PITTSBURGH — If you could pluck one play from the Week 10 Bengals-Steelers scrum and stick it in your pocket, it was that fourth-quarter burst around left end, a non-descript nine-yarder from their rookie runner Bernie Scott which kicked off the last Bengals drive.

Yep, that's the keeper. Nothing stylish — a basic football play. But it was a blowout play, a souvenir that clearly carried the message of the afternoon: The once skinflint Bengals have joined the league's muscle crowd.

Scott, a reserve from Abilene Christian, went untouched on the run, a clean breach of the right side of the Steelers' line … that's James Harrison and Brett Keisel and James Farrior, a pack of defending champs out there trying to stop it, and it kicked off a one-throw, nine-run drive that burned up the clock and resulted in a field goal to cap the 18-12 final.

"We were running behind big No. 77," Scott said afterward. "Andrew Whitworth, you know, he's a workhorse. I was just trying to get to the edge, read my block and make a play. I guess it was something that our offensive coordinator had seen."

"It was huge," said Kyle Cook, the Bengals' second-year center. "Pittsburgh actually shifted their front late on that play and our guys were able to make their adjustments on the run. Bernard got around the corner, which is nice, because a nine-yard pop on first down is totally a momentum swinger."

Two plays later, Harrison was nabbed for slugging Whitworth, Cincy's left tackle — 15 yards, blow to the head.  And up in press row there were more than a few whispers about the Steelers' "D" coming unraveled. Yes, they were missing a few regulars out there [Troy Polamalu, Aaron Smith] … but hell, it was Pittsburgh, and the Steelers don't come apart.

"Just pushing and shoving," said Whitworth on what led to the Harrison jab. "We were knocking 'em back. Defenders don't like getting knocked back, especially the Super Bowl MVP. They didn't like the fact we were running it right at them. It was frustration. That's what they're supposed to do [to us], and they didn't like it when we punched back.

"We really don't feel like there's anybody we can't run the ball against — it's just a matter of whether we execute. … You're looking at a see-saw battle out there, where we really hadn't been as crisp offensively as the last few games, but we still had a chance to win the ballgame if we could control the clock.

The drive burned up four minutes and 20 seconds, but they were fourth-quarter minutes, and in a tight points game they count as double — four you have, four the enemy offense doesn't.

"Carson (Palmer) got in the huddle and said, 'don't give it back to 'em unless it's the last couple seconds of the game,' " Whitworth said. "We said,'fine, let's do it.' … I was begging and begging for [the play calls] to come left, and they gave it to us, and we were able to do good so they stuck with it."

Until now, the Marvin Lewis-led Bengals, these Carson Palmer Bengals, have been a throw-first operation, finesse and fancy, winging it all over the place and putting up 30 and occasionally 40 points on the board. But they've also been a fold-first club that rarely finished off games. The flights of Icarus. Which spelled years of seven- and eight-win seasons and last year's four in the win bucket.

But this year they've nailed the Steelers twice, the latest being an ugly, field-position, kickers' battle. And Cincinnati, with its flinty 7-2 record, second best in the AFC, suddenly appears comfortable with that style, and so it makes sense to look big picture and ask, are the Bengals officially changing the way they do business?

"Absolutely," said Palmer, a man full of losing Sundays. "It's about field position, and that's something Marvin talks about all the time, something we harp on.

"There were some opportunities we had to take some shots, but at the end of the day it's better to take a check-down and dink the ball down the field. It's better to call a run in certain situations, because you know if you get two first downs you can punt the ball and pin them back inside their own 20. That's just as good sometimes as a field goal or a touchdown.

"When you play against these [Steelers] you're not going to march up and down the field and score touchdowns. It's a field-position battle."

Added TE J.P. Foschi, "we haven't really had a win like this all year where we didn't have any big-yardage plays. It was pretty much grinding it out for four quarters, and after we got the lead we had the ball and didn't want to give it back."

I caught up with Dave Lapham, the Bengals' radio analyst, in the hallway. Thirty years ago he was a Cincy lineman himself, a cagey old guard on a team that rose from the food stamp line in 1980 to become AFC champs in '81.

"I do see comparisons to that old team with this one," said Lapham. "Maybe not in terms of overall talent but in progress. In '80, we went 6-10, but were playing pretty well at the end of the season — three wins in our last four games. We were a lot closer to being good than people realized. A year later we were in the Super Bowl.

"This team? Well, at one point last year they were 1-11-1 then won their last three. Somehow they've learned how to grind and finish, and it's carried over to this year. You gotta hand a lot of credit to Marvin. He remade this team, retooled it as far as personality. Everything was competitive. It was win-or-lose in the weight room, in tug-of-war, whatever they did.

"Take a look at this offensive line. Athletically they're not better than anybody. But they do whatever it takes to get guys blocked. They've become tough-minded. And tough-mindedness can make average teams good — and good teams great.

So now it's a road-grader mentality in Cincinnati? C'mon, you've got Palmer out there, the long bomber. It's like asking Peyton Manning to hand it off 30 times a game. Sorta.

"You don't see the strike-here, strike-there, big play attack that you used to see," Lapham said. "That's by design. In the AFC North, you run the ball and you stop the run. That's what Baltimore and Pittsburgh do. Those teams played for a trip to the Super Bowl last year, in the conference championship. The Bengals have now swept those two teams.

"They're winning in a way that's good for the long haul."