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Jaxson de Ville -- the Jaguars' mascot -- has his own chapter in the Steelers-Jaguars rivalry after taunting the Steelers' huddle in 1998. . Click photo for larger image. 
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Game data: Steelers vs. Jaguars
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The Jaguars will celebrate their 10th season in the league when the Steelers play in Jacksonville at 8:30 p.m. today, and they will try to live up to all that has gone on between the two teams the past decade.
"It's been fierce, it's been physical, it's been a great rivalry," said halfback Jerome Bettis, a big part of it since he joined the Steelers in 1996. "A lot of crazy stuff has happened. It's been weird."
The Steelers (10-1) need a victory tonight to stay with the New England Patriots for the top seed in the AFC. The Jaguars (6-5) need it to stay in the playoff chase.
"I think we have eliminated any cushion that we might have had and absolutely must find a way to win," Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio said.
The must-win attitudes of both teams should only add to the atmosphere that has been at times spooky, bloodthirsty at others, and often both when these teams meet. Such as:
The 1997 game in Jacksonville when Steelers linebacker Greg Lloyd blasted unsuspecting Jaguars receiver Keenan McCardell away from the ball and knocked him out.
"Pow!" Bettis recalled. "He wasn't even catching the ball."
A seething Lloyd charged afterward that McCardell had called Lloyd's wife that week with threats. Suspicious minds wondered if it wasn't an inside job within the Steelers' organization to get Lloyd extra riled up for the game.
"I don't know what happened," cornerback Willie Williams said, "but that was crazy."
Lloyd was in the middle of a lot of that sort of thing with Jacksonville. In 1997, Jaguars guard Brian DeMarco accused Lloyd of kicking him in the groin.
The series has never seen better games than the two played in 1997. In Jacksonville on a Monday night, Norm Johnson lined up to kick the winning field goal for the Steelers on the last play but it was blocked. Chris Hudson scooped the ball up for the Jaguars and ran down the sideline in front of the Steelers' bench. Coach Bill Cowher angrily stepped on the field, cocked his forearm as if to hit Hudson under the chin and at the last moment stepped back and let Hudson run for a touchdown.
It could have been one great Monday Night Football memory.
"You could just see the chin protruding out," said safety Mike Logan, then with the Jaguars. "You could see the anger in his face and the frustration he had."
Surely, though, Cowher would not have hit Hudson.
"I'm just glad that he didn't," said Steelers secondary coach Darren Perry, then the team's free safety. "I don't think so. You just never know."
The second game of '97 ended in overtime in Three Rivers Stadium with Bettis taking a shovel pass from Kordell Stewart and rumbling 17 yards for a touchdown.
In 1998, Jaxson de Ville, the Jaguars' aggressive mascot, came onto the field near the Steelers' huddle and taunted them. Dan Rooney was livid. Guard Alan Faneca said someone on his offense took care of it.
"He came out there, and let's just say someone had a little boyhood fear of people dressed up like that, he actually got to him," Faneca said. "He circled around, he came back on the sidelines and started harassing people, too. Someone got to him, that's all I can say."
The mascot, Curtis Dvorak in real life, said this week that "I remember hearing not so nice words from Steelers players and stuff, having bodily fluid projected toward me."
Dvorak said he has some things planned for tonight but would not say what.
"My job is to entertain our fans," he said. "It seems strange to me other teams take so much interest in me. My goal is not to stir things up, my goal is to be a comedian. It's parody. I'm just having fun out there. This is the entertainment business.
"I wish the Steelers didn't hate me as much as they do."
In 2000, Plaxico Burress, a rookie that season, caught a big pass over the middle, fell to the ground untouched, leaped up and triumphantly spiked the ball into the turf. It was a live ball and the Jaguars recovered. Only a victory by the Steelers allowed Burress to escape Cowher's everlasting wrath.
Other notable moments in the series: The Steelers' shocking loss to the expansion Jaguars in their first game against them in 1995; Lloyd's knee injury in 1996 that knocked him out for the season along with linebacker Jason Gildon for a month; Bettis' asthma attack in the '96 September opener he said later could have killed him; the raiding of the Steelers in free agency of tackle Leon Searcy and safety Carnell Lake; the signing of former Steelers and/or their practice squad players by former Jacksonville coach Tom Coughlin a couple weeks before they played in order to learn their signals; Kordell Stewart reviving his career with a big win in Jacksonville in 2000 for injured Kent Graham.
"It was 'Steelers Week' when I was in Jacksonville," Logan said. "You knew it was going to be a tough, physical aggressive game. That's just the type of style and type of attitude we want going into it. It's just a big game."
It has been Steelers Week again in Jacksonville. The Jaguars picked this game to celebrate their 10th anniversary, bringing back many players from that first team that won it's first home game by upsetting the Steelers. The Jaguars will wear all black uniforms. Somewhere, fans can only hope, a player has made a threatening phone call to another's spouse, just for the memories.
"I'm excited about the game," Logan said, "and I'm not even playing in it."
