Bud Shaw: The fake stuff shows players are real deal

Monday, February 06, 2006
Cleveland Plain Dealer

DETROIT- The Steelers didn't take Seattle to school, just to the schoolyard.

Nobody plays the sandlot game better than the Steelers, who won their one for the thumb with their usual sleight of hand.

Antwaan Randle El's arm. Ben Roethlisberger's legs. That's how they beat the Seahawks, 21-10.

Pfft. So predictable.

From the west coast, it might look as if the Seahawks met their death by deception, by plays drawn in the dirt with rocks, by a wide receiver who threw the sweetest, most accurate spiral of the night for the Steelers while their come-of-age quarterback was meeting his comeup- pance.

In Cleveland, of course, who didn't know it would happen this way?

"That was the same play we ran against Cleveland," Hines Ward said of Randle El's 43-yard touchdown pass to him with 8:56 remaining in the game. It resulted in a 51-yard touchdown against the Browns.

The Steelers stopped winning lucky a long time ago.

They practice this stuff, folks, because they draft players who bring endless possibilities to the offense.

The No Fun League? Forget about it.

Nobody does it better because nobody else has Randle El. That is the name, isn't it?

"The credit-card companies are the worst," the Steelers receiver/backup QB/punt returner said this week.

"They think my first name is Randle and my last name is El."
Whatever. Call this Super Bowl X-El.

The momentum had shifted to Seattle after Roethlisberger threw a Pop Warner interception that Twinsburg's Kelly Herndon returned far enough to set up Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck for a touchdown pass that butter-fingered tight end Jerramy Stevens actually caught.

Pittsburgh could have led, 21-3. Instead, Seattle trailed, 14-10, and Hasselbeck was clearly outplaying Roethlisberger.

"I was probably as nervous as I've ever been in my pro career," said Roethlisberger, who became the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. He looked liked it.

His biggest play of the game came on a scramble that had all the frenzy of a fire drill. Moving left and retreating to stay behind the line of scrimmage, Roethlisberger threw right as far as he could on third and exceedingly long. Ward, as always, was there, but barely, inside the 5.

"That's something we practice every week," Ward said. "Our scramble drill. Ben threw it a little short. I ended up catching [the defensive back's] hand along with the ball."

Jerome Bettis couldn't find the end zone from there, robbing him of a TD in his hometown and in his final game. So Roethlisberger ran it in, at least according to the refs and replay officials.

This was Roethlisberger's postseason, but it wasn't close to being his game. It was Randle El, not Roethlisberger, whom Ward called out to from the MVP trophy presentation, saying, "You threw a hell of a pass, man."

Talk of destiny usually crops up when a team falls to 7-5, rights itself and gets a game-saving tackle from its quarterback and the biggest TD pass of the season from a wide receiver in the playoffs. The Steelers did all that.

But this Super Bowl was really two stories, and the first must be appreciated wholly -- hate them or not. They earned the right to win one ugly by the way they arrived here. Three victories on the road against the three top seeds.

"I can't even believe it's real right now," Roethlisberger said.

To the Seahawks, and maybe only to the Seahawks, it looked like the result of so much fakery. But no doubt it's the Steeler Way.

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:

bshaw@plaind.com, 216-999-5639