PITTSBURGH Steelers not taking Texans lightly

The don't intend to make the same mistakes previous Pittsburgh teams have made.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Pittsburgh Steelers, perhaps more than any other NFL team, understand the dangers of overlooking an expansion team.
If the Steelers (7-4-1) give in to temptation and look past today's game against the Houston Texans (3-9), they will be repeating the very mistake made by two other recent Pittsburgh teams.
In 1999, the Steelers overwhelmed expansion Cleveland 43-0 in the Browns' return to the NFL, holding them to two first downs and outgaining them 460-40 in one of the biggest routs in franchise history.
Improbably, the Browns came to Pittsburgh eight weeks later and won 16-15 on Phil Dawson's 39-yard field goal as time expired -- a stunning loss that started the Steelers on a six-game slide. They went from 5-3 at midseason and very much in the playoff mix to 6-10, their worst record under coach Bill Cowher.
Four years before, the 1995 Steelers were similarly sideswiped by expansion Jacksonville, losing 20-16 six weeks into the season. That Steelers team recovered to beat Jacksonville 24-7 in the rematch and went on to the Super Bowl.
Texans have good defense
With the Texans possessing a defense essentially modeled after the Steelers' own, Cowher knows his players must get the word "expansion" out of their minds, The New York Giants apparently didn't, and they lost to Houston 16-14 two weeks ago on Kris Brown's 50-yard field goal.
"It [Houston] is a team where there weren't a lot of high expectations, but they have won three games and they could have won a couple of others," Cowher said. "They are going to come up here and kind of relish this role of spoiler. With them beating the Giants, they are not a team you overlook."
The game will mark two significant returns: quarterback Tommy Maddox to the Steelers' lineup and Brown to Heinz Field, where he failed on 10 of his league-high 14 missed field goals last season.
Heinz Field was resodded only last week and should offer a much more reliable surface than Brown remembers from a year ago. But, asked about the grass, Cowher said, "I know it has not changed since last year" -- a jab intended to remind Brown of his past failures.
"I don't think or talk about last year," Brown said. "Once this season started, I made the decision that I wasn't going to look back at last year and wasn't going to think or talk about it."
Maddox makes return
Just as Maddox is wearying of thinking and talking about three weeks ago, when he was temporarily paralyzed by a routine hit in Tennessee that sent him to the hospital for two days.
Maddox hasn't played since, except to hold for kicks, as Kordell Stewart led victories over Cincinnati (29-21) and Jacksonville (25-23).
Maddox understands that a blitzing, pressure-applying Houston defense that ranks 10th in the league -- uncharacteristically high for an expansion team -- will be challenging mentally and physically. The defense is much like that Houston coach Dom Capers designed as the Steelers' defensive coordinator from 1992-94.
Still, Maddox emphasizes he has no fear of getting hit again.
"I don't think about it unless somebody asks me about it," he said. "From everybody I've talked to, I'm the same as I was before all this happened. I was willing to go out there and take a hit then and I'm more than willing to go out there and take a hit now."