The offensive linemen did not get 48 hours to bask in their first-game success when Steelers coach Mike Tomlin rubbed the glow off their mugs.

On Tuesday, before the first question was fired, Tomlin pointed smack to the middle of his offensive line to present the biggest challenge of the next game.

He called new Cleveland Browns nose tackle Shaun Rogers "a very big, powerful and athletic man," then put the onus square on his own new center.

"We will get to know a little bit more about Justin Hartwig pretty quickly here this weekend," Tomlin said. Rogers "is going to be a force to be reckoned with."

Hartwig's reaction?

"I'm not going to worry about what people say. I'm just going to concentrate on what I'm doing. That's all I can do."

Yet Hartwig, 6 feet 4 and listed at 312 pounds, agreed with his coach that blocking the 6-4 nose tackle, who is listed at 350 pounds, will put him and the line to a test.

"Typically, a lot of teams do a lot of double-teams on him and for good reason. He gets vertical push on centers and that's going to be the challenge. We'll have to try to get a couple guys on him."

So many nose tackles got vertical pushes -- a k a beat him like a drum -- on Sean Mahan last season that he's back in Tampa Bay today. Mahan, who began the season weighing about 300 pounds and proceeded to lose weight, could not handle the big nose tackles. That is why they signed Hartwig, who was a good center in Tennessee when he faced Rogers, then with Detroit, in 2004. Hartwig and the Titans held Rogers and the Lions sackless in a 24-19 victory that day.

"It went all right," Hartwig said of that meeting.

It won't just be Hartwig's job, the entire line will have to repeat their boffo opening-day performance. Hartwig will get help from his guards on Rogers, acquired in a trade from Detroit by the Browns to play in the middle of their 3-4 defense.

"You have a guy that big, you're not going to leave one guy on him unless you find a center his size," guard Kendall Simmons said. "You double-team him."

The Steelers' offensive line took its own bows after their 38-17 victory against Houston. They easily were the biggest question coming into this season, especially after Ben Roethlisberger was sacked 47 times last year, second most in franchise history.

"It's one of those things, you have to take it," tackle Willie Colon said of the criticism. "You see Ben get hit, you see little things here and there, sometimes you have to look in the mirror and say maybe this is us, maybe we have to clean it up, maybe we have to do whatever we can to be better."

They did that since the end of last season. Most linemen reported to training camp having lost a few pounds and in better shape.

"I think each guy took it individually, with a chip on his shoulder, and made us better as a whole," Colon said.

They followed with a good opener. They weren't perfect. Roethlisberger was sacked twice by Mario Williams and did not practice yesterday because he has a sore shoulder from one of those hits. They were "mental" mistakes, they all said.

"I thought we played pretty good," Simmons said. "We still have some communication things going on but that's part of it. I think every line, no matter if you played together five or six years, you'll have some issues."

The good issues far outweighed the bad, as evidence by Roethlisberger completing 13 of his 14 passes and Willie Parker running for 138 of the team's 183 rushing yards with three touchdowns.

Yesterday, the NFL named Parker its offensive player of the week, and he thanked his blockers.

"By me winning AFC player of the week honors, they should get a little more respect than what they did," Parker said.

More awaits them if they handle Shaun Rogers and Co. Sunday night in Cleveland.