Monday, December 18, 2006Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Nobody in the National Football League has more experience punting the ball away than these Carolina Panthers. Punter Jason Baker's high leg kick has been seen so often by so many people this fall that he has been made an honorary Rockette.
The thick body of video evidence on Carolina's punt-coverage team gives opponents plenty to study each week, and once in a while, that couple of hours of overtime pays big.
"We weren't doing anything different, but I played it a little bit different," James Harrison was explaining in the Steelers' locker room a couple of hours after the punt he blocked jerked open the spigot on a 37-3 Steelers victory. "I rushed instead of just trying to hold my guy up. Some guys with speed like that want to get out of there fast instead of wrestle with you, so I just figured that's what he was going to do."
When Chad Brown left the game early with a knee injury, Harrison was switched from his usual slot in the middle of the Steelers' defensive front on punt coverage to the right defensive end location, which put him head-up on longtime Panthers special teams captain Karl Hankton, a former Louisiana prep track star.
With the Steelers leading, 10-0, and showing little inclination to take this game by the throat -- an 84-yard drive stalled at the 1 and Joey Porter had just dropped an interception -- Carolina lined up at its 20 for Punt No. 86 of the forgettable 2006 season.
Seriously, 86 punts.
Harrison blasted past Hankton and vaulted Baker's only backfield protector, swatting the punt toward the Steelers' sideline. Ike Taylor, who has been kicked around almost as much as a Carolina football this year, had only to collect it at the 12 and jog to a touchdown, but the ball took just the kind of goofy bounce necessary to make Taylor leap at it, and the ball and Taylor went out of bounds at the 10.
"That's the way it is," Taylor said. "Things'll turn around, though."
That Najeh Davenport jumped on the Alan Faneca Expressway and lugged a screen pass 13 yards to a touchdown three plays later represented the kind of emotionally seismic pivot that clearly did not escape the admiration of Bill Cowher.
"I thought we did a lot of good things today, [but] I think one of the biggest plays was probably James Harrison's blocked punt," Cowher said after the Steelers won for the fifth time in the past six games. "He's just been unbelievable in the kicking game and he's been very much an inspiration to this team."
The third-year linebacker out of Kent State has done just about everything that's possible for Cowher and Dick LeBeau's defense except displace either Porter or Clark Haggans as a starter, and that includes body-slamming a Browns fan for trespassing near the Steelers' sideline last year. Harrison got that fella banned from Cleveland Stadium for life, but probably didn't know he was doing the guy such a huge favor at the time.
As it happens, the Steelers' first punt block in more than four years (Chris Fuamatu Ma'afala got one against Oakland Sept. 15, 2002) came while they were trying to set up a return.
"We saw some things that they were doing and we had the block on a couple of times, but that was all James," said Steelers special teams captain Sean Morey. "A lot of those speed guys don't want any part of him. He mauls people."
"That was just a hell of a play by James Harrison," special teamer John Kuhn said. "He did that pretty much by himself."
It was that rare splendid afternoon for the Steelers' special teams, who buttressed this victory not only with a punt block but a punt-return touchdown by Santonio Holmes, one play after another of his turnovers was nullified by a Carolina penalty.
"It was nice to contribute something positive for a change," special teams coach Kevin Spencer said wryly.
Cowher's team got serious contributions from every area, including a defense that allowed neither Steve Smith nor Keyshawn Johnson a catch longer than 19 yards, but the biggest contribution came from the Panthers. Nobody needed to be reminded, for example, that Chris Weinke, playing a second consecutive game in lieu of starter Jake Delhomme, had just watched his record as a starter burrow to 1-17.
Few teams in this league can lose because they don't punt enough, but Carolina did it yesterday.
The Panthers finished the day with 89 punts on the season, but they wish that figure was 90 this morning, and that James Harrison hadn't slapped one like it was a Cleveland fan.
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