By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=1
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
Guard Doug Legursky makes the second start of his career today at Heinz Field.
Now that we are within hours of the moment freedom rings for the Milledgeville 1, the external focus on the Pittsburgh Steelers will again snap dramatically to No. 7, casting back into the shadows, among others, the key offensive player of an undefeated September.
That would be, quite obviously, Doug Legursky.
Would I kid you?
Empirically, it's no more complicated than this.
Two games without Legursky in the starting lineup: No offensive touchdowns in regulation.
One game with Legursky in the starting lineup: 38-13.
Questions?
The only question that gave Legursky pause at all after practice Friday had to do with the last time he started a football game prior to the one last week at Tampa.
"That would have to be . . ." he said, his eyes rolling slowly, "last game at Marshall. Yeah, last game in college, we played UAB, the University of Alabama-Birmingham. I remember we won."
Score of that one?
"You'd have to look that up," he said.
Naw, I'm good.
"After all those games getting prepared like I was going to play and not playing," Legursky said, smiling. "It was definitely exciting to be in there for 50 or 60 snaps. Definitely a great feeling."
Didn't hurt that the Steelers scored four first-half touchdowns in his first career start. Didn't hurt that they rushed for more than 200 yards. Didn't hurt that the offensive line allowed no sacks for the first time since November of last year.
Legursky's is therefore one of those narratives that reflexively gets called a feel-good story, a peak in the drama that probably bottomed out when the club released him in June 2008. After a year on the practice squad and most of another watching a Rubik's Cube of an offensive line creak into dubious patterns, Legursky makes his second start this afternoon at Heinz Field as the Steelers wade into an autumn's of AFC North hostilities against the Baltimore Ravens.
The Steelers list Legursky at 6 feet 1, 315 pounds, and he might be the only guy on the roster whose weight is exactly what the club says it is."It's right there," he said. "Oh yeah, I'm 315."
Legursky was 323 in the 2009 media guide, is 315 in the current one, making him the only Steeler whose weight changed, officially, by so much as one pound since last year. Apparently, once the Steelers weigh you as a rookie, you stay at that weight until retirement. I wish they'd weighed me in, like, 1971.
"Exactly," said Charlie Batch when I brought this up. "You have to have your profile picture taken every year for the media guide, but your weight stays the same. Why? I'd rather my face stayed the same. I'd rather stay young looking."
Legursky seemed unaware of it, but even players who've been around since the early part of the century, whose body mass might just be inclined toward slight fluctuations, somehow stay within ounces on the Steelers scale. Chris Kemoeatu is still 344, exactly. Was never 345 or 343. Big Ben's been the same big 241 since he walked in here in 2004.
Casey Hampton, 325?
At birth maybe.
Troy Polamalu's official 207 has been 18 pounds low to reality and two pounds high at varying times in eight years. James Farrior's official 243 has sometimes been as low as 219. Larry Foote was 239 officially when he left for Detroit. Came back at -- oh my -- 239. Astounding.
"I guess I weighed 323 at my pro day," Legursky said. "But when the Steelers weighed me, I was 315."
And it shall ever be thus.
The important thing is, Legursky has proven to some important people that he's plenty big and strong enough to do this job, and not a moment too soon for an offensive line in which the center and the right guard now boast exactly four NFL starts between them. The best surprise of this Steelers season has to be the play of No. 1 draft pick Maurkice Pouncey at center and of Legursky's arrival to Pouncey's immediate right in the starting five.
The degree of difficulty for both will spike at 1 o'clock this afternoon against Baltimore, a defensive mirror image within the divisional funhouse.
"Definitely a challenge; the Ravens are the No. 1 defense in the league," Legursky noted. "There is a lot of respect between us, but a lot of animosity too. It's always a fistfight when we get together."
You can tell Legursky can't wait. It's a lot easier to grow confident amid the chaos of the NFL trench than it is to arrive cold and largely clueless from the sideline.
"When you see what they're scheming, what they're trying to do, it makes it a little more manageable maybe," Legursky said. "When you walk in there and play in the middle of the third quarter, that's hard."
Nothing the Steelers have given Legursky to do has been too hard so far. They've lined him up at fullback and battered him at goal-line defenses. They've released him and brought him back. They've had him learn center and guard. Now they'd like him to be a fixture on an offense that's getting pretty close to being itself again.
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.
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