Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Bill Cowher reflects on Sunday's win in Indianapolis and the coming trip to Denver. Just don't mention Detroit or Super Bowl XL to him. Click photo for larger image. More Coverage: Steelers Notebook: Less time in thin air, the better Pittsburgh vs. Denver: So far, both sides are good sports First Person: Ah, Paris -- the food, the romance, the beauty ... the Steelers

Bill Cowher has been here many times, on the stoop of the Super Bowl, so close he could see his image gleaming from the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Four out of five times he was rudely turned away as if he were an encyclopedia salesman.

On the other side, Denver coach Mike Shanahan, who spurned Cowher's overtures to become his offensive coordinator in 1992, has reached two AFC championship games with the Broncos, won them both and then won two Super Bowls.

Is it any wonder that Cowher does not want his players to even think about the reward a victory Sunday in Denver would bring to the Steelers? It's all about the game, and not what it means.

"Right now," Cowher said yesterday, "the biggest thing is not so much looking at the end, it's a very short-term focus that we have."

The one thing that eluded Cowher's teams in 13 previous seasons was a Super Bowl victory, and most of those dreams were dashed in the AFC championship game. He also was an assistant coach in Cleveland when the Browns lost the AFC championship game in 1986 on The Drive by Denver's John Elway, and again to the Broncos in '87 on The Fumble by Ernest Byner. The offensive coordinator for those two Denver teams? Shanahan.

"John Elway, when I was an assistant, sent me to the Pro Bowl a couple of times," Cowher joked yesterday.

That's six times he has coached in the Pro Bowl, an honor that goes to the staff of the loser of the conference title games.

Cowher coaches a team now that must do it the hard way, the way no team ever did it; and it's working. One loss in any of their last six games and it would end. They won all six, and Cowher wants to maintain their approach against Denver as merely another game in the stretch -- win or go home, just like the rest.

"Our focus is purely on Denver in a short period of time, and we have to have a good week of preparation," Cowher said. "To talk about anything else would be irrelevant ... we're just trying to live to fight another day. That's how we're playing this game. We have been in this mode."

No team has won three games on the road in the playoffs and then won the Super Bowl. The Steelers had never won two consecutive road games in their playoff history before the past couple of weeks.

"We certainly aren't going to let history dictate our journey," Cowher said. "As I told the players a lot of times, your journey can make history. That's the kind of mind-set that we have."

The Matchups - Data for Sunday's championship games AFC Game: Steelers (13-5) at Denver Broncos (14-3). When: 3 p.m. Where: Invesco Field. TV: KDKA. Favored: Broncos by 3 1/2. The skinny: The Steelers are 3-8-1 all time in Denver. NFC Game: Carolina Panthers (13-5) at Seattle Seahawks (14-3). When: 6:30 p.m. Where: Qwest Field. TV: WPGH. Favored: Seahawks by 4. The skinny: Panthers first to win 5 in row on playoff road?

It would be ironic that after all those years of losing home AFC championship games the Steelers would become the first team in history to win a Super Bowl with every game on the road. But then, no sixth seed ever reached the conference championship game until now.

"No team has ever been where we are," Cowher said. "That's not going to discourage us. Does it make the challenge great? Absolutely. But at the same time we have to seize the opportunity. We're going to do everything we can to prepare ourselves to go up there and do that."

Cowher and Shanahan have become closer since that day in '92 when Cowher interviewed him shortly after he took the Steelers' head coaching job. Dan Reeves had just fired Shanahan as Denver's offensive coordinator.

"The job is yours," Cowher told Shanahan. "What's your answer?"

Shanahan said he still wanted to interview with 49ers coach George Seifert for the offensive coordinator's opening. Cowher told him if he did, then he'd turn to someone else for the job. Cowher then hired Ron Erhardt as his first offensive coordinator.

"It worked out better anyway," Cowher said at the time. "I probably would have hired Ron anyway. He was an East Coast guy, he ran the kind of offense I wanted; everything fit."

Yesterday, Cowher said he offered the job to Shanahan back in '92.

It worked out pretty well for Shanahan, too. He earned his first Super Bowl ring as coordinator with the 49ers in '94, and then those two as coach of the Broncos, one at the expense of Cowher and the Steelers in the AFC championship game after the '97 season.

"I've always been good friends with Bill, going back to the days when I interviewed out there for the coordinator job," Shanahan said this week. "I almost went out there. It was between Pittsburgh and San Francisco. I just have a lot of admiration for what he's done and how he handles himself. He's a man's man, and I just like the way his football teams play."

Said Cowher: "His record speaks for itself. The guy has won two Super Bowls. The guy is in the playoffs perennially, every year ... I've got a lot of admiration for Mike and what they've done."

Particularly for those two Lombardi Trophies. But the Steelers' eyes are not on the prize this week. All they want to do is win a ballgame.