Friday, December 08, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Among the harshest in the unforeseen myriad of questions posed by this star-crossed Steelers season is the one about Willie Parker.
What is Willie Parker's long-term impact on the offense -- game-breaker, back breaker, heart breaker, myth-shaker? Or is it nothing within even those tortured parameters? Is he the slashing clock-eater he often appears to be at Heinz Field, or the tip toeing possession killer he is so often in other zip codes?
For those who believe Parker has not been enough of the solution for Bill Cowher's season-long problems, the conclusion that he must therefore be part of the problem almost plunges him out of this town's consciousness as an offensive force, or anything else.
Sarah Jessica Parker got more and better pub in this town this week than the guy who broke open the Super Bowl in February with the biggest run in the biggest game's 40 years of bigness.
"I always thought Willie Parker was going to help us change this offense," Ben Roethlisberger said in the minutes after perhaps the most astonishing performance by a running back in club history last night. "I mean a faster, more slashing offense. I think he's been a very patient running back but still a guy who can stretch the field and get outside when he needs to."
It says here that the Willie Parker who sliced the Cleveland Browns to frozen ribbons all across the Heinz Field lawn last night is the one true thing, a compact accelerator with vision and heart who is no more an impediment than he is a co-star on "Sex and the City."
Yet.
In the first act of what would blossom in the cold night air into the most spectacularly productive rushing performance in the history of this storied franchise, Parker personally moved the sticks four times on his way to 60 effective yards on his first 13 carries.
The Steelers led 10-0 as much because of that as anything, and it was clear that for all of its well-documented inconsistencies, the Steelers' offensive line had at least one more brutally efficient blocking cadenza somewhere in its noble soul, getting monstrous games from Marvel Smith, Alan Faneca, and Jeff Hartings in particular.
"Some of the holes," Roethlisberger said, "I think I could have run through."
The Parker Issue around here was itself a game of inches, and more accurately, of pounds. It grew almost comic in the past few days, with news that the Browns should be a more formidable opponent in this shaggy rematch because they had a healthy Reuben Droughns this time.
Parker, at 5-10 and 209, couldn't shake the charge that he was too light for the Steelers' run-first purposes. Droughns, at 5-11 and 215, was getting described as punishing runner and got lauded for his bruising "downhill" style all the way up to and including the pregame radio ritual known as The Bill Cowher Show.
Now seriously, who would you rather have, for this or any offense?
Quick hint: Halftime -- Parker 114 yards on 18 carries; Droughns 5 on 3.
"When I first got here and checked things out I thought I was more of a speed back and there was always more of a big back here," Parker said. "I thought maybe my niche would be somewhere else, like special teams. But the more I got used to it, the more I thought I'm just going hard at running back, every play, every game, every offseason, just staying with it."
At intermission, Parker already had his fifth 100-yard game of the season and his second consecutive 1,000-yard season, becoming the first Steeler to do that since Jerome Bettis did it back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back through 2001. The first act highlight was a smooth 26-yard samba between the tackles that Faneca enabled with bull's-eye crunch of linebacker D'Qwell Jackson.
Those were merely the grace notes of the throbbing symphony Parker pushed late into the night. His first carry in the second half went straight ahead again, this time for 16 yards. Seven handoffs to Parker later, the growing offensive threat that was No. 39 left enough open space for a Roethlisberger bootleg for a touchdown that broke the game open beyond Cleveland's capacity for repairs.
And this sixth Steelers victory, coming a couple of months too late for relevance, soon headed for the footnotes as well. That was because Parker's momentum now threatened a golden passage in the club's record book, namely Frenchy Fuqua's record for yards in a game, set in another December game of dubious consequence 36 years ago.
Parker broke his next assignment for 39 yards up the middle, and when he slashed 11 more behind Max Starks to the Cleveland 3 near the end of the third quarter, he had, on 28 carries, 209 yards, nine short of Fuqua's record. Parker's 3-yard touchdown run made it 24-0 and, more urgently, 212 for Willie.
On the last play of the third quarter, Parker gained 6 to tie the record, and at 10:29 p.m., he knifed the Frenchman's 218 into the second slot in Steelers history. The top line now reads Willie Parker, 223, Dec. 7, 2006 vs. Cleveland.
Parker and Cowher embraced at the sideline soon thereafter. The head coach said he was proud of him. He'd come so far. I don't think Cowher feels deprived because his offense might have to hand it to Willie Parker 32 times.
(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283. )
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