The Road to Detroit: An Amazing Ride

If you predicted that the Steelers would reach the Super Bowl back in August when they were coming off of a 15-1 season, then you were not alone. If you predicted that the Steelers would reach the Super Bowl back in early December after they had dropped three games in a row and stood at 7-5, then you obviously traveled to 2015 and picked up a copy of Grays Sports Almanac.

The Steelers started off the season well, winning 7 of their first 9 games. The two losses included a last second loss to New England, and a fluke loss to Jacksonville in a game that we would have won if not for a series of unfortunate Tommy Maddox turnovers. I sat in a bar in Chicago watching the Steelers beat the Browns to run their record to 7-2, second in the AFC behind the unbeaten Colts. My brother and I started talking about how we should be a lock to get the #2 seed in the playoffs.

But then the roof began to cave in. The Steelers laid an egg in Baltimore, then got hammered into the ground by the Colts. They came home for a huge game against Cincinnati - one in which the division title was at stake - and played another stinker. All of a sudden the season seemed over. It all happened so fast too. My brother and I kept reflecting back on our conversation in Chicago, and how everything seemed so bright. We then wondered if this season was going to be like the 2003 season, when there was so much promise leading to even more disappointment.

Here is what I wrote after that Cincinnati game:
"These past three weeks have been beyond frustrating. If the team were fading away, or succumbing to injuries, then fine - I'd be upset, but I could accept it. The problem is that this is still a good team with the same players who were winning every single week last year and in the first half of this year..... I don't know what this is. It's like the whole team is in a collective batting slump, and there's really no good explanation for it!"

That is honestly how I felt too. I KNEW this team was capable of more - it just needed a good slap to the head. That slap came the next week when the Steelers beat the red-hot Chicago Bears in a blowout at Heinz Field. Later that day, two important events happened: the San Diego Chargers blew a winnable home game against Miami, and the Kansas City Chiefs lost in Dallas on a last-minute play. Since those two teams were ahead of the Steelers in the AFC playoff race, those results were huge. Kansas City would have made the playoffs over the Steelers had they hung on in Dallas, and San Diego would have had more to play for in the season's final two weeks. The Steelers also found new life after that, knowing that they now had as good of a shot as anyone to make the playoffs. They would win their final four games to go 11-5 and squeeze in as the final wild card. The word "destiny" started to reer its head.

In the playoffs, the Steelers reeled off three amazing road wins. They also had the good fortune of not having to play New England again, although the way they were playing, I'm not sure that would have mattered. The three wins they did have left a path of devastation too: Carson Palmer got hurt and his team was exposed as a bunch of quitters, Peyton Manning choked while an entire city was in shock at how a nearly undefeated team could lose their first playoff game, and Jake Plummer committed three turnovers which drew all kinds of unfair "you're no Elway" cries in Denver.

It's still astounding that after all those years where we had homefield advanatage, and after all those times when we beat the best teams during the regular season but couldn't repeat it in the playoffs, that this would be the path necessary to get us back to the Super Bowl. Well, that's fine by me. It's been quite a memorable ride, and win or lose next week, I really think that the 2005 season may be the greatest in post-1970's Steelers history.

Copyright © 2005 - All Rights Reserved