NOTEBOOK : Steelers’ Noll Not Easily Impressed, Even in 41-10 Victory

The Steelers, by anyone’s account, came through with a big victory Monday night. But you couldn’t tell it by looking at Pittsburgh Coach Chuck Noll.

OK, so we’ve come to expect a mask of indifference on the face of Noll, who has been a study in stoicism for 22 seasons as the Steelers’ head coach. But you figure he would be dishing out a healthy portion of praise during his postgame press conference, right?

Well, not exactly.

“I thought that was an outstanding effort all around,” he said. “I think the thing that pleased me most about this was our defense keeping an offense like the Rams’ off the scoreboard. No touchdowns.

“But our position is we have to continue to win. We have to put a few together. We’ve been, ‘win one, lose one, look like hell and come back and play like champs.’ We’ve got to put a string of those playing-like-champs (games) together.”

So much for savoring a 41-10 victory.

In an effort to show off Pittsburgh in it’s best light for a national television audience, the city staged a light-up night Monday.

The Steelers were making their first appearance on Monday night football in four years, so all the buildings in the downtown area had their lights on. The weather cooperated as well, with a crystal clear evening heightening the sparkling effect.

Spike like a man. Pittsburgh’s Eric Green, who’s 6-feet 5-inches and 274 pounds, has been drawing rave reviews for his strength and quickness. And he showed off both attributes when he sprinted past Vince Newsome to catch a 17-yard touchdown pass that lifted the Steelers to a 14-7 lead in the first quarter.

After the catch, the rookie tight end slammed the ball in the end zone and it bounced about 30 feet straight up in the air.

Steeler fans had reason to celebrate, too. It was Green’s sixth touchdown in the last four games. In the five seasons before this one, Pittsburgh tight ends had a total of four touchdowns.

It came before anyone could blink, almost faster than Gaston Green himself could imagine. He settled back to return the opening kickoff on the left side of the field, grabbed it on his hip right on the goal line, then saw the Grand Canyon open before him.

The way he described it afterward, he just ran through the hole and it never closed. One hundred yards later, the Ram running back had a touchdown--the Rams’ first kickoff return for a score since Ron Brown did it against the Redskins in 1987--and staked his team to its last lead Monday night.

“It was a real big hole for me to run through,” said Green, who added that he relishes any opportunity he has to touch the ball now that he’s been made a reserve to starting tailback Cleveland Gary.

“I was surprised it was so wide open,” Green said of the hole. “And I just ran, pretty much was untouched, I guess.”

He guessed right. Before he broke through the last cluster of Steelers at about the Rams’ 20-yard line, there was just one man to beat, and Green knew he had him beaten.

“From there on, all I saw was the kicker (Gary Anderson), and I knew I had the touchdown,” he said. Green easily blew past Anderson and cruised into the end zone.

For the second consecutive week, punter Keith English got trapped deep in Ram territory on a punt attempt when the protection broke down.

This time, English, spotting Steeler safety Gary Jones popping through the line untouched, decided to hold the ball and be tackled rather than risk a kick that could have been blocked and returned for a touchdown.

Coach John Robinson, however, didn’t agree with the decision.

“I think he should’ve gotten the ball off,” Robinson said of the play that gave the Steelers the ball at the Rams’ six-yard line in the third quarter. “I guess it’s typical of the way we’re playing.”

Robinson conceded there was a blocking breakdown on the right side of the line, but said he thought English reacted too quickly to avoid the penetration instead of trying to just kick the ball.

“It was a split-second decision,” English said. “Turns out we were in bad field position anyway, so. . . . You make a split-second decision, you’ve got to live with them.”