The Steelers were without their top three backs as they played a crucial game on the road.

Tonight in Jacksonville? Well, yes, but it happened once more famously in the 1976 season. They headed to Oakland for the AFC championship game against the Raiders with what Art Rooney Sr. maintained later was the best of his Steelers teams.

But without their top three backs -- Franco Harris, Rocky Bleier and Frenchy Fuqua, who was banged up and available for only a few plays -- that team lost at Oakland, 24-7, and with it the chance to become the only team to win three consecutive Super Bowl titles.

Harris and Bleier were injured during the previous playoff victory in Baltimore, a 40-14 runaway. Fuqua was banged up from an earlier game.

Steelers chairman Dan Rooney sees some deja vu as the Steelers head to Jacksonville without three of their top backs, Willie Parker, Rashard Mendenhall and Carey Davis.

"There's a similarity," Rooney said. "At that particular time, it was the same thing. We played the Baltimore Colts and were killing them, we were beating them badly. In the fourth quarter, they were still in there and we ended up with everybody hurt except one back."

That one back was Reggie Harrison, and back then there was no practice squad to add another back and little available on the street. So coach Chuck Noll devised a one-back offense with two tight ends and two wide receivers, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth.

It failed badly, and Monday morning quarterbacks everywhere wondered why Noll did not go with three wide receivers instead of two, spread things out more and let Terry Bradshaw go to work. Rooney said Noll never had those regrets.

"Nah, I don't think so because that was sort of our offense."

Coach Mike Tomlin at least had more options than Noll did 33 years ago. He had an eight-man practice squad with Gary Russell on it to promote. And Najeh Davenport, who spent the previous two seasons with the Steelers, was available.

Back in 1976, by the way, Harrison went by the nickname "Boobie." Today, he is called Kamal Ali Salaam-El after his conversion to Islam.

As the Steelers and Jaguars take the field for tonight's game in Jacksonville, each player's shirt tail will be tucked in, his pants pulled up below the knee just so and no chains will fly from around their necks as they run down the field.

Say what you want about the fines the NFL issues for not wearing a uniform properly, but it's refreshing to see compared to what can be found on other TV channels carrying the baseball playoffs this weekend. There, players such as Manny Ramirez look like clowns as they dress pretty much anyway they want. Ramirez's pant legs are so long it looks as if he could trip over them while running to first base.

They call them uniforms for a reason.

The league needs to add another class to its training program for officials: How to flip a coin.

Referee Gene Steratore can sign up as the first student. Steratore, of Washingon, Pa., had the most notorious coin flip since Jerome Bettis called hea ... tails in Detroit Thanksgiving Day.

Steratore did not even flip the coin that began the Steelers-Ravens overtime Monday night, he merely dropped it to the ground. The Ravens won the toss, and it's a good thing for Steratore that they did not march straight down field to score on their first possession or that coin flip would have become a much bigger issue than a mere footnote the past week.

Before the season began, the Steelers' schedule was judged to be the most difficult in the NFL, followed closely by the other teams in the AFC North Division, mainly because they play all the teams from the NFC East, the toughest division in the league.

Many predictions felt a 9-7 record or even 8-8 could win the AFC North. The Steelers, at 3-1, are right on schedule where most felt they'd be outside of Cleveland. They beat the teams they were supposed to beat and lost to the Eagles, who were favored.

If they win tonight in Jacksonville, they will be ahead of schedule because that looked like a loss when the schedule came out.

Reshuffling the cards a quarter of the way through the season, the Steelers should be able to finish 9-7 or 10-6 without more injury calamity. They will be favored to beat the Bengals twice and the Browns at home. That adds up to six victories. If they can split four tough games at home against the Giants, Colts, Cowboys and Chargers it would put them at eight victories. That leaves road games against the Jaguars, Patriots, Ravens and Titans. Win one or two of those and it's 9-7 or 10-6 and the AFC North championship.

That was for your viewing pleasure only.