Steelers Walk The Line
Success in '07 Depends on the Guys Up Front
By Jerry DiPaola

Optimists continually point to one indisputable fact when discussing the Steelers' chances to return to the playoff this season:

It was only 19 months ago that this team won a Super Bowl.

True.

Steelers fans sang the same type of song last year when the team was only seven months removed from defeating the Seattle Seahawks and crowning Bill Cowher a champion, once and for all time.

The trouble with using the same logic is that it's not especially logical any longer. Nineteen months - as anyone who served jail time will tell you - is a long time. Too much time has passed and too many players and coaches have come and gone for people to believe that if the Steelers did it in 2006, they surely can do it again. After all, the team's most recent history is 8-8.

For starters, new coach Mike Tomlin's sideline looks like that of another team. So many new faces abound that you wonder where the ransom note is and how much will it take to get back assistant coaches such as Dick Hoak, Russ Grimm and Ken Whisenhunt.. After Cowher sought and achieved stability among his staff in recent seasons, nine of 16 members are new.

OK, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to wonder if the acclimation period among veteran players who don't covet change and coaches trying to implement it will produce initially sour results.

Also, respected clubhouse leaders and productive contributors such as Jerome Bettis, Joey Porter, Antwaan Randle El and Jeff Hartings are gone. In the NFL - where players tend to lean on each other more than in other professional sports - that is no small matter.

Which brings us to the offensive line. At first glance, it looks pretty much the same, with left tackle Marvel Smith, All-Pro left guard Alan Faneca and right guard Kendall Simmons, but 40 percent of the five starters in Super Bowl XL may be replaced by the time the team opens the regular season Sept. 9 in Cleveland.

The hole that Hartings filled since 2001 looks like it will go to Sean Mahan, a 26-year-old former fifth-round draft choice who was not part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' rebuilding efforts on their beleaguered offensive line. The Steelers gave Mahan a five-year, $17 million contract, with a $4 million signing bonus, partially because Tomlin knew him when they were together in Tampa.

"To be honest, I'm not sure when I opened (the Steelers') eyes," Mahan said when he signed his contract in March."They want me to come in and play center so they've seen (videotape) back to 2004 when I played center."

Mahan has been a solid player for the Steelers in the preseason, but he hasn't played center regularly since 2004, and even then it was only for eight starts. He was a guard in 2005 and 2006.

But Chukky Okobi, who was Hartings' long-time backup, missed time in camp this summer due to a back injury, opening up the job for Mahan - for better or worse.

"I plan on being a starter, Mahan said.

The situation at right tackle is a bit less stable, with incumbent Max Starks and Willie Colon, a fourth-round draft choice from Hofstra last year, competing for the job. Neither has been outstanding, and the Steelers' failure to re-sign Starks, who will be free-agent eligible next year, is an indicator that he has yet to fully prove himself to the front office and new coaching staff.

The Faneca situation also can be a bit troubling, for the present and the future. Faneca is the best guard in the NFL, but the Steelers chose not to pay him as such. That angered Faneca to the point that he missed almost the entire schedule of spring workouts (most of which were voluntary), and later said that he won't necessarily be as willing to play through injuries this season.

The Steelers need Faneca, and they are a better team with him - even if he is unhappy. But he has said he doesn't plan to return, and that could lead to an ugly situation. Faneca is a reliable pro and one of the greatest linemen in team history, but if the season starts to turn bad will the lame-duck Faneca start to lose interest?

Meanwhile, Smith had a bad back in training camp and Simmons, whose job was thought to be in jeopardy, was playing at, perhaps, the highest level of his career. But he also is without a contact for next season.

The trouble with trouble on the line is that the Steelers have so few weapons on offense that protection for the playmakers is crucial so they can remain healthy and productive.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger can't lead the team from his back. Steelers quarterbacks were sacked 49 times in 2006 (14, or 28 percent by the Baltimore Ravens), and if either number is approached this season, the Ravens will stand ahead of the Steelers at the end of the season in the AFC North standings.

The Steelers also have only one reliable running back. Willie Parker may be among the best in the league, with consecutive seasons of 1,494 and 1,202 yards and an average of 4.55 per carry. But he was limited early in training camp by a bad knee, and the Steelers were especially careful with him, keeping him out of the first two exhibition games and allowing him only four carries in the third one.

If someone misses a block and Ravens 340-pound defensive tackle Haloti Ngata crashes into Parker's knee, Steelers fans won't want to consider the consequences.

Champions are built and games are won in the trenches. The Steelers look especially strong on the defensive line where big and athletic ends Aaron Smith and Brett Keisel bookend one of the best nose tackles in the game, Casey Hampton. Opponents will have a hard time achieving a good running game.

But the Steelers' offensive line needs a lot of work, and - most importantly - it didn't take its final form until about a month into training camp. That lack of cohesion will hurt, even if it's only for a brief period this season. Linemen need to know they can trust the guy next to them, and that only happens through constant repetitions with each other. That didn't happen through the preseason's first three games.

The line eventually may come together and lead Parker and Roethlisberger to the kind of great seasons they need to have for the Steelers to be successful. But we're a long way from that point, and the season starts in only a few days.