Steelers Bring Down Curtain on Falcons

Fittingly enough on a night when they honored their 1974 Super Bowl champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers overcame another dismal offensive performance with some stirring defense.

The Steelers sacked Chris Chandler seven times to dominate the first three quarters, then overcame Chandler’s late heroics with two goal-line stands in the final two minutes to preserve a 13-9 victory Monday night.

“Give a lot of credit to Chris Chandler,” said relieved Steeler Coach Bill Cowher. “He was on his back the whole game and he kept getting back up.”

The Falcons trailed, 13-0, and never threatened offensively until Chandler connected with Terance Mathis on a five-yard scoring pass with 6:42 to play. Chandler then found Mathis again on a 40-yard completion to the Steeler seven after Jerome Bettis’ midfield fumble.

But after Ken Oxendine ran six yards to set up a second-and-goal at the one, the Steeler defense stuffed three successive running plays.

Fullback Bob Christian was stopped for no gain by Kevin Henry on second down, and Levon Kirkland blew through the left side of the Falcon offensive line to dump Christian for a one-yard loss on third down.

The Falcons (1-6) ran again on fourth down, and Earl Holmes and Kirkland teamed to stop Oxendine inches short of a touchdown.

“I saw the guard starting to pull and I just shot through the gap,” Holmes said. “In a situation like that, you don’t have time to think, you just trust your eyes.”

Sitting only a few feet away from the end zone, several of the 1974 Steelers--a team driven by Hall of Fame defenders Joe Greene, Jack Ham and Jack Lambert--slapped high-fives in celebration.

“It’s hard to even come up with words to say how this feels,” Christian said. “We were right where we wanted to be, and we came away without a score three times. We didn’t get it done.”

But it wasn’t over. The Steelers (4-3), unable to get a first down that would run out the clock, took a safety and a free kick rather than punt out of the end zone on fourth down to make the score 13-9.

Chandler wasn’t done, finding Tim Dwight for 27 yards to the Steeler five with five seconds left. But, after spiking the ball to save time for one last play, Chandler couldn’t find an open Dwight over the middle on the final play that epitomized the frustration of a disappointing team that reached the Super Bowl only 10 months ago.

“I was a little too quick on my route. If I had taken some more time, it would have been six,” Dwight said. “You’ve got to come up with a play there and I didn’t.”