The crowd at Heinz Field fell about as quiet as the Cincinnati bandwagon Sunday, probably at about the same time.

While the Bengals were giving up yards like they were drinks outside a college communications department, the uniquely-dressed Steelers crowd had the same sobering reality their opponents did one week prior.

OLB James Harrison lay on the ground, immobile, and memories of Bills TE Kevin Everett shifted southwest from Buffalo.

If anyone in the league appears more super human than Harrison, I haven’t seen him. He is chisled like a granite statue, and, like Keith Richards, he cannot be stopped by conventional weapons.

Injury? Nah. Maybe Browns fans who run onto the field and in his path get injured, but Harrison only has slight set-backs from a physical standpoint here and there, but not a full-blown “injury.”

It wasn’t that I wasn’t concerned with Harrison - by all accounts, a decent guy, just an extremely tough sonofabitch. The notion that he was actually hurt just seemed more akin to saying  the Kansas City Royals will win the pennant next year - I suppose it’s possible, it just ain’t gonna happen.

Things might have taken a turn toward Negative-ville when the stretcher came out and they put the gurney on him. We haven’t seen No. 92 lying on his back since Jason Gildon was kept around for one year longer than he should have.

The crowd drew eerily silent, but I just felt optimistic he was going to be ok. The biggest thing in my mind, as a smile grew across my face, was how silent it was. It wasn’t so much the silence of horror for Harrison, but the silence that not one person - even the broadcasters - were mentioning the man Harrison has replaced very well so far.

J-Peezy.

The Steelers are switching over from “The Steelers without Joey Porter.” Harrison and his 1.5 sacks, constant quarterback disruption, special teams play and Captain’s “C” have put Porter - five tackles and one unsportsmanlike conduct penalty so far this season -  out of our minds already.

The start of this defense is easily comparable to how the 2005 Super Bowl Champion unit started. It may not have gone up against the best teams in the league (Tennessee and Houston in 2005), but the best defenses dominate weaker competition. Ten sacks in two games is impressive, assuming you’re not going up against Notre Dame’s offensive line.

Harrison is a huge part of that.

I could only think of Rod Tidwell. Harrison wasn’t milking the situation the way the mercurial Cardinals WR was in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire, but it was that same kind of catharsis for Harrison. It’s probably a sad commentary to suggest someone’s true value is found more in his tragic loss than his dominance through two games, but that’s exactly what we saw on Sunday. Just like Crowe was saying in his chick-flick-sports-movie, fans didn’t see Tidwell for what he was worth until he was lying on the ground.

He was carted off the field, and reports quickly started coming out that the injury he was allegedly suffering occured when he ran face-first into NT Casey Hampton’s ass. If you see the replay of it, that’s really what it was.

Now, I knew he wasn’t going to be hurt. The man they call “Silverback” doesn’t get hurt by running into Snacks’ spacious posterior.

After a few reports came out saying he was ok, and he was moving, I didn’t necessarily let out a sigh of relief. But I did laugh, texting SteelerBro that Snacks’ butt now needs a warning label for the field as well as the bathroom. The game was over anyway, the team’s best pass rusher - Harrison - didn’t need to play the second half.

Late in the third quarter, cameras showed Harrison in his Tidwell-esque emergence onto the field. He wasn’t dancing, but the fact he came back out onto the field, with his squared shoulders suggesting he was ready to do battle again, but his knees buckling just enough to make fans wonder if he didn’t sneak back onto the field when a paramedic wasn’t looking.

Even if the entire staff was looking, would they have been able to stop him?

Dale Lolley wrote:

Harrison, by the way, will be fine. Word has it he tore his neck collar off in the ambulance at halftime and stormed back out to the field.

This isn’t to suggest Porter wouldn’t have done anything of the sort, and not to condone his return to the field after such a close call, but Harrison had a lot to prove. Just like Porter did when Gildon was let go, filling in the shadow of a team legend isn’t an easy task. Through two games, though, he’s done more than enough to show the team made the right decision in letting Porter walk.

Hopefully, Harrison’s legacy will be another shining example of how the Steelers are able to find great OLBs anywhere, and not so much the guy who’s crazy enough to nearly break his neck and threaten physical force to stay in the game.

The latter is just so Silverback, though, isn’t it?