Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward said he was so nervous before Sunday’s Super Bowl he couldn’t believe it. He also couldn’t believe he dropped a high pass in the end zone, “a pass I catch in my sleep.”
He saw all those Super Bowl MVPs lined up at the coin toss and recalled as a little kid “trying to be Joe Montana one play and Jerry Rice the next play.”
“I got so sick before the game I asked Ray Lewis if I should feel this way,” Ward said. “He said, `All the great ones do.’ I was still light-headed and I excused myself to the bathroom.”
There are a lot of teams trying to be the Pittsburgh Steelers, even though coach Bill Cowher maintains there’s “not a big difference, to be honest” between his world champions and many other teams in the NFL.
“It can be a bounce of the ball,” Cowher said.
In the big picture, it’s more than that. The Steelers were no luckier in winning Super Bowl XL than the New England Patriots had been in winning three of the previous four.
The Super Bowl victory was the Steelers’ fifth, putting them in the company of the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. No coach in NFL history has won a title as late as Cowher did in his 14th season. But Cowher had also lost four AFC championship games. His dues were fully paid.
The Steelers are one of the NFL organizations that earn universal respect whether they win or just get close.
Although they are the first sixth seed to win a Super Bowl, they keep reminding everybody they were 15-1 last season before the Patriots knocked their rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger out one game short of the Super Bowl.
This is not a champion that came out of nowhere. As much as the NFL likes to trumpet its parity, as much as teams like to emphasize to fans that everybody has a chance, there is a definite pecking order and the Steelers are at the forefront.
They are a lesson for the Bears and every other striving team. This takes time, talent, patience, luck, perseverance, continuity. It takes more than an occasional bolt of lightning from the NFL gods.
Cowher paid tribute to the Seattle Seahawks as a team that didn’t get enough credit and “will be back.” The Seahawks can only hope they don’t follow the lead of the previous five Super Bowl losers — Philadelphia, Carolina, Oakland, St. Louis and the New York Giants — and fall out of the playoffs entirely the year after.
Like everybody else, the Seahawks are only trying to get into the penthouse, where the Steelers consistently live.
“This is the closest team we’ve ever had,” Cowher said. “I think our coaching staff is the best in the NFL and it starts at the top with Mr. [Dan] Rooney and Kevin Colbert (director of football operations). I can’t say enough about Kevin.”
Even as the Patriots became a dynasty, the Steelers were also the envy of the league for their ability to weather constant roster turnover and replenish talent without rebuilding.
They lost wide receiver Plaxico Burress in free agency and Ward held out of training camp for a short time last summer in a contract dispute. This year Antwaan Randle El, a star of the Super Bowl, is headed for free agency and will be courted by the Bears and other teams.
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If anyone wants to pay Randle El more than Pittsburgh believes he is worth, the Steelers will wish him well and never look back. Few teams in the NFL are as confident about their ability to identify value.
Cowher could lose offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt to the Oakland Raiders. But he lost Whisenhunt’s predecessor, Mike Mularkey, to Buffalo and didn’t skip a beat.
This was the first Super Bowl win for 68-year-old defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, who is on his second tenure with the Steelers, who know good coaches as well as they know good players.
Ward was a third-round draft choice in the 1998, a year when Tom Donahoe was still making draft decisions before taking over in Buffalo. Rooney chose Cowher over Donahoe in a power struggle.
Colbert worked for Detroit from 1990-99, but the Lions weren’t smart enough to put him in charge. Like Cowher, Colbert is a Pittsburgh native. Since he joined the Steelers in 2000, here are their top three draft choices each year:
2000: Burress, offensive tackle Marvel Smith, defensive tackle Kendrick Clancy.
2001: Nose tackle Casey Hampton, linebacker Kendrell Bell, offensive tackle Mathias Nkwenti.
2002: Guard Kendall Simmons, receiver Randle El, safety Chris Hope.
2003: Safety Troy Polamalu, linebacker Alonzo Jackson, cornerback Ike Taylor.
2004: Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, cornerback Ricardo Colclough, offensive tackle Max Starks.
2005: Tight end Heath Miller, cornerback Bryant McFadden, offensive tackle Trai Essex.
All but Burress, Clancy, Bell, Nkwenti and Jackson were on Sunday’s Super Bowl team.
“Our way isn’t the only way,” Cowher said. “What people want to take from us, I’d be flattered.”
A lot of teams should take as much as they can get.
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