Steelers starters to play 2 series

LATROBE, Pa. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals will see a lot less of Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes than they did in the Super Bowl.

The Steelers’ starters are expected to play only two series in the preseason opener Thursday night against the Cardinals — including Roethlisberger and Holmes, who teamed on the last-minute, game-winning touchdown pass play that gave Pittsburgh a 27-23 victory over Arizona six months ago.

Coach Mike Tomlin plans to keep the offensive starters together, although injuries are making that difficult. Starting center Justin Hartwig (toe) is not expected to play and backup Darnell Stapleton had knee surgery last week. Former practice squad player Doug Legursky, an undrafted 2008 rookie from Marshall, will start if Hartwig can’t.

“Our intention right now is a couple of series with those guys, we’re going to try to keep that unit together, but we’ll see,” Tomlin said Tuesday. “Again, in the preseason, some of those decisions don’t need to be made in a timely manner. You can look at history and see how we’ve played people in the first preseason game and take it from there.”

Roethlisberger completed both passes he threw — to Holmes, coincidentally — on the only series he led during the Steelers’ preseason opener against Philadelphia last year.

All four quarterbacks could play, depending on how the game goes, Tomlin said. Charlie Batch, an 11-season veteran who backs up Roethlisberger, broke his collarbone in that exhibition game against the Eagles and missed the rest of the season.

Tomlin is eager to look at two rookie kick returners, wide receiver Mike Wallace and defensive back Joe Burnett. Wallace will begin the game returning kickoffs and Burnett will return punts, though others will be used. The Steelers’ return game was one of the NFL’s worst last season, ranking 31st in punt return average and 29th in kickoff return average.

The Steelers haven’t ruled anybody out due to injury except Stapleton, but some players will be held out after Tomlin makes what he calls his “11th hour” personnel decisions.

Tomlin won’t even bother to watch tape of the Super Bowl in preparation.

“Each year is very new and, like we always say, we’re in the process of building our team for ’09. We don’t look in our rearview mirror at things that were done a year ago,” Tomlin said. “That’s what makes the first preseason game special, there is the element of the unknown. You have to be prepared, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, who has only two new starters on a unit that led the NFL the last two seasons, knows what he wants to get out of the first of the Steelers’ four exhibition games.

“I want to see our guys grow,” LeBeau said. “I want to see us get better. You can grow a little bit quicker in the actual games than you can in practice.”

Tomlin made one promise: No trick plays like the fake punt the Tennessee Titans ran against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night.

“We’re not interested in tricking Arizona, to be quite honest with you,” Tomlin said. “We’re just concerned about coming out and playing the game extremely fast and extremely hard. We realize we’re not going to play perfect, but we’ve got to have the Steeler kind of tempo in our play. We can’t be tentative and we’re going to talk to the guys about that.”