Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Hines Ward celebrates after a 46-yard field goal attempt by Colts placekicker Mike Vanderjagt sailed wide right, leaving the Steelers 21-18 victors in the AFC divisional playoff game. Click photo for larger image.

INDIANAPOLIS -- In the final, frenetic 80 seconds, both the emotions and the football went back and forth and back and forth again, flipping sides and causing skipped heartbeats.

The Steelers were victors.
The Steelers were losers.
The Steelers were going to overtime.
The Steelers were going to Denver.

When this AFC Divisional Playoff roller coaster screeched to a halt yesterday inside a rumbling RCA Dome filled with 59,449 ear-piercingly loud patrons, after all the swerving and careening, after all the near misses and the last-gasp, 10-yards-wide field goal miss, the Steelers found themselves with a 21-18 triumph over first-seeded Indianapolis and an improbably punched ticket to Denver on Sunday -- to their third AFC Championship Game in five years and one victory away from the Super Bowl.

It was the first time in the NFL's decade and a half with six playoff teams that a No. 6 seed beat a No. 1. It was the Steelers' fifth postseason defeat of the Indianapolis/Baltimore Colts in five meetings, and it was accomplished in heart-thumping fashion.

"I never played before in an NCAA Tournament, but that's the closest thing I can come to that," Steelers safety Chris Hope said, making reference to the last-shot variety of basketball dubbed March Madness. "Crazy. Emotional."

Astonished, he finally asked an interviewer: "You ever see a game flip-flop emotionally back to back to back? I mean, that close back to back to back?"

From the franchise that brought you the Immaculate Reception and the Immaculate Deflection -- the batted end-zone pass that defeated the Colts to send the 1995 edition to the Super Bowl -- the Steelers (13-5) yesterday brought another fantastic finish.

It began with the Steelers celebrating a fourth-down sack by linebacker Joey Porter, who riled the Colts at midweek by saying they preferred finesse and mind games to football. He had just decked Colts quarterback Peyton Manning for the Steelers' fifth sack of the game, thus putting the offense at the Indianapolis 2-yard line and setting the defensive players to high-fiving and hugging among themselves and harassing Colts fans on the sideline. Or, as cornerback Deshea Townsend put it, "I was over there doing something I shouldn't have been doing, talking to the crowd."

They were victors, it seemed, with one minute, 20 seconds remaining.

Then, horrified, they watched a rare Jerome Bettis fumble. Colts middle linebacker Gary Brackett smacked his helmet into the arms of a half-turned Bettis, who hadn't fumbled in 136 carries all season.

"Fortunately, it's not the last time I carry the ball," Bettis said. "It was a great play by the linebacker. He put his head on the football. That's the one thing you can't let happen."

And there scooping up the loose ball was Colts cornerback Nick Harper, who a day earlier had his left knee stitched up from a one-inch knife wound allegedly inflicted by his wife, Danielle. Harper took off toward the potential game-winning touchdown.

The Steelers, it seemed, were losers, with 1:01 remaining.

Then their quarterback, of all people, made a playoff-saving tackle. Ben Roethlisberger turned and ran ahead, looking over his shoulder as if guarding against a basketball fast-break before chipping Harper's legs from under him. Holding Harper to the Colts 42-yard line proved critical. Receiver Antwaan Randle El -- who was paying so little attention on the prematurely celebrating sideline that he later asked an interviewer, "Oh, that was Harper running the ball?" -- remarked that Roethlisberger was the Steelers' best athlete of the goal-line offense that was on the field and their last hope of stopping Harper.

Could Manning, who completed 22 of 38 passes for 290 yards and brought the Colts back with 15 fourth-quarter points, drive the home team to a winning or tying score with all three time-outs and plenty of time remaining?

The Steelers were hoping against hope as Mike Vanderjagt, a product of West Virginia University, lined up a 46-yard field goal that is a chip shot for a veteran who converts 87.5 percent of the time, the NFL's all-time high. "I made everything all day -- in practice and pregame. I made everything all week. I wasn't worried about the kick at all," he said.

Yet, with 17 seconds left, he pushed it wide right. The rejoicing Steelers ran in all directions. They weren't going to overtime after all. They were going to Denver.

Thus quietly -- by RCA Dome standards -- concluded what began as a triumphal Colts season, a 13-0 start that turned tragic with the suicide of James Dungy, 18, the eldest son of their beloved coach Tony Dungy. In the end, the Colts lost three of their final four games.

"I really thought the Lord's hand was on this team," Coach Dungy said. "They handled every trial that came upon them."

As for the Steelers, their journey continues -- next in Denver for a 3 p.m. kickoff Sunday at Invesco Field.

"We were fortunate," Cowher concluded, "to get out of here with the win."