Time to Celebrate!

Plus other random post-Super Bowl thoughts

Here are some random post-Super Bowl thoughts:

• I went to the Steelers parade/rally downtown today. It was a mess - the city really did a bad job in planning that one (big shock). Still, no one cared - a quarter of a million people packed the streets of Pittsburgh and we all just wanted to celebrate this incredible time in Steelers history. There were some great moments from the rally, like the crowd drowning out county commissioner Dan Oranato's little photo-op speech with chants of "Let's Go Pens!" (in reference to his total lack of support for a new arena), but the best moment of the day was this exchange between Bill Cowher and the crowd:
  
  Bill Cowher: "When I say 'Who Dey', you say 'We Dey'. Ready?.... Who Dey?"
  Crowd: "WE DEY!!!"
  Bill Cowher: "Who Dey?"
  Crowd: "WE DEY!!!"
  Bill Cowher: "Who Dey?"
  Crowd: "WE DEY!!!"
  Bill Cowher: [Smiling].... "I LOVE that!"
  
  Then he did it again like 20 minutes later. Talk about a giant "up yours" to the Bengals. That was unreal - that would have been like Bob Johnson leading a "1940" chant at the Pens rally in 1991. What a great nasty rivalry this is turning into!
  
  
• I really lost a lot of respect for Mike Holmgren. First he wouldn't go shake Cowher's hand at midfield after the game. Then at a Seahawks "rally" on Monday (apparently all 37 of their fans gathered to show some support), Holmgren whined, "We knew it was going to be tough going up against the Pittsburgh Steelers,but I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well." Wow, way to be a sore losing little girl. Enough about the refs already - I've never seen a more overblown non-story in my entire life. As I said in my game recap, I believe the refs made one good call (the pass interference where Darrell Jackson clearly pushed off, which by the way was later called on Heath Miller when the Steelers were driving in the red zone, but I guess no one remembers that because the Steelers still scored on that drive rather than choke like the Seahawks), one call that was close but went the right way (Ben's TD), and one bad call on the Seahawks (the holding call in the 4th quarter). You can't use that as an excuse for blowing the Super Bowl when you had the ball in your opponents territory nine different times. It's funny how the ref story has snowballed simply because so many media types are still angry that the Colts and Patriots got knocked out so early. You would expect that kind of childish reaction from the national sports media, but not from an NFL head coach. Holmgren joins Marvin Lewis and Peyton Manning in the club of guys who couldn't believe that we beat them in the post-season and thus had to resort to acting like babies. That's why those guys are all losers, and why we are holding the Lombardi trophy.
  
  
• The best underrated moment of being at the Super Bowl was getting the chance to boo The Murderer when they introduced all the MVP's before the game. I must say that was fun. The crowd started booing him before they even announced his name.
  
  
• Speaking of The Murderer, Hines Ward admitted to being so nervous before the game that he threw up. He then asked The Murderer if it was normal to be nervous like that. I wish I could have overheard that conversation. "Well Hines, when I'm about to stab somebody, my hands often get sweaty. But I just try to focus on the task at hand...."
  
  
• Is there any doubt who the most popular football team in America is? An estimated 90.7 million people watched the Steelers beat the Seahawks on Sunday. That was the largest Super Bowl audience since the Steelers last played in the Super Bowl after the 1995 season.
  
  
• I've heard some rumors that the Steeler crowd on Sunday was somewhat manufactured. There are some people saying that many of the towels you saw flying around Ford Field were being handed out to neutral fans. Even if that is true, why would you wave a Terrible Towel if you were a Lions fan? I was there, and I can tell you that it was all true Steelers fans. There were impromptu "Here we go, Steelers" chants breaking out in the concourses (I even got one on tape - click here to see it). The noise was such that Roethlisberger at one point signaled the crowd to be silent so that he could hear the snap count! Trust me - I go to the home games, and that Super Bowl was a home game with a roof over top of it.