The power running game in the NFL is dead. Gone is the 'three yards and a cloud of dust' mentality that so pervaded the league for years. The modern game of football is dictated by the pass -- and a team's ability to defend against it.
This fact has been a cruel slap in the face for the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans, who love nothing more than to use the word 'smashmouth' to describe their team. The days of Jerome Bettis rumbling up the middle behind Dermontti Dawson are gone -- and it's the best thing that could have happened to the team.
Steelers coach Bill Cowher finally understood that this year. The normally stubborn man with the protruding jaw looked at his roster and decided that this was not the time to be pounding square pegs into round holes. He knows the team's window for a Super Bowl is quickly closing.
Cowher did what is considered unthinkable by most Steelers fans when he benched Bettis and tight end Mark Bruener in favor for the more versatile Amos Zereoue and Jay Riemersma. Both Riemersma and Zereoue have good hands but only marginal blocking abilities, the polar opposite of the traditional Steelers player.
This team is built for the pass. More than that, it's no longer suited for the run.
Bettis' aging body can no longer stand the rigors of a 16-game schedule and the once indomitable offensive line has been cut to size by injury, free agency and illness.
Now the Steelers have arguably the best receiving corps in the league with Plaxico Burress and Hines Ward forming a more prolific tandem than the great Swann and Stallworth.
Throw second-year, do-everything receiver Antwaan Randle El into the mix and you create a defensive coordinator's nightmare. Sure, you can throw a double-team on Burress or Ward, but the resulting mismatch of a linebacker covering Randle El is one Cowher will take all game long.
It no longer makes sense to follow the antiquated notion that the only way to win a championship is with a power running game. The run is used more now to set up the pass with play action calls than anything else.
Unfortunately for the Steelers, most of the NFL realizes this now as well, exploiting the team's most glaring weakness -- the secondary.
The Steelers had an epiphany last season as their ever-vaunted defense was picked apart in the first two weeks of the season against New England and Oakland. The Raiders didn't even try to disguise their intentions to pass and still came up with a sobering 30-17 victory at Heinz Field.
In a playoff game against Cleveland, the secondary allowed over 400 yards through the air to a career backup named Kelly Holcomb, probably allowing him to win the starting job over Tim Couch.
As the Steelers' offense adapts toward the pass happy NFL, so must the defense. Strong safety Lee Flowers was unceremoniously released by the team after having been a mainstay for years. Why? Flowers was so accustomed to playing near the line to stop the run that he became almost useless in pass coverage.
A team can't afford to have such a weak link when the opposing game plan is to air it out 40 to 50 times a game. So, the Steelers broke character again at the draft, trading up to choose a safety in the first round -- two things that the franchise had never done in the past.
That draft pick, Troy Polamalu, will eventually help the situation, but it won't change the fact that the team returns 75 percent of its colander-like secondary from last year.
The Steelers have made large strides toward adapting to the new NFL through various personnel changes, but one can't help but think it's too little, too late. If Cowher can stick to the near-revolutionary changes he's made for the entire season, however, the Steel City may finally be able to celebrate that one for the thumb.
