Mike Lupica: He fits Bill as Super Steeler

Cowher takes place in Pittsburgh lore

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DETROIT - Finally Bill Cowher got his yesterday, became the coach who put the Steelers back on top, became the heir to Chuck Noll the only way you can in Pittsburgh, the only way Steelers fans have understood since it was Lynn Swann or John Stallworth catching the balls that Hines Ward caught yesterday, since the old Steelers always seemed to make enough big plays to win the big game. Cowher finally got his Super Bowl because he did what great coaches are supposed to do, did not let his team beat itself the way the bungling Seahawks did last night at Ford Field, Detroit.

Of course Cowher wanted to talk about his players when it was over. He wanted to talk about Jerome Bettis, even if Willie Parker was the star of the Steelers' backfield on this day, Parker running 75 yards for a touchdown, the longest touchdown run in Super Bowl history, just 22 seconds into the second half and making it 14-3 for the Steelers. Cowher talked and talked about Bettis, who walks away from football a winner forever.

"(Bettis) is what's right about the National Football League," Bill Cowher said when it was over.

But Cowher has coached the game right for such a long time, over all the years when he could not break through, could not get the Steelers the first Super Bowl trophy since Noll and Bradshaw and Swann and Stallworth, Franco and Mean Joe Greene and all the rest of them won their four. He lost four AFC Championship Games at home. He was 15-1 in the regular season one year ago and could not get past the Patriots in the championship game. At home.

But now Cowher gets his. He gets his on a day when his team did not play its best, not nearly its best, especially on offense. He saw his quarterback, the kid, Ben Roethlisberger, throw a terrible interception when the Steelers were driving hard to make Super Bowl XL 21-3 in the third quarter.
Roethlisberger threw a pass to the outside that was the equivalent of a hanging curve ball, Kelly Herndon stepped in on the goal line, took it down the sideline, the Seahawks scored a few plays later, now it was 14-10.

Game still on. And maybe Bill Cowher was wondering, had to be wondering, if this was another Super Bowl that was going to get away from him because his quarterback threw it to the wrong guy. It had happened to him in Tempe once. It had happened because Neil O'Donnell, his Super Bowl quarterback that day, kept throwing the ball to Larry Brown, a defensive back from the Cowboys. Oh sure. There had to be a part of Bill Cowher wondering if that could happen to him again.

"This team has been resilient all year," Cowher would say afterward.

This team was different. This time the Steelers came back from the interception, made their stand early in the fourth quarter, made this the day Cowher has been chasing his whole football life. Seattle's Matt Hasselbeck, who had watched his receivers drop balls all day, finally threw a terrible ball of his own when he was driving the Seahawks, trying to put his team ahead 17-14. Ike Taylor intercepted Hasselbeck. The Steelers moved the ball a little after that. Finally it was a first down for Roethlisberger at the Seattle 43-yard line.

And here came the one mistake that finally finished the Seattle Slapsticks once and for all at Ford Field. They had dropped all those balls. Had cost themselves a touchdown because Darrell Jackson got called for offensive pass interference in the end zone. Had lost a big punt return because of a penalty. Lost big gainers because of a holding penalty. Not just looking like Super Bowl rookies. Looking like scared rookies.

Here came the granddaddy mistake of them all in Detroit. The Steelers had gotten nice yards earlier with an end-around with Hines Ward. This time it was Antwaan Randle El circling Roethlisberger from the left side, Randle El an old quarterback from Indiana University. Roethlisberger pitched the ball to Parker, who handed it to Randle El. There was plenty of daylight now on the right side, enough daylight for a first down, easy.

Down the field, the Seahawks bit.

Just enough.

Let down for just a moment as Randle El stopped and let it go and threw the best ball that any quarterback threw in this game, threw it high and deep to Hines Ward, who caught it and ran into the end zone and made it 21-10 for Bill Cowher's Pittsburgh Steelers.

So Cowher's Steelers had really won this game with three plays. Sometimes Bradshaw would make all the bad parts go away by sending Swann or Stallworth deep. Somehow in the first half, Roethlisberger got away from the rush on third-and-28 from the Seattle 40, and flung it across his body and across the field and Ward beat Michael Boulware to the ball at the 3-yard line. Three plays later, the refs said Roethlisberger got in even though replays said otherwise. Didn't matter. Call stood. Steelers 7, Seahawks 3 at halftime.

Then Willie Parker, signed on the say-so of Steeler owner Dan Rooney's son Danny, a North Carolina scout, signed even though Parker had sat on the bench for four years at the University of North Carolina, ran 75 yards on the second play of the second half.

Finally Randle El made his throw to Hines Ward. We always think these games will come down to one quarterback or the other. We just didn't know the quarterback on this day would be an old college quarterback from Indiana U. now wearing No. 82.

"Surreal," Bill Cowher said on the podium when it was over.

He was doing what the coach of the Steelers is supposed to do at the time. Holding the Lombardi Trophy. Standing next to an owner named Rooney. At last.

Originally published on February 6, 2006