'The Bus' that wouldn't stop

PITTSBURGH -- Now that he's passed 10,000 yards before his 30th birthday, it is becoming apparent there never has been an NFL running back like Jerome Bettis.

There are big backs who gained thousands of yards -- Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, Franco Harris, John Riggins -- but none weighed as much as the 5-foot-11, 255-pound Bettis. All were taller. Most were faster.

Bettis combines the assets of the great smaller running backs -- quickness and elusiveness -- with the strength and durability of the big backs into a hybrid package that makes him difficult to describe and more difficult to bring down.

Some say he is reminiscent of Earl Campbell, but Campbell's head-on, avoid-no-contact style probably cut years off his career. Bettis does everything he can to extend his Pittsburgh Steelers career.

"I'll take a guy on and hit him a few times and hit him, but then when he's getting tired, I'll give him a little move and get some big yards on him," Bettis said.

Before he's done, Bettis could wind up with more yards than all but a handful of backs in NFL history -- big or little, fast or sort-of-slow, short or tall. Coming into this season, he had to average 973 yards in the 2001-03 seasons to overtake childhood idol Tony Dorsett and move into fifth place on the all-time list.

What's remarkable is the Rams drafted him out of Notre Dame as a fullback in 1993 and moved him to tailback only because of injuries.

"I thought I'd play five, six years at fullback and that would be that," the 29-year-old Bettis said. "I didn't know if I would gain a yard."

Bettis' steady, almost speedy climb up the all-time rushing list -- he has 10,099 yards and needs 175 to overtake Ottis Anderson for 13th place -- has occurred even as the Steelers missed the playoffs the last three seasons.

Since being traded to Pittsburgh in 1996 for a couple of draft picks -- the deal couldn't have been much worse for St. Louis unless it had thrown in the Gateway Arch -- Bettis has had five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. Plus a good start on his sixth.

With 295 yards in three games, 153 against Cincinnati last Sunday, Bettis is on pace for a 1,573-yard season that would be the second best of his career. He has missed gaining 1,000 yards only once, in 1995 with the Rams.

Bengals defensive lineman Oliver Gibson, a former teammate, said young defensive players often don't understand how strong Bettis is before they tackle him, or try to.

"You have to realize he can run through anybody on the field," Gibson said. "When he gets started, as big as he is, he just starts rolling downhill."

He is not as fast as Dorsett or Barry Sanders, but he has extremely quick feet. Just as Franco Harris lured tacklers to the sidelines, then ran them out of bounds without absorbing the punishment that can shorten a career, Bettis doesn't always rely on his size.

He probably gains as many yards sidestepping tacklers as he does bulldozing them. His backup, Amos Zereoue, marvels, "He is a big guy, but a big guy with shifty feet."

Dependable feet, too. Bettis has missed only three games to injury in his eight-plus seasons, one a meaningless game when the Steelers wanted to keep him healthy for the playoffs.

It is a work ethic he learned as a fullback and didn't lose after being moved to tailback.

"I think he'd have to get hit by a bus to hurt him and keep him out of the lineup," said tackle Wayne Gandy, making a reference to Bettis' nickname of The Bus. "You don't see that too much anymore. It's almost a lost art."