Cowher: Giving up not an option

Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu won't play on Sunday against the Buccaneers.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- There are several things Bill Cowher won't accept from his Pittsburgh Steelers: not working hard in practice, looking toward next year rather than focusing on what remains of this one, and, most of all, giving up on the season.
The Steelers have five games remaining, but they couldn't have expected to be so far out of playoff contention with more than a month of the season remaining.
"It certainly is not where we expected to be at this point, but we're going to deal with it and proceed," he said.
The Steelers' 27-0 loss Sunday at Baltimore not only exposed all of their season-long weaknesses, it ended any thoughts about staging another late-season rally and reaching the playoffs again. They could sweep their final five games and finish 9-7, but that record probably wouldn't be good enough to get them into the postseason.
Last year, they had to win their final four to get to 11-5, a record that earned them the last spot in the AFC playoffs.
High expectations
"You have to learn to deal with it," Cowher said. "The longer you're in this business, the higher the expectation levels become. Certainly for our team and the expectations that we had, it becomes trying. It tests you. I think it becomes very revealing as well. It has a way of separating the conditional friend from the unconditional."
The Steelers (4-7) experienced a season like this three years ago when, after going 13-3 in 2001 and 10-5-1 in 2002, they matched their worst record under Cowher at 6-10. They rebounded the next season to go 15-1 and reach the AFC championship game, then won the Super Bowl last season.
However, Cowher isn't convinced that experiencing a bad season necessarily led to the two good seasons that followed.
"It's hard to say," he said. "I think you only know how to play one way and you don't turn that off. You've got to learn to deal with it. You've got to learn to accept it and grow from it. It becomes very revealing. ... It will be defining for a lot of people, including myself."
Ward out after surgery
That's why Cowher doesn't plan any major personnel changes, especially now that he has a depleted roster.
Two of his best players, wide receiver Hines Ward (knee surgery) and safety Troy Polamalu (sprained knee ligament), will miss Sunday's game against Tampa Bay (3-8) and possibly the Dec. 7 game against Cleveland (3-8).
"The bottom line is doing what you think gives you the best chance to win week to week," Cowher said. "People talk about wanting to prepare for the future and looking ahead.
"The best way to do that is win games and create that mind-set and mentality. You can't jeopardize any game just to develop somebody else. You don't know what your team is going to be like a year from now."
Cowher must be hoping these Steelers respond better to losing than they have in the past.
The Steelers reached the playoffs 10 times in Cowher's first 14 seasons, but the teams that didn't advance generally played worse in the second half of the season than the first. The exception was the 2000 team that started 0-3 but ended 9-7.
In 1998, they lost their final five games following an overtime loss in Detroit on Thanksgiving to finish 7-9. A year later, they went 1-7 in the second half to wind up 6-10 after being 5-3 at midseason.
Still, Cowher also doesn't want this team judged on its dismal play against Baltimore, a loss he said was as much an anomaly as last month's 45-7 victory over Kansas City was.
"I'm not going to let one game define who we are," Cowher said. "You're entitled to make whatever judgments you want to make. In my mind, one game does not define this football team. It's the ability to persevere through this, and that's what we're in the process of doing."
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