PRO FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE NFL : Foster Is Making a Late Run for MVP

Barry Foster, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 1992 answer to Franco Harris, is making a run at a prize that seemed to belong to San Francisco quarterback Steve Young until recently: most valuable player in the NFL.

If their new coach, Bill Cowher, is the No. 1 reason for the astonishing rise of the Steelers (9-3), Foster is clearly No. 2.

“This is a new era of Steeler football,� Foster said Monday.

If it is, here are some of the indications:

--With nine 100-yard games so far, Foster needs three more in Pittsburgh’s final four games to tie Raider running back Eric Dickerson’s league-record of 12.

--With 1,316 yards rushing, Foster has already broken Pittsburgh’s single-season club record of 1,246 yards, a 1975 achievement by Harris in the midst of the Steelers’ four Super Bowls.

A 5-foot-10, 210-pound running back from Arkansas, Foster, after two years on the club, was almost the only one in or out of Pennsylvania who believed that he had a big NFL future last summer when training camp began.

He had the temerity to hold out after totaling only 621 yards--in two seasons--for former Coach Chuck Noll.

When the Steelers added a couple of dollars to Foster’s 1991 salary of $125,000, he ran back. And he has been running ever since.

Cowher expected that.

The coach who discovered Foster in his own film room said: “It was all in (the Steelers’) 1991 tapes.�

That’s one reason Cowher is reason No. 1.