Stewart Provides Flashback for Steelers

PITTSBURGH — Kordell Stewart could do almost no wrong on a night the Green Bay Packers could do virtually nothing right until it was too late.

Stewart, benched last week in one of Pittsburgh’s worst losses of the Bill Cowher era, passed and ran the Steelers to a 24-point halftime lead and a 27-20 victory on Monday night.

The Steelers (6-3) led 27-0 before the Packers (6-3) came back to make it interesting.

“How big was this? This was huge,” said Pittsburgh tailback Jerome Bettis, who ran for 100 yards for the seventh consecutive time in a Monday night. “If we lose, we’re two games behind [7-2 Jacksonville in the AFC Central]. This was what we needed.”

Especially for Stewart, who emerged from a season-long slump.

Pumping his fists and leaping with joy like a school kid on a playground with almost every successful play, Stewart ran for a touchdown, threw an eight-yard touchdown pass to Charles Johnson and set up a third score with a 45-yard completion to rookie Hines Ward in his best game in nearly a year.

And that was only the first half.

“We haven’t been coming out throwing, but we felt we had to do it because their offense is so potent,” receiver Courtney Hawkins said. “We had to keep their offense off the field.”

Stewart was 15 for 22 for 231 yards and no interceptions in his best performance since throwing for three touchdowns and running for two in a victory over Denver last December. Since then, he had eight touchdowns and 17 interceptions in 12 games, forcing Cowher to continually defend his decision to keep playing him.

“Our players are not robots. We tried to tell them this man was capable of great things,” Packers Coach Mike Holmgren said. “He has been faltering all season but he is capable of doing much more. It’s hard to get them to believe that.”

The Packers are in a precarious situation, just a week after a 36-22 victory over San Francisco pulled them within a game of the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Central.

“We tried to match their intensity but we couldn’t,” Holmgren said. “But there is no quit in this team, and we battled back at the end. If we had gotten the ball back one more time, who knows what would have happened?”

The Green Bay defense’s second Monday night collapse in five weeks--Randall Cunningham passed for 442 yards in Minnesota’s 37-24 victory on Oct. 5--came just when the Vikings (8-1) seemed vulnerable. Both of the Vikings’ quarterbacks, Cunningham and Brad Johnson, were injured in a 31-24 victory over New Orleans and third-stringer Jay Fiedler will probably have to play Sunday against Cincinnati.

But the Packers, who displayed a playoff-like intensity against the 49ers, came off flat and overcautious, and they didn’t begin playing like two-time defending NFC champions until the fourth quarter.

White’s hard hit of backup quarterback Mike Tomczak on a third-and-goal play from the Green Bay four forced a fumble that Keith McKenzie scooped up and returned 88 yards for the first Packer touchdown with 9:20 left.

Brett Favre led a 74-yard drive on the Packers’ next possession that ended with Raymont Harris’ two-yard touchdown run. Favre passed to Antonio Freeman for the two-point conversion that made it 27-17 with 4:52 left..

The Packers then recovered an onside kick, but stalled at the Steelers’ 19 and Ryan Longwell kicked a 37-yard field goal with 2:40 to go.

Green Bay tried another onside kick, but Steeler tight end Mark Bruener leaped to grab it, allowing the Steelers and Bettis to run out the clock.