PITTSBURGH Steelers enter pivotal game with room for improvement

Another loss will give them as many defeats as in the past two seasons combined.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Yes, that's still Tommy Maddox running the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense. He's barely missed a down, playing so much that backup Charlie Batch has thrown all of six passes.
Remember Maddox, the comeback kid who energized a predictable system and became such a downfield threat the Steelers virtually rebuilt their offense to accommodate him?
But any semblance between that shoot-the-works offense of last season is merely coincidental. The Steelers seemingly have returned to those inconsistent and unpredictable days of 1998, 1999 and 2000, when one good performance was followed by two bad ones.
"There's a lot of room for improvement," wide receiver Hines Ward said.
The downturn
Maddox's numbers through 11 starts (2,430 yards, 13 touchdowns) and his 11 starts of last season (2,714 yards, 19 touchdowns) aren't radically different. But they illustrate a downturn that has greatly contributed to the Steelers' falloff from a 10-5-1 record last season to 4-7 going into Sunday's game against Cincinnati (6-5). One more loss will give the Steelers as many defeats as they had in the previous two seasons combined.
Ward warned during training camp that all the talk the Steelers could throw all day and no longer needed a running game was premature.
"Everybody was so stuck on passing the ball, but I said we have to be balanced," Ward said. "For some reason, we're not doing that. We have to be able to pass and run together, go out and run for 150 and pass for 270."
The Steelers haven't come close to doing that. The running game that easily led the NFL in 2001 is next to last in the league, gaining more than 100 yards only three times in 11 games. Jerome Bettis used to have more 100-yard games than that by himself.
Without a reliable run game to lean on, Maddox has thrown for 160 yards or fewer in three of his last five games and is coming off a season-worst 73 yards Sunday against Cleveland.
Receiver drop-off
Wide receiver Plaxico Burress' drop-off has been even more glaring than Maddox's. Burress was coming off consecutive 1,000-yard seasons -- he and Ward both had 1,300 yards-plus last season -- but he has slipped to 43 catches for 625 yards and a single touchdown.
"Coming into this year, we expected to equal it and actually do better, but it's kind of been the other way around," Burress said. "We're not getting a whole lot of opportunities right now, the way defenses are playing us.
"We've got to go out and just try to snatch everything that comes our way," he added. "We've got to be more aggressive, start pushing guys and scratching and biting and whatever we have to do to get the football."
The Steelers are hoping this is the week the offense finally puts it together. Maddox threw for 240 yards in a 17-10 victory at Cincinnati on Sept. 21, and the Bengals' secondary has allowed 11 touchdown passes in the last five games.
Last week, the Browns relied almost exclusively on two-deep zone coverage to shut down Burress (two catches for 16 yards) and Ward (one catch for 13 yards). But that left Cleveland vulnerable to the run, and Bettis had a season-high 94 yards -- the first time all season a Steeler has nearly hit 100 yards.