FOND FAREWELL

The Pittsburgh Steelers know how to say goodbye.

The Steelers, playing the final game in the stadium where they dominated pro football in the 1970s, took advantage of numerous Washington Redskin breakdowns and five turnovers to usher out Three Rivers Stadium with a 24-3 victory Saturday.

Afterward, the Steelers celebrated as if they had just won a championship. They hugged, snapped locker room pictures of each other, then took a victory lap during an elaborate postgame ceremony.

Fifty former Steelers--Hall of Famer Franco Harris stood a few yards away from where he made his famed Immaculate Reception in 1972--looked on, giving the team an emotional lift in a game that had little significance other than the stadium closing.

“To me, it was like the last playoff game at Three Rivers,” linebacker Levon Kirkland said. “This was an opportunity to add to the history of this stadium, and I’m real proud of it.”

Rookie Hank Poteat highlighted a 17-point second quarter with a 53-yard punt return for a touchdown, and Richard Huntley, who had scored only once previously this season, had two touchdown runs as the Steelers (8-7) maintained their faint playoff hopes.

Two months before Three Rivers is imploded, the Redskins (7-8) did. The team with the NFL’s highest payroll lost for the sixth time in seven games in a dispirited performance that officially eliminated it from the postseason.

Poteat gave the Steelers a 10-3 lead after he fielded Tommy Barnhardt’s punt on the run and streaked to his right on his touchdown return at 3:35 of the second quarter.

“It was designed to be open in the middle, but I saw an opening to the right and I took it,” Poteat said. “I almost got tripped up but once I got by that, I knew I was off.”

It was the Steelers’ first touchdown on a punt return in five years and the second against the Redskins’ low-rated special teams this season. Washington has a $100-million roster loaded with former all-pro players, yet has allowed three kick return touchdowns.

On the Redskins’ next possession, Jeff George--owner Daniel Snyder’s hand-picked choice to start at quarterback--threw his second interception of the quarter as Chad Scott wrestled the ball away from receiver Albert Connell.

Huntley, who had 56 yards in seven carries, then scored on a three-yard run 28 seconds before halftime. Jerome Bettis ran for 104 yards as the Steelers outrushed Washington 190-64.

“We knew if we kept pounding it at those guys, it would wear on them,” Huntley said. “We kept pounding it play after play.”

The Steelers finished with a 182-73 record at Three Rivers, where they fielded four Super Bowl champions in the stadium’s first decade of existence. They had only one losing record there, going 2-6 last season.

Extra security was on hand for the final game, and there were no problems with fans trying to take home any stadium souvenirs.