Rally Comes With Return of Stewart

Kordell Stewart, playing again the way he did three seasons ago, unexpectedly returned from a supposedly game-ending knee injury to rally the Pittsburgh Steelers to a 21-20 victory Sunday over the Oakland Raiders.

Stewart threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Bobby Shaw before injuring his right knee late in the first quarter. He then came back with the Steelers (7-6) trailing, 17-7, and threw a six-yard scoring pass to Mark Bruener and got the go-ahead points with a 17-yard touchdown run.

“You knew he was hurting, and to see him come back, that lifted everybody up,” said Jerome Bettis, who rushed for 128 yards. “He was doing it on one leg, so I said in the huddle, ‘We’ve got to give him some help.’ ”

They did, mounting a 91-yard scoring drive on their initial second-half possession to reverse the momentum the Raiders (10-3) gained when Stewart was out. Stewart’s scoring run was set by Bettis’ 30-yard run and came in the opening minute of the fourth quarter.

The Steeler defense, meanwhile, held the Raiders to Sebastian Janikowski’s 42-yard field goal in the second half. Janikowski missed a 44-yarder with about four minutes to play.

The Raiders (10-3), whose previous two losses were to Denver, couldn’t give Janikowski a chance to win it in the closing seconds. They drove to the Steeler 41 but, with the scoreboard showing third down on what actually was fourth down, Rich Gannon’s swing pass to fullback Jon Ritchie fell incomplete.

Stewart’s unannounced return at the start of the second half clearly picked the Steelers up. They had fallen behind, 17-7, after he left, but they immediately went on a 16-play, 91-yard drive ended by Bruener’s touchdown catch.

Bruener appeared to be stopped at the three, but his second effort carried safety Calvin Branch with him into the end zone.

“I was going to get in there some way,” Bruener said.

Stewart said much the same thing after initially being ruled out. But, after spending the second quarter wearing a ski cap on a chilly, 33-degree day, he had the knee tightly wrapped at halftime and decided to play.

“I was nervous, it was hurting bad,” said Stewart, who completed 14 of 23 passes for 136 yards and two touchdowns. “But I was excited, too.”

The Raiders weren’t. They had teed off on Kent Graham, sacking him several times and forcing an interception on Graham’s first pass that Eric Allen returned 27 yards for a touchdown.

“I think they knew that with Graham in there, sitting in the pocket, that wasn’t going to work,” defensive tackle Darrell Russell said.

Stewart, who had three touchdown passes through 11 games, has thrown for five and run for four touchdowns in his last 2 1/2 games.