Pittsburgh eager to forget, move on

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

The Pittsburgh Steelers insist they don’t have a panic button.

An erase button? Absolutely.

The defending AFC champions see their baffling — not to mention decisive — 35-7 loss to rival Baltimore last week as something a little control/alt/delete can’t fix.

“I forgot about that game already,” said quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

Good idea.

The Steelers (0-1) haven’t started a season with consecutive losses during Roethlisberger’s eight-year career. He has no plans to start now heading into Sunday’s home opener against Seattle (0-1).

“Talking to [defensive coordinator Dick] LeBeau, we used our mulligan on the first tee and we got 17 more holes to birdie,” Roethlisberger said.

The Seahawks didn’t implode for an entire game as the Steelers did. Instead, they saved it a 59-second span in the fourth quarter, letting a comeback against San Francisco evaporate as quickly as it took the 49ers Ted Ginn Jr. to return a kickoff and a punt for a touchdown.

It was a sobering dose of reality for the defending NFC West champions, who had hoped to solve their quarterback issues by bringing in Tarvaris Jackson. Instead, Jackson spent most of the first week in his new gig trying to stay upright behind a shaky offensive line that allowed him to get sacked five times and harassed countless others.

Now Jackson has to face a Pittsburgh defense eager to show the doubters the group of 30-somethings isn’t as old or as slow as the Ravens made it look.

Not exactly the best time for a young team trying to find its footing to visit Heinz Field.

“There is never a good time to play these guys,” said Seattle coach Pete Carroll. “It’s always difficult.”

This week, perhaps, more than most.

Coach Mike Tomlin expects his players to be “angry” after getting squashed by the Ravens, though safety Troy Polamalu — who got involved in a dustup at the end of the game out of frustration — isn’t quite ready to promise vengeance.

“You’d like to say this year is the same as last year, but each team’s got it’s own characteristics,” he said. “Everybody’s a year older, you’ve got some new guys coming in. Everything changes. It’s going to be interesting how we react to this.”

Jackson knows the kind of success the Ravens enjoyed against the Steelers is rare. Yet it also gives teams across the league hope.