Driving force: after being slowed for three years by a knee problem, Jerome Bettis is back--and maybe even better--as the defense-busting `Bus' and is steering the Steelers toward the playoffs. (NFL).

When you played pickup football as a child, there usually was one big, fat kid in the bunch. Lots of times, he was surprisingly quick for his size, and if you gave him the ball, the other players soon tired of trying to knock him down. You could hear them talking, "Hey, why don't I cover for a while and you play the line."

Most of those fat kids kept growing until they became linemen, not ballcarriers. But not Jerome Bettis. He stopped at 255 pounds, or thereabouts, which, God knows, is still huge for a running back. Yet it's possible even for someone this big to slip off our football screens, which is what Bettis did the past three seasons, the same time span in ...