league and how his Steelers haven’t accomplished anything yet.

Of course, all of those points are hard to argue at this stage in the game, but they also are as moot as the opposition. It really doesn’t matter who the Steelers play against when they get on one of these rolls, it’s just a perk that it happens to be a division opponent.

The Steelers started the season as AFC favorites, fell off the horse with back-to-back season-opening losses and have been working their way back up ever since.

The Steelers are at a stage right now where it is them against the world. There aren’t a lot of believers out there ready to plunk down a dollar or two on Pittsburgh’s chances of reaching Super Bowl XXXVII, let alone winning it.

Before the season started, Cowher spoke freely about wanting to be a dominant team, about how his team was poised to take the next step.

Ask him now if his team even has the potential to be dominant and you get a totally different answer.

“To me, there’s one dominant team when the season is done and that’s the team that finished on top,” Cowher said. “What we have to do is make sure we go out and play with the same approach, take the same approach in our preparation.

“I mean, I like the way we’ve been preparing. There’s a sense of urgency in what we’re doing, there’s a focus that exists, there’s an understanding that you know sometimes it’s not always going to unfold the way you want it to, but you have to have that trust, belief and expectation.”

That little speech is Cowherspeak at its best. No rocket science involved, but it serves as gospel to the players. And it works.

“You know, you’ve just got to win games, find ways to score one more point than the opponent and not go into a lull,” he said, pointing back to Monday night’s 28-10 win over Indianapolis to illustrate his point. “You’re sitting there 21-3, but with that football team we played, there are no guarantees.”

So here the Steelers sit, with a 3-3 record that includes a perfect 2-0 AFC North Division mark and the next two games are on the road against division opponents.

What better time to keep a good thing going? You might say, given Cowher’s track record, that he has the Ravens (today) and the Cleveland Browns (next Sunday) right where he wants them.

Every season the Steelers have finished with a winning record has included a string of wins during which you’d swear they just willed themselves to win. There were some long odds along the way, but Cowher’s teams always have battled through the adversity they had put themselves into.

And it looks like they are at another one of those crossroads. As many people have believed from the beginning and some continued to believe despite an 0-2 start, the AFC North is a division ripe for the taking. The Ravens are the second best team in the division and the Steelers are much more talented than Baltimore.

But they can’t win the division today. All they can do is put themselves in the most favorable position to win the division later in the season. That is what Cowher will continue to preach.

The Steelers also are in the midst of a tough stretch of four road games out of five, two each wrapped around Monday night’s home win.

Somehow, they will get by the Ravens today and manage to beat Cleveland on the road next Sunday. Then, they’ll be 5-3 and looking at four out of six games at home and this season will begin to shape up.

By then, you’ll realize that what you just read is true. The Steelers are on a roll and looking for nothing more than to keep it going as long as they can.

Sports editor Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com