PITTSBURGH -- Slightly less defiant in defeat on Sunday than he usually is during one of his characteristically colorful filibusters, Pittsburgh Steelers strong safety Lee Flowers allowed that his team's 13-10 loss to the despised Baltimore Ravens was a tough pill to digest, then insisted the setback was a factor of more than just one cockeyed kicker.

Nodding toward a corner of the locker room where kicker Kris Brown was still helplessly attempting to explain away his self-implosion, and failing almost as miserably as he had in missing four field-goal tries, Flowers did his best to spread the culpability for an abrupt and unpalatable conclusion to the Steelers' five-game winning streak.

"Look, this thing goes way beyond Kris Brown, so don't hang everything on him, OK?" said Flowers, the self-appointed orator for a defensive unit that permitted Baltimore just 183 yards and one touchdown and which certainly ranks among the best in the NFL. "Every player has to look at himself in the mirror. You can't just blame a loss on a kicker. In the big picture, that's way too simple, way too obvious."

	Kris Brown (3) is consoled by Kordell Stewart, right, and Mike Logan after his last miss.

Yet this was a day when the obvious was, indeed, the answer. Rarely can an NFL game be boiled down to one area. But on an afternoon when Pittsburgh dominated statistically and traded punches blow-for-blow with a defense alleged to be the NFL's most physical unit, defeat came down to one component.

And, unfortunately for Kris Brown, to one man.

Because the errant Brown could not perform what is supposed to be a relatively simple task, the reason for the Steelers' second defeat of the season was more obvious than Flowers might have people believe. The kicker didn't hesitate to point the fickle finger of fate in his own direction.

Had his accuracy with his right foot been so unerring during the game, Pittsburgh would have taken a significant step toward its first AFC Central championship since 1997, and the defending Super Bowl titlists would have been on the ropes at the halfway point of their 2001 roller-coaster season. As it turned out, the Ravens' 2001 campaign is salvaged and now Brown, a third-year veteran who had converted 84.7 percent of his career field-goal tries entering the game, must try to rescue his livelihood.

Perhaps his sanity as well.

"Really, I don't know what people expect me to do in this situation, because it's not one I have been through before," said Brown, who, to his credit, stayed long after the defeat to explain four painful miscues. "I'll give myself 24 hours, because you can't just act as if it didn't happen and just hope it goes away on its own. I've got to get back to work, correct the mistakes, start making kicks again."

It was, to be sure, a standup performance by a guy who had to be dying a little bit with every probing question. Fact is, there are only so many ways to ask a kicker just how he blew it, only a limited menu in querying any player about such a dismal performance. At one point during the lengthy inquisition, Brown peered at the floor in the spacious locker room, as if hoping the craftsmen who installed the carpet at the new Heniz Field had also put in a trap door.

There was none, and so Brown soldiered on before being rescued by a Steelers public relations official. Give the third-year kicker a high grade, at least, for not disappearing as quickly as some of his teammates. And for not just tossing himself, still dressed in his game uniform, into the nearby Allegheny River.

The Steelers held sizeable advantages in virtually every offensive category: first downs (21-10), total plays (74-51), total yards (348-183) and time of possession (35:31-24:29). Of their 74 offensive plays, 36 originated in Baltimore territory and the Steelers reached the "red zone" three times. But they cashiered only two drives, a 21-yard touchdown grab by Plaxico Burress giving the Steelers a 10-7 lead just before the half, and Brown was the central figure in their other pratfalls.

His afternoon began straight down the middle, Brown nailing a 38-yard field goal late in the first quarter to nudge the Steelers into a 3-0 lead. And then came the deterioration, as the former University of Nebraska standout missed tries of 41, 33, 48 and 35 yards. The 33-yard miss was slightly deflected by Ravens cornerback Chris McAlister. The 35-yard botch came with just eight seconds remaining in the game, and after quarterback Kordell Stewart had marched the Pittsburgh offense 45 yards, with overtime seemingly a given.

What could have been a defining moment for Stewart, who threw the ball on the mark all day but suffered from no fewer than four drops by his wide receivers, instead wound up as unquestionably the nadir of Brown's short career. Of such meltdowns have the careers of kickers much better than Brown been undermined, and the youngster will have to work hard to regain his confidence, along with that of his teammates and coaches.

Baltimore kicker Matt Stover, who booted the game-winning 39-yard field goal with 1:49 remaining in the game and who commiserated with Brown, pointed out that winds were a bit unpredictable on the field. It was also notable that all of Brown's misses were to the right. But given an excuse, a figurative lifeline of sorts, Brown declined to grab hold.

	“	I didn't perform and I didn't do the things people in this room count on me to do. I let the guys down, no doubt about it, because everyone else played good enough to win. I just didn't stroke the ball well. ”
		— Kris Brown, Steelers kicker

"No excuses," he said. "I got hit a little bit on the kick that was blocked, but it wasn't a big deal. It's plain and simple. I didn't perform and I didn't do the things people in this room count on me to do. I let the guys down, no doubt about it, because everyone else played good enough to win. I just didn't stroke the ball well. When you don't hit it that well, this is what happens."

Not since the first practice of his first day of training camp -- a July 1999 morning when he struggled mightily and had some Steelers officials quietly questioning the investment of a seventh-round draft choice on a guy who looked more like a free agent plucked off the street -- has Brown been confronted by this kind of adversity, or by the knowledge the loss is pinned on his back, just as a kid at a birthday party sticks the donkey's tail on the back of an unsuspecting playmate.

"It was hard," allowed one Pittsburgh veteran privately, "to look in his eyes. But we blew a big chance today to make a statement about ourselves and about our (legitimacy) in the playoff hunt. The bottom line is we played well enough to win in every part of the game except one. And everyone knows what that one phase was, right?"

While the Steelers' veterans did their best to deflect blame away from Brown, a locker room that should have been celebratory was instead stark, and many players hustled out early to avoid stating the obvious. Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, making certain on this day that everyone realized his surname rhymes with glower, declined to offer an opening statement in his post-game press conference.

He did, however, place the onus for the loss squarely on the Steelers' special teams unit in general. "I thought we were good on offense and good on defense," Cowher said. "But our special teams lost the game."

Indeed, about the only other glaring letdown for the Steelers was when rookie linebacker Kendrell Bell took a poor coverage drop and lost track of Baltimore tight end Shannon Sharpe, who was wide open for a 13-yard touchdown catch.

That score came after a 53-yard kickoff return by Jermaine Lewis helped jump-start a Baltimore offense that was mostly moribund all day and was reflective of the shabby performance of the Pittsburgh kicking game. But if Cowher was kicking himself for the failure to possibly dent the confidence of the Ravens, he wasn't letting on and vowed instead that the Steelers will bounce back from an ignominious defeat.

"There were a lot of things that could have been," Cowher said, "but it didn't materialize that way. We are not going to allow this to set us back. I can tell you that right now. Take that to the bank. We know we're a good football team and, if there's no consolation in losing, I think our guys know that we can play with anybody. We'll be all right."

Whether that wholesale affirmation applies to Kris Brown, however, remains to be seen. And even Cowher, a man of absolutes, could make no guarantees yet in that regard.

"Only time will tell how he'll come back from this," Cowher conceded.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.