Bengals Pay the Price as Bettis Gets Rolling

Jerome Bettis was the only one doing any chest pounding in Akili Smith’s second start.

Bettis bowled over tacklers and provided the only semblance of offense by either team, rushing for 111 yards and two touchdowns Sunday as the Pittsburgh Steelers churned out a 17-3 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Led by defensive end Orpheus Roye, the NFL’s second-ranked defense made a 14-3 halftime lead stand up by stopping Cincinnati on the ground and making sure that Smith’s second start was nothing like his first.

The Steelers (3-3) intercepted Smith twice, sacked him four times, batted down four throws at the line and got their hands on 13 of his throws overall. He finished 19 for 38 for 207 yards.

“We saw that he throws a lot of zip passes with not a lot of arc,” said Roye, who had one sack and tipped four of Smith’s passes. “We just put some hands up and tipped some balls.”

Smith was harder on himself.

“I played poorly. There’s nothing else to say,” Smith said. “I was in a position to make plays and I didn’t make them. I didn’t execute the offense. I didn’t see the field well.”

Bettis, off to his slowest start as a pro, scored on runs of one and five yards in the first half. His first 100-yard rushing game of the season compensated for another shaky performance by Kordell Stewart, who completed 17 of 29 passes for 134 yards.

The Steelers won because of Bettis, who missed training camp because of knee surgery. He looked like “The Bus” for the first time all season.

“Anybody who has been to our practices could see that he ran like the Jerome Bettis of old,” Coach Bill Cowher said. “I think he’s felt healthier. This is the best he’s felt, so it didn’t surprise me that he had the game he had.”

He ran for 100 yards even though the Steelers lost Pro Bowl center Dermontti Dawson to a pulled hamstring on their third possession. Bettis carried 26 times and wore down a defense stacked at the line of scrimmage to stop him.

Bettis, held to 24 yards in 13 carries in Buffalo, nearly equaled that total on a 23-yard run in the third quarter, his longest run of the season.