Steelers now in favorite role

Pittsburgh has been the underdog in its last three playoff games.
DETROIT (AP) -- They're favored, not the underdogs they were in Denver and Indianapolis. They're not at home, but given Pittsburgh's proximity to Detroit, the Motor City may look more like the Steel City by this weekend.
And that let's-drive-the-Bus back to his hometown campaign that's motivated them for weeks? Numerous Steelers players wore throwback Jerome Bettis Notre Dame jerseys on Monday, a tribute to the star running back who returned for the chance to close his brilliant career in a hometown Super Bowl -- and will do exactly that.
But now that the Pittsburgh Steelers have successfully completed that seven wins-in-seven weeks streak that was the only way to get them and Bettis to the NFL's championship game, the question is how they will adapt to their now-changed role.
Now expected to win
It's the Seattle Seahawks, not the Steelers, who are being asked what it's like to be the underdog. Suddenly, after two months of not being expected to win, the Steelers will be considered failures if they don't win Sunday.
Coach Bill Cowher wants them to remember exactly that. For all they've accomplished during the most circuitous route ever to the Super Bowl, the Steelers will be remembered as flops if they don't win Sunday. If, in a few years, they're remembered at all.
"This thing isn't about week to week, it's about finishing the deal," Cowher said shortly after the Steelers arrived in Detroit for their first Super Bowl in 10 years. "We've got to seize this opportunity this year."
That's why, to Cowher, nothing has changed, even if it would seem everything has changed. The public perception may be different, he said, but the team's internal perspective hasn't.
"You recognize where you were, the journey we had -- and we are not done with that journey," Cowher said. "We started this thing seven weeks ago and this is the eighth game we will have played in that time in which we had no margin for error. It's a constant reminder, not so much of where we are now but where you started from. That in itself will put a lot of things in their proper perspective."
Additional motivation
Cowher pointed to additional motivation the Steelers haven't had until now: the opportunity to become the Steelers' first Super Bowl champion since the franchise won the last of its four titles in January 1980.
Every Steelers employee has been reminded about that since -- most of all Cowher. He is No. 14 in NFL career coaching victories, but because he followed Hall of Famer Chuck Noll, is considered only the second-best Steelers coach in the last quarter-century.
That's the unwritten theme this week for the Steelers, to not only win one for the soon-to-be-retired Bettis, but also get one for Cowher, whose record is among the best of any coach who hasn't won a Super Bowl.
To Hines Ward, that's why the idea the Steelers would lose the drive they've had for the last two months is farcical.
"We don't feel like a favorite," Ward said. "It's not going to change our way of thinking. We still have the same mentality that we had during the last four weeks of the season, that we can't lose. We've got to do whatever it takes to win this game."
Too young to remember
Ward, 29, is too young to remember those Super Bowl teams of the 1970s. He has watched their game films on TV and, like every Pittsburgh player, has been told constantly about them. He's met Hall of Fame receiver Lynn Swann and talked on the phone with Hall of Famer John Stallworth, whose team career catches record he broke earlier this season.
Ward respects and admires all they accomplished, but agrees it would be nice for future generations of Pittsburghers -- and Steelers fans -- to have a Super Bowl champion from more than one era to look up to.
"We came here to win," Ward said.
To help them do so, some Steelers are relying on what some NFL players might considered an unlikely source for advice: the team owner.
Generally, owners and players rarely talk during the season, but Hall of Fame owner Dan Rooney is a daily presence in the locker room. Because Rooney was there for all four Super Bowls, linebacker James Farrior and others have questioned him about how those teams prepared.
"He has a lot of experience with this," Farrior said. "Guys have been talking to him all week about this. Mr. Rooney knows all about this."