Emotional Oilers Defeat the Steelers : AFC: Houston dedicates 26-17 victory to the memory of Jeff Alm. Slaughter injures knee and is out for season.

His No. 76 was plastered on their helmets, and Jeff Alm also was never far from the Houston Oilers’ hearts.

The Oilers responded to a week of adversity and sadness after Alm’s suicide with a 26-17 victory Sunday over the Pittsburgh Steelers that they dedicated to their late teammate.

The victory was the ninth in a row for the Oilers, who clinched the AFC Central championship.

Alm, a fourth-year reserve lineman, took his life Tuesday after being involved in an auto accident that killed a childhood friend. He was to have returned to the Oilers’ lineup from a leg injury Sunday.

It was a game many Oilers probably didn’t want to play, but were determined to play exactly the way Alm would have wanted.

“At times, I found myself reflecting back on it and all the sadness of it, but at the same time, you have to do your job,” defensive end Sean Jones said. “You can’t let it affect what you have to do. This is a very mature football team. This team handles adversity well, and it has an incredible ability to focus.”

The Oilers (10-4), usually tentative at Three Rivers Stadium, scored two quick touchdowns and applied relentless defensive pressure. They won for only the seventh time in 25 games at Pittsburgh.

The Oilers will send the game ball to Alm’s parents.

“It was a very emotional week for us,” Houston quarterback Warren Moon said. “It was hard to put it out of our minds, but I think the team did a great job of staying focused. We wanted to win for Jeff, and we’re sending the game ball to his parents.”

Alm’s picture was flashed on the scoreboard as both teams stood at attention before the national anthem, and several Oilers said he was constantly in their thoughts.

The Oilers struck early, scoring twice in 1:30 of the first quarter on Moon’s 38-yard screen pass to Gary Brown and Bo Orlando’s 38-yard interception return for a 14-0 lead.

The Steelers never caught up, psychologically or on the scoreboard.

“We were fired up, the crowd was fired up, but they quieted the crowd right way,” Steeler cornerback D.J. Johnson said. “They did a great job of taking the crowd out of the game.”

The Oilers’ 6-0 division record assures they will win the division even if they lose their final two games. The Steelers (8-6) lost their first division home game in three years and probably must beat Seattle and Cleveland to make the playoffs as a wild card.

The Oilers suffered a key injury when leading receiver Webster Slaughter tore the medial collateral and anterior cruciate ligaments in his left knee in the second quarter. He will be sidelined the rest of the season.

Moon, winner of only three of nine previous starts in Pittsburgh, ducked a blitz to complete a pass to Gary Brown on the Oilers’ opening drive and the running back outran the secondary into the end zone with 3:53 gone.

Defensively, the Oilers disrupted Pittsburgh with a nonstop blitz that forced two point-producing turnovers and sacked Neil O’Donnell six times.

Only three plays after Brown’s touchdown, the Oilers’ blitz forced O’Donnell into hurrying a pass that went directly to Orlando, who ran 38 yards untouched for the first touchdown of his four-year NFL career.

Orlando was starting only because of a season-ending injury last week to safety Marcus Robertson, and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan planned to replace him early in the game with recently signed safety Terry Hoage. Ryan never made the change.

Pittsburgh, already playing without Foster, who is out for the season because of an injured ankle that will require surgery Tuesday, will be without Pro Bowl linebacker Greg Lloyd indefinitely because of a pulled left hamstring.