Since leading the Steelers to the AFC title game in January 1998, Kordell Stewart has struggled.

I could say "was," but that isn't the story. It isn't as though Kordell Stewart has gone hopeless on the football world. He's a quarterback. He's in there. He makes plays. He's quarterbacking.

It isn't blinding, but it isn't the end of nature. Stewart finished the first six weeks of Pittsburgh's season with a 3-3 record and a forgettable standing as the 12th-rated QB in the AFC, but it didn't seem, at least from far away, as though the thing had all gone irretrievably south.

In the Pittsburgh Steelers' choppy victory over lame Cincinnati last week, Stewart was neither the reason for the win nor the impediment to it. He threw 29 passes, completed 17, and they were worth 134 yards, end of story. The headline of that game was the announced return of the Bus, Jerome Bettis, who ran for 111 yards and was generally the reason why.

Kordell Stewart? He was out there. He made plays. He was quarterbacking.

And that's the shame of it. Because there was a time -- and not a Paleozoic era removed -- when the man called Slash was the reason why.

It's hard to watch Stewart now, struggling still to identify himself as a bona fide leader behind center -- it's hard to watch it without thinking back to what Stewart was, to how valuable he was to the Steelers of just a few seasons ago. Pittsburgh made the Super Bowl after the 1995 season, and Stewart was a one-man triple threat. He could run. He could catch. He could pass. You half-expected to see the guy scooping up the tee after kickoffs or personally conducting the film review the next day. He was that versatile.

They called him Slash because that's what he was, a slash-position player. Like this: running back/receiver/quarterback. Or slotman/scatback/pick'em. Whatever, the Steelers had a weapon in Stewart, and they knew it.

	Kordell Stewart Quarterback Pittsburgh Steelers Profile
	1999 SEASON STATISTICS COMP ATT YDS TD INT RAT 93 154 848 3 5 68.3

But that was then, and that was different. And the difference was (or one difference, anyway) that the one thing Bill Cowher was not asking Stewart to do was carry the team. The Steelers had a quarterback, Neil O'Donnell, a pretty big, pretty strong guy who took most of the hits and did the majority of the passing and scrambling and chewing out of players who missed blocks or blew assignments.

It was in this context that Stewart really mattered; he was the equivalent of relieving a fastball pitcher with Charlie Hough, or vice versa. The whole texture of the game changed when Stewart took the field precisely because he was the change of pace and not the norm.

Seems like a long time ago now, but it was only a few years ago. O'Donnell moved on, and his fortunes rose and fell; Stewart got what you suppose was his wish, to direct a team, and maybe found that it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The Steelers? They struggled. They struggle still, 3-3 so far and not feeling all that great about it. The production of Bettis last week allowed them to get out of Cincinnati with the victory and some hope that perhaps a corner had been turned, but they've far from cleared the trouble, and they know that.

And as the struggle has continued, the patience of the Pittsburgh fans with Stewart has been sorely tested. Can't blame them: They remember well when Kordell Stewart had a place of real impact on that roster, not just a place.

That's what it is right now, just a place. In the days leading up to tonight's Monday Night Football appearance against depleted Atlanta, Falcons cornerback Ray Buchanan spelled out quite succinctly how average a quarterback he considers Stewart to be: He noted, for the record, that not only does Slash no longer look to run, but when he sets up to pass, defenders know where the ball is going.

"He looks where he is throwing the ball," Buchanan told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I don't know what's going on with their offense, but he's pretty easy to read."

Replied Stewart, "I can't knock him for seeing that and recognizing that. Now I have to go out and practice and not stare down my receivers, so he can't use that to his advantage -- try not to give them any keys to work from."

It wasn't exactly a war cry on the order of, "Tell that punk I'll break his butt," but, then, there isn't so much swagger in Stewart anymore. Maybe the years, or the opponents, or the fans, have taken some of it out of him.

That's a shame, too. In his day, Kordell Stewart was a pretty fair braggart. He was a pretty terrific athlete. He still is a pretty terrific athlete. Just a mediocre NFL quarterback, is all.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/. During the 1999 NFL season, he will write a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on the Monday Night Football matchup.