Asked the other day if the Steelers are capable of getting on a run like they did in 2005, outside linebacker James Harrison paused for a moment and said, “We’re headed in the right direction.”
After winning three in a row and clinching a playoff spot with a victory against Kansas City, the Steelers are indeed on the right path.
But unlike 2005, when they finished the regular season with four consecutive victories to grab the final wild-card spot, the Steelers have a bigger prize in sight when they face Cincinnati tonight at Heinz Field. They can win the AFC North for the first time since 2010, grab the No. 3 seed in the conference and get a home playoff game with a victory.
To do that, the Steelers must set their sights on stopping Bengals rookie running back Jeremy Hill, who has been nothing short of sensational the past eight games.
They did that in the first meeting Dec. 7 in Cincinnati when Hill carried only eight times for 46 yards.
But in the two games since the Steelers’ resounding 42-21 victory at Paul Brown Stadium, Hill has rushed for 148 yards against Cleveland and 147 yards in Monday night’s victory against Denver.
“I thought we saw signs of that going into the last game,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “He provides a legitimate spark for them. He is a big-body guy. We can’t let him wear us down over the course of the game.”
Funny, the Bengals could say the same about Harrison.
At a time of the season when most 36-year-olds might wear down, Harrison only seems to be warming up. After missing two games with a knee injury, Harrison returned fresh as ever against the Chiefs and had one of those games reminiscent of when he terrorized the league from 2007-10. Harrison had 7 tackles, 1½ sacks, 2 tackles for loss and 2 quarterback hurries, one of which led to a sack by Jason Worilds.
On one dazzling series at the end of the first half, he tackled rookie De’Anthony Thomas for 6-yard loss on first down, then blew up the lead blocker and combined with Lawrence Timmons on a fourth-down stop on Jamaal Charles.
As good as he was against the Chiefs, Tomlin reminded everyone this is not the same Harrison who was the NFL’s defensive player of the year in 2008.
“He’s got a lot of talent, but he’s got 36-37-year-old talent as opposed to late-20-year-old talent like he used to have,” Tomlin said. “There’s a difference.”
The Bengals, who signed Harrison for the 2013 season after he was released by the Steelers, might notice a difference, too.
They employed him as a 4-3 linebacker who was often stacked behind a defensive lineman, a role that didn’t utilize his unique abilities. On the outside, Harrison’s biggest role is setting the edge in run defense and creating pressure from the edge.
The Steelers will need that against Hill, who is ninth in the league with 1,024 rushing yards and has a team-high nine touchdowns. In the past eight games, he has rushed for 147 or more yards four times. He had his longest run of the season — an 85-yard touchdown — against the Broncos.
“The first thing that comes to mind about them, not only are they a veteran group guys that don’t miss assignments and have busted coverages, they are guys who are where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there,” Hill said of the Steelers. They play fast, get after the passer and stop the run. They are full of veteran guys who have been there before.”
One of them is Harrison.
First Published: December 28, 2014, 5:00 a.m.
