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CINCINNATI -- After a while, football gets reduced to the basics - blocking, tackling and knocking off the other guy's helmet and not caring if there's a head bouncing around inside it.

That's what happened Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium when the Steelers - surprise, surprise - pulled their running game out of mothballs and off the cutting room floor in a 17-10 victory against the winless Cincinnati Bengals.

Quarterback Tommy Maddox completed only five passes after halftime, but the Steelers (2-1) didn't need him to do much more than stick the ball in the bellies of running backs Amos Zereoue and Jerome Bettis and get out of the way.

The offensive line and defense did the rest.

"Fat guys rule," sideline reporter and former offensive lineman Craig Wolfley said.

"I'm not fat," protested All-Pro guard Alan Faneca, who used Bengals linebacker Adrian Ross as his personal plaything in the second half.

Using quickness and size to his advantage, Faneca laid two vicious blocks on Ross in the second half to provide telling snapshots of the victory. On the first, Ross' helmet flew off and bounced to the ground along with several Bengals defenders. On the second, Faneca hit Ross so hard that his back arched hideously backward.

Zereoue, the starter, carried 16 times for 69 yards and Bettis, who didn't play in the first half, added 15 for 59 and his first touchdown of the season. It added up to a solid 4 yards per carry and, more importantly, a decided edge for the Steelers in time of possession, 37:06 to 22:54.

"It was good to see us re-establish a little bit of our tradition," coach Bill Cowher said. "We were able to re-establish the run. It was like days of old."

The Steelers came into the game with the 27th-ranked running game in the NFL and little idea whether Zereoue or Bettis deserved to be the feature back. There still is no clear candidate, but maybe there doesn't need to be.

With the Steelers clinging to a 7-3 lead in the third quarter, Zereoue carried three times for 18 yards to open the team's second possession of the second half. When Zereoue came to the sideline, telling Cowher he was tired, Bettis entered the game and took it over.

After pass completions of 7 yards to Antwaan Randle El to convert a third down and 23-yarder to Hines Ward, Bettis carried six consecutive times for the final 23 yards, a 1-yard scoring burst and an insurmountable 14-3 lead.

Funny thing, Bettis may not have received that opportunity at that time if Zereoue didn't need a rest.

"At some point, we may have put him in," Cowher said. "It just happened to be quicker than we planned initially. You go with the guy who is running well.

"After Jerome's first run, I told Amos, 'Just wait here.' I don't want (Bettis) to go in and out. Even with the first run Jerome had, you could kind of sense we got a little surge. They were getting a lot of movement and he was moving the pile."

Said Zereoue: "I thought, hey, he was getting it done so Cowher and I both decided, let's let him go."

After the Bengals scored with 5:54 left in the game on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Jon Kitna to Peter Warrick, the game again belonged to Bettis, Zereoue and their offensive linemen.

The Steelers converted four first downs - three on runs and one on a 23-yard reception by Plaxico Burress -- and the Bengals never got the ball back. Zereoue's 11-yard run on third-and-8 was the decisive blow.

"You love to finish a game like that," Faneca said. "You know you have to keep the ball, they know we're running it and we're getting first downs.

"No matter how tired you are at the end of the game, that's a good feeling to walk off the field and you've won the game."

"There's a confidence, there's a swagger," Zereoue said.

And, finally, there's a running game.

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