Last week, the Steelers had him as doubtful.

While agreeing Porter could play with the lingering pain, doctors decided his IV stand might limit his lateral pursuit.

Hello?

Man got shot three weeks ago. A 9mm bullet found Porter's left buttock. You've heard of gutshot? Porter was butt-shot. The slug took a little trip through his leg and stopped in his right thigh.

Thank goodness the wound wasn't life-threatening. The Steelers might have downgraded Porter to "probable" today.

Think of the games he'd miss if he were really hurt.

This is the NFL. A piano could fall from a 10th-story window and land on a lineman's head, and he'd be listed as "questionable" for Sunday's game. Nothing a little ibuprofen can't cure.

This is why football players always will own a nobility that exceeds baseball and basketball players. (Forget hockey players. They are all clinically insane.)

"Giving themselves up for the team" doesn't mean bunting a runner over or making the extra pass. It means playing three weeks after you get shot.

It's harder to criticize athletes who understand that what they're doing now will have them creaking like a door hinge in a horror movie 10 years down the road. The definition of pain takes many forms. One is watching Mike Ditka try to negotiate a set of stairs.

Richie Braham pointed to the pinkie finger of his right hand, which looked like a cypress limb off a bonsai tree. "There's no joint," he said.

The Bengals lineman was rather proud. "They took it out. There's just calcium in there."

We asked Braham about Joey Porter, because, after 10 years in the league, Braham is the Bengals' King of Pain. He has had a herniated disc in his neck that left one of his arms numb and caused one specialist to urge him to quit football on the spot. Braham got a second and third opinion.

Both advised Braham that since he felt no tingling, he was good to go. Braham played the next week. He is a real gamer.

Braham has had four knee operations, "not including the do-over," he said, "when the thing slid." It what? Never mind. He had two knee surgeries during the 2000 season and still started nine games. Braham eats pain for lunch. With two Advil.

"What do you make of Joey Porter, playing three weeks after getting shot?" I wondered. "That's impressive," Braham said.

You might have seen the piece ESPN did on Bear Bryant. The legendary college coach had no patience for players in pain. When a player said to Bryant, "I think I broke my hand," the coach said, "You don't run with your hand."

Bill Parcells made the Dallas Cowboys training room a lonely place this summer. Marvin Lewis did the same here. Pressure to play with pain has never been greater. Players understand.

"If you want to be around, you better be on the field," Braham said.

"Ever wonder if in 10 years you'll be able to, you know, walk?" I asked Braham.

"I'll be all right," he said.

Recovering gunshot victim Joey Porter will start for the Steelers today.

It has been three whole weeks.

It's not as if he has to sit down or anything.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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