Lloyd, O’Donnell Are Keys for Pittsburgh

On the roster of America’s roughest linebackers, Greg Lloyd is one of the few with the speed of an NFL running back.

On the short roll of good modern quarterbacks, Neil O’Donnell stands out for his mastery of football’s most difficult position.

These are the two best players on the Pittsburgh Steelers. If the Steelers are to have a chance against the Dallas Cowboys today in the Super Bowl, Lloyd, probably the strongest man on the field, and O’Donnell, who at 6 feet 3 and 228 pounds is bigger than Lloyd, will have to play at least as well as they ever have.

And more than that, they will have to raise up the other Steelers.

For as a team, Pittsburgh hasn’t yet shown that it has enough to win this game. It will be a major upset if the Cowboys aren’t in front by 14 points in the fourth quarter and on their way to another championship.

Lloyd, in theory, can do something about that. The best weak-side linebacker since perhaps Lawrence Taylor, he is more powerful than Taylor against running plays. There will be occasions when Lloyd (6-2, 226) sprints through or around Cowboy tackle Mark Tuinei in time to smash quarterback Troy Aikman or halfback Emmitt Smith, or both.

And that might inspire the rest of the Steelers, including the other outside linebacker, Kevin Greene, who otherwise appears to be in over his head against Cowboy tackle Erik Williams.

The O’Donnell question is whether his blockers can protect him long enough to allow him to throw the shotgun passes that could make him famous. There are flaws in shotgun football, but the Steeler quarterback has a knack for it.

PITTSBURGH

Under Coach Bill Cowher, the Steelers have only recently tried to be a persevering passing team. Their problem is that Cowher would rather run the ball.

Young in years but aged in outlook, he is a football conservative who set out a few months ago to graft a newfangled pass offense onto an old-fashioned base. And because his is a team with some talent, there was some progress this season.

The Steelers passed the ball well enough to get here, but not well enough to win.

For one thing, they don’t mix up runs and passes as capably as does Ernie Zampese, the Dallas offensive coordinator.

Nor do the Steelers match up well with the Cowboys, whose midsection is vulnerable to a punishing ground attack. Of Pittsburgh’s best runners, Bam Morris is too slow and Erric Pegram too small.

As a team, the Steelers seem basically unsound on both sides of the ball. The blitzing they prefer on defense is as risky as the way they like to play offense--with the shotgun and four and five wide receivers. When the passer stands far back in the backfield, no team can run consistently.

So the Steelers must rely heavily on O’Donnell today and on the hard hitters on their defense, of whom Lloyd hits hardest. What they need the most is a couple of early fumbles.

DALLAS

The edge that Aikman has in this game is that he and the others in the Cowboy lineup have been executing the same plays for four years.

These are not only good young players running good plays, they have been doing it regularly, over and over.

They know that if one thing doesn’t work, another will.

That is a great advantage for a football team to have against an immature opponent--especially with Emmitt Smith to run the ball and Michael Irvin and Jay Novacek to catch it.

In their third Super Bowl of the 1990s, the Cowboys are basically Jimmy Johnson’s players--the product of perhaps the best talent scout since Bill Walsh--plus Deion Sanders.

That is a load.