The Patriots defensive unit concentrated on closing the middle of the field to the Steelers' two star backs, and held them to 74-rushing yards.

01:00 AM EST on Monday, January 24, 2005

BY SHALISE MANZA YOUNG
Journal Sports Writer

PITTSBURGH -- Rodney Harrison said it on Friday: The AFC Championship against the Steelers was going to be different than the first time the teams met this season.

Not only was the final result different -- the Pats beat Pittsburgh, 41-27, to move on to their third Super Bowl in the last four years -- but several facets of the game were different as well.

For one thing, the defense had no intention of letting the Steelers control the game with their rushing.

In October, Steeler backs Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis combined for 190 yards, and Pittsburgh gained 221 yards total on the ground. Rushing the ball 49 times and having success meant that the Steelers had possession of the ball for nearly 43 minutes, an eye-popping amount of time.

Yesterday, however, without their top defensive lineman, Richard Seymour, the Patriots were impressive at stopping the run.

Staley, still recovering from a hamstring injury suffered in that Halloween game, and Bettis are much better running north and south, where their size helps them barrel through the line, as opposed to east-west, where they lack tremendous speed toward the sidelines.

So the Patriots just closed down the middle.

Bettis, who may have played his last game for Pittsburgh, had 64 yards on 17 carries (3.8 average), including a 25-yard run early in the fourth quarter. Staley had a paltry 26 on 10 carries.

The most successful rusher for the Steelers was big quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who had 45 yards on only 5 carries, and 4 of them earned first downs.

Jarvis Green, who started in place of Seymour, and Ty Warren were a major part of the run-stuffing effort. Warren was credited with eight tackles, while Green had five, the only sack for the Pats, and a forced fumble of Roethlisberger that rolled out of bounds.

One of the biggest plays of the game came early -- with Pittsburgh facing fourth-and-one from the Pats' 39, Roethlisberger handed off to Bettis. Not only was he stuffed at the line of scrimmage, Rosevelt Colvin stripped the ball away and Mike Vrabel picked up the loose ball.

"That fourth-down play, that was a huge play for our own psyche and our own state of mind. I felt like we sent a message when we stopped that play," Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson said.

On the next play after the stop, Tom Brady and Deion Branch hooked up for a 60-yard touchdown, putting the Pats up, 10-0.

"We took a lot of pride coming in here and stopping the run," Warren said. "We weren't in the right places at the right times (for the October game), so we tightened up and watched extra film."

Green, who also had a strong game in last year's AFC title matchup with Indianapolis, sacking Peyton Manning three times, said the secret last night was playing as a unit.

"We play together. Everybody plays together," he said. "We know what we have to do. We have a lot of pride. We're not a finesse team, (being physical) is our trademark. The first game (with Pittsburgh), that wasn't us out there."