Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Smith is the difference between winning and losing for the Carolina Panthers this year.

Smith, a Pro Bowl receiver, missed the first couple of games of the National Football League season with a leg injury, and the Panthers fell to 0-2. He's played the past four weeks and the team now is 4-2 heading into Cincinnati to face the Bengals (3-2) this weekend.

``Steve's presence uplifts the entire team,'' said Eugene Robinson, who played safety for 16 NFL seasons and is now a Panthers radio broadcaster. ``He makes the very good defensive back somewhat ordinary, and that's hard to do.''

This season isn't the first time the Panthers' fortunes have rested with the 5-foot-9 Smith, who was selected from the University of Utah in the third round of the 2001 draft.

In 2003, he led the Panthers with 88 catches for 1,110 yards and seven touchdowns as Carolina reached the playoffs with an 11- 5 record.

In the postseason, Smith's double-overtime 69-yard touchdown catch propelled the Panthers past St. Louis in a divisional game. The Panthers won the National Football Conference title and lost to the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Injuries

In 2004, Smith broke his leg while being tackled during the team's first game. Carolina finished the season 7-9, missing the playoffs.

Smith returned last season, leading the NFL with 1,563 yards receiving, while tying for first with 103 catches and 12 touchdown receptions. The Panthers again reached the playoffs, losing to Seattle in the NFC championship game.

Smith, 27, wasn't completely healthy when he returned from a hamstring injury Sept. 24, catching seven passes for 112 yards in a 26-24 win over Tampa Bay.

Last week, in a 23-21 win over Baltimore, he hauled in eight passes for an NFL season-high 189 yards, including a 72-yard touchdown catch that proved to be the game-winning score.

``We knew that being 0-2 wasn't the end of the world,'' Panthers wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson was quoted as saying on the team's Web site this week. ``I always felt when (Smith) got back, he would be the ultimate guy that would help us get over the hump.''

As for Smith's speed in his fourth game after returning to action, ``There's no question he was healthy,'' Ron Jaworski, a 15-year NFL quarterback who is now an analyst for Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN, said in a telephone interview. ``It was almost night and day.''

First Touchdown

Smith, who is sixth in the league with 450 yards receiving this season, has made big plays ever since joining the league. In his first NFL game, he returned the opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown.

``He's got amazing quickness,'' Jaworski said. ``You can't get a hand on him because of the quickness, and after that it's acceleration.''

This weekend in Cincinnati, Smith will draw comparisons to the Bengals' Chad Johnson, another of the league's top current receivers and Smith's junior-college teammate at Santa Monica College. Both Smith and Johnson are known for their creative touchdown celebrations, including performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on the ball, fencing an invisible opponent and putting the ball with a goal-line pylon. Such demonstrations and using props have since been outlawed by the NFL, and Smith said he's aiming for a quieter style.

``What image do I want to project to people?'' Smith told reporters this week. ``That wasn't something I felt was the direction I wanted to go.''

Cincinnati Slump

After starting 3-0, Cincinnati scored only 13 points in each of its last two games, losses to the Patriots and Buccaneers.

``We can't allow defenses to dictate what we can do. We need to start dictating what we want to do,'' Chad Johnson told reporters this week. ``We're down due to injuries, but we can't use that as an excuse.''

Johnson has just one catch of more than 18 yards this season.

The only other time Smith and Chad Johnson met in an NFL game was in 2002 and the Panthers won 52-31. Smith had five catches for 144 yards and a touchdown, and returned two punts for scores. Johnson had six receptions for 114 yards.

``With their receiver corps, this is a great challenge for our football team, and in particular our secondary,'' Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said at a news conference. ``It's going to be loud. It's going to be fun.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Mason Levinson in New York at mlevinson@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 20, 2006 00:03 EDT