PITTSBURGH – Kris Brown, the usually reliable Pittsburgh kicker, is having an inexplicably up-and-down season even as the Steelers streak through their best season in 23 years.
What worries coach Bill Cowher is that Brown’s bouts of erraticism always seem to come right when the Steelers (10-2) are playing the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.
Brown missed 4-of-5 attempts Nov. 4 against the Ravens, including a potential game-tying kick in the closing seconds of a 13-10 defeat – the Steelers’ only loss in 11 games.
Then, leading into Sunday’s Steelers-Ravens rematch in Baltimore, Brown missed two field goals and an extra point against the Jets. The misses turned what otherwise was a not-so-tight game into an uncomfortably close one for the Steelers, who eventually won 18-7 Sunday.
“I’m not going to sugar coat it,” Cowher said. “It’s a concern.”
It’s not that Brown is having a horrifically bad season; his 25 field goals lead the NFL and his 55-yard field goal at Kansas City is tied for the longest this season.
What troubles Cowher is Brown’s bad streaks seem to occur without warning. As Cowher said, “It is not so much as he is in a total funk, kicking every ball bad.”
“For me, it was tough because it was so all of a sudden,” Brown said Wednesday. “For the most part I was kicking well and then one game, bam, it was just kind of a shock and a jolt.”
Many excuses are being offered for Brown’s uneven season, most of them dealing with the spongy, sand-based grass field at Heinz Field. Brown is 13-of-16 on the road but only 12-of-20 at Heinz. His 11 misses are the most in the league, and are two more than his first two seasons (50-of-59) combined.
Still, Brown isn’t the only kicker struggling at Heinz, where the wind blowing off Pittsburgh’s three rivers through an open end zone may be creating uneven conditions not just from game-to-game, but quarter-to-quarter.
Pitt kicker Nick Lotz, for example, is 7-of-8 on the road but only 4-of-9 at Heinz. Among the missed attempts by Lotz and Pitt’s opponents were those from 21, 23 and 34 yards – almost chip shots for skilled college kickers.
“I think it (the grass field) is a factor, I really do,” Cowher said. “There’s no question that it?s uneven, and the (kicker’s) plant foot slips at times. It is not as firm. It?s a lot easier to kick on a turf field.”
Brown won’t use the new surroundings as an excuse, saying the rest of his teammates – the Steelers are 5-1 at home- aren’t having any problems moving from Three Rivers Stadium into Heinz.
“I know that the kicks I’ve had have just been bad kicks,” Brown said. “A couple I hit, I thought they were good coming off my foot but they just didn?t come through. I don?t know if it’s a coincidence and or if it’s the stadium.
“But I don’t care what the stadium does, I’ve still got to do my job.”
Brown insists his three misses Sunday, or the four misses earlier against the Ravens, won’t be on his mind Sunday. The Steelers will be trying to win in Baltimore for the fourth consecutive season.
“It’s disappointing, it’s frustrating but, at the same time, it’s in the past,” Brown said.
Unlike many kickers, Brown also was a position player, playing quarterback at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, for two years. As a result, he understands the frustration his teammates feel when they do their job, only to be let down by the kicker.
“If you look at what my job entails, it’s not the most physically demanding position,” he said. “You’ve got guys in this locker room physically sacrificing their bodies, getting beat up and hurt, and I’ve got to go out there and kick a little ball through the uprights.
“That’s part of being a kicker, being able to come through when your team needs you. This team is going to need everyone in the locker room on Sunday, and that includes me.”
