Kordell Stewart was never afraid of where his career had careened or, in the past 21 games, where it has landed. After tumbling into a professional abyss where he was banished from quarterbacks meetings and benched in favor of Kent Graham, he has bounced back to lead the Steelers to the top seed in the AFC playoffs and pile up awards as fast as he has passing yards.
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Kordell Stewart
"There's no reason to be afraid to mention that we are playing to go to Super Bowl."
(Matt Freed, Post-Gazette) |
Now, with his confidence soaring and the Steelers waiting to see who they will meet in the first round of the AFC playoffs, Stewart is not afraid to talk about his next objective. It might be premature, what with two playoff victories standing in the way of what would be return home for Stewart, a New Orleans native.
But Stewart has his sights set on the Super Bowl, and he's not afraid to let anyone know it.
"This is the time when you do think about it," Stewart said. "Come on, let's be realistic. You don't think about it during the regular season. But this is the time when you take it game by game but you know what you're playing for now. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. To not even have that as a goal, you're cutting yourself short.
"There's no reason to be afraid to mention that we are playing to go to Super Bowl."
Stewart has already played in one Super Bowl -- in 1995, his rookie season, when he burst onto the scene as "Slash," the do-everything quarterback/wide receiver/running back who caught a 5-yard touchdown pass in the AFC championship game against Indianapolis.
But this would be different. Stewart is the starting quarterback of this team, the Most Valuable Player as determined by his teammates. He is one of three quarterbacks voted to the AFC Pro Bowl team and the AFC Offensive Player of the Month for December/January.
What's more, Super Bowl XXXVI will be played at the Louisiana Superdome, which is 20 miles from where he grew up and attended John Ehret High School in Marrero, La. It would be a family reunion for Stewart, whose father, Robert, and brother, Robert Jr., live in Marrero, as well as 50 relatives in the surrounding area. Stewart's mother and sister are deceased.
"That's home for me," Stewart said. "It would be a dream come true, just playing in the game itself along with playing at home in front of your family. That's a lot of great things that can be accomplished. It would be fun for the team, as well, let alone myself."
Of course, before Stewart can start planning on a homecoming, the Steelers have to win two playoff games at Heinz Field. They could know their first-round opponent tonight if the New York Jets (10-6) beat the Oakland Raiders (10-6) in the opening AFC wild-card game. But, if the Raiders win, the Steelers will have to wait until tomorrow to know their opponent -- the winner of the Baltimore-Miami wild-card game -- for the 12:30 p.m. game next Sunday.
"We have to take it game by game and not put too much pressure on yourself because thinking about that can put a lot of personal heat on you," Stewart said. "And we don't want to do that to the point where we're not reacting to the game and we're just thinking. That's not what we want."
After the Steelers closed out the regular season with a 28-7 victory Sunday against the Cleveland Browns, Coach Bill Cowher said the pressure was now off the team. He said the Steelers' objective all season was to win the AFC Central and gain home-field advantage for the playoffs, which they did. Accomplishing those tasks would allow the team the best chance to get to the Super Bowl.
Stewart concurred. Even when the Steelers were 10-2 and had a two-game lead in the division, he said there was pressure to beat the Ravens in Baltimore and finish the season strong to gain the No. 1 seed in the playoffs.
Now, he said, the pressure is off, even though the playoffs carry a more stringent penalty -- one loss and you're out.
"It's pressure to get out there and play against the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, trying to win a division, being ahead in the division by two or more games, everybody watching that day," Stewart said. "Then you got to play against Detroit, a team that's not winning -- Are they going to lay it down? After losing a game [in Cincinnati] and maybe sitting around for three weeks, that was pressure also.
"There's no pressure now. It's time to have fun. Time to lay it down. Time to make it happen."
This will be Stewart's first playoff appearance since the Steelers lost to the Denver Broncos, 24-21, in the 1997 AFC championship at Three Rivers Stadium, a game in which he threw two of his three interceptions into double- and triple-coverage.
That game began what became a considerable career free fall for Stewart. The following year, the Steelers lost their final five games, beginning with the coin toss-debacle Thanksgiving Day in Detroit, to finish 7-9. Included in that slide was the 16-3 loss in Tampa Bay in which Stewart was yanked from the game and angrily wagged his finger at Cowher on the sideline.
In 1999, after a 5-3 start, Stewart was benched for the final five games and told to play wide receiver, a move that also included being banished from attending quarterbacks meetings. Then, after being the No. 1 quarterback in training camp in 2000, he was replaced by Graham in the final preseason game and spent the first three games of the regular season on the bench.
But, from that point, Stewart started the long climb back. He won seven of the next 11 games he started, including four of the last five to close out the season. Couple that with his performance this season and Stewart is 20-7 in his past 27 games and 17-4 in his past 21. He finished fourth in voting for the NFL's MVP award, behind Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and Brett Favre.
"I have nothing to prove," Stewart said. "I just have to go out and do my job. My job is going to prove what kind of team we have, not just by my play but everybody else's play."
Stewart is not afraid to think Super Bowl 
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