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Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Heinz Field ground crew Andy Lipinsky of Pittsburgh applies the finishing touches to the AFC Championship logo which is painted on the 50 yard line at Heinz Field. Click photo for larger image.   AFC Championship Coverage
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No other American city, at least since the National Football League calcified to its current form in 1970, has been host to as many conference championship games as we.
Kickoff will come in the vicinity of 6:35 p.m., and in the chaotic hours that follow, the fabled road to the Super Bowl will, like many Pittsburgh area roads, narrow to one lane, but the familiar civic clamor of the AFC Championship game has been crackling for a week.
"The city's on fire right now," said Steelers linebacker Larry Foote. "You can't even watch TV because we're all over it, but that's Pittsburgh. They love their football and they love their Steelers. And I thank God I'm a part of it."
That the New England Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champions and a proven Steelers post-season nemesis are compelling circumstances that further validate the drama, but the real frenzy has more to do with the retroactive quality of hope.
Everything that's been hoped for regarding these Steelers, probably since their last Super Bowl appearance nine years ago, through subsequent days almost exactly like today that ended in AFC title game losses to Denver and New England, and throughout this virtually unimaginable history-making 15-1 season, is about to pay off.
Unless it doesn't.
"You understand the significance, but you understand your opponent," Jerome Bettis said before one of this past week's final practices. "It's a tremendous opportunity. We have a chance to make it right. So you just get ready for the game and hope for the best."
As with few Steelers teams in the history of the franchise that Art Rooney purchased for $2,500 in 1933, hope has been stretched to the ripping point for this day. Bettis has accomplished everything in football except playing in a Super Bowl. Bill Cowher has accomplished everything as a head coach in this league except winning a Super Bowl. Dan Rooney has accomplished everything as one of the NFL's great visionaries except having had someone hand him the Vince Lombardi Trophy on national television.
"The void that still exists there is not having given them the fifth trophy since we've been here," Cowher was saying the other day. "That's really what drives me because of all the support they've given me through the years. This was a class organization when I got here and it will be one when I leave here."
Cowher's not leaving, but that Hall of Fame portfolio he's been putting together for 13 years could certainly do without a fourth loss in the AFC Championship Game, all of them at home. Bettis talks routinely of retirement, and irrepressible wideout Plaxico Burress may not fit under this team's 2005 salary cap. How many opportunities like today's remain for Dan Rooney? How many games of this import will again resound from the wearied vocal chords of Myron Cope? How many more chances will Duce Staley's dad, gravely ill with cancer, get to see his son in the Super Bowl?
Typically, Rooney sees today's game in the broader context.
"There was a piece in the paper ... about what the Steelers and this game mean to the economy, which I guess was in the high 20 millions or something," he said. "But what it didn't say and what I think is more important is what the Steelers' success really means to the city's psyche."
In an era when the city's only real growth industries seem to be strip clubs, towing, and Steelers analysis, Pittsburgh's overall mood is not terribly hopeful. Since the last time the Steelers won a Super Bowl, the city has gone from America's most liveable city to one of its most leaveable. Manufacturing and industrial jobs have all but dried up. US Airways, one of the region's biggest employers, is in its second bankruptcy. The Steelers' aging, blue-collar fan base today worries as much about prescription drug prices as about New England's pass defense.
If there's a place that could use the two-weeks-long jolt of adrenalin that a win today would trigger, maybe this is that place.
"We need to keep it in perspective," Rooney said. "It's a very, very important game, but it's not the be all and end all of everything. The city better get its act together regardless; I'm talking politically, with its business leaders, its religious leaders, everybody's got to get back to work."
Maybe tomorrow.
For now, let's tee it up.
