Jerome Bettis might be one of Bill Cowher's favorite former players, but the coach probably won't be naming a wing of his new North Carolina luxury home after the Bus. Bettis, a rookie NBC analyst who irked Cowher by suggesting on air he would retire after the season, all but ruled out a repeat for the Steelers before Thursday's telecast of the Carolina Panthers-Steelers game at Heinz Field. "This is a totally different football team now than we had when we went on that run," Bettis said in an NBC conference call to promote next week's Dolphins-Steelers opener. "The question is: Are they capable of repeating? ... That remains to be seen yet. But it's not the same team. It's going to be a work in progress. It's going to be very, very difficult for them to repeat. They've got their hands full. Bettis went on to suggest that the Steelers would have to rely on Ben Roethlisberger and the passing game more and questioned the running game's ability to grind out "the tough yards" with speed back Willie Parker. "Obviously, with myself not being there, that poses a question," Bettis said. "Not having that closer in there late in games, that is significant in shortening games. If they don't have that ability to shorten the game in terms of that physical runner in between the tackles, that's going to be a really big problem." Bettis said a reliance on the pass could produce the same disastrous results as in 2003, when the Tommy Maddox-led Steelers went 6-10 and largely avoided their trademark power running game. "I don't believe he's going to go to the extreme, but I think he's going to try to open it up a little bit more," Bettis said. "Just because the running-back position is a different type of running back now. Willie Parker is not a pounder, 4-yards-and-cloud-of-dust kind of guy. I would hope (Cowher) wouldn't open it up as much as we did back then; that was a bad decision." -- John Dudley