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Stewart determined to turn season around
It wasn't the heat; it was the humility.
The heat Stewart insisted he could take after the Steelers had fallen to 0-2 with a mistake-prone 30-17 loss to Oakland.
"I'm not trying to shy away from the mistakes," Stewart said. ""You can put me on the front of the line, I've been on the front of it before.
"I have to accept all the mistakes that I've made. I have to do better, period. Being the quarterback of this football team, I know I have to shoulder a lot of things. This is one I'll take on. I don't mind, because I want to win a championship, and right now it ticks me off that we're not where we need to be."
That said, Stewart vowed to meet the early season defeats the Steelers have experienced with defiance.
"I'm not going to sit here and lay it down. I don't have time to," he said. "Mr. Rooney (Steelers president Dan) invested too much in this team, in each player and the coaches, for us to sit here and accept it."
Stewart completed 18 of 34 passes for 201 yards and two touchdowns against Oakland. He also threw a meaningless interception on the final play of the game and lost a critical fumble at the Oakland 3-yard line in the second quarter with the Steelers trailing 10-7.
For the season, Stewart is 42 of 71 passing (59.2 percent) for 443 yards ith three touchdowns, four interceptions and a passer rating of 68.0.
Opposing quarterbacks Tom Brady of New England and the Raiders' Rich Gannon have combined for a passer rating of 89.2 against the Steelers.
"We can't beat ourselves up, I know that much," Stewart said. "I'm not going to, I'm not going to kill myself, not kill myself literally but to a point where it's not going to give me an opportunity to try again next time and give us a chance to win.
"It's easy right now to sit here and accept mediocrity. It's easy to accept failure. It's easy to beat yourself up. It's easy to do that right now. But it takes a strong man and a strong mind to get up off his behind and do something about it. Whatever direction we go in will be determined by how we respond."
The Steelers have turned the ball over 10 times overall in their first two games (wide receivers Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress and running back Amos Zereoue also lost fumbles against Oakland).
The defense has allowed a combined 807 total net yards and managed three takeaways in two games.
The special teams missed a 39-yard field goal against the Patriots and allowed a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Raiders.
Stewart is most concerned about the Steelers' mistake-plagued start affecting the team's confidence.
"You never know; I don't know," he said. "But we have opportunities to get these issues addressed. We have 14 games remaining, 14 games. Perseverance can test the heart of a man, and this is a test of time right now. I can't change it. The only thing I can do is try to make it better by giving myself a chance the next time by having a clear mind and not worrying about what happened in the past.
"If it takes having a meeting every day to make sure that guys understand we are a good football team, we're just making too many mistakes, we'll have that meeting every day. I'll be the one to talk about it. I don't like to speak about the past because it's history and it's over with. But if you look at us now compared to where we were last year, we weren't making as many mistakes. We have a great makeup, but in order for us to have some success we have to stop making mistakes, period.
"It's just a mind-set, man, just a mindset. If we can get our minds right, we have a chance to make some great things happen here. We're going to take a beating for a couple days or so, but we have to come back as warriors, man, and be ready to make it happen."
