Gene J. Puskar, Associated Press The Steelers' Tyrone Carter, left, Deshea Townsend and Joey Porter, right, celebrate in the locker room after their 34-17 AFC championship game win against the Broncos. Click photo for larger image. Related stories Past failures make Steelers more grateful Seahawks' Holmgren a Super Bowl veteran Broncos jersey causes furor in Beaver Falls class Steelers Super Bowl mailbag: 1/24/06

DENVER -- Ten months ago, a continent and an ocean from Pittsburgh, on Palm Sunday, Art Rooney II issued words every Steelers fan yearned to hear.

It's time, the team's president said. Time to win a Super Bowl.

Yes, the Steelers were the NFL's first Super Bowl dynasty, but that ended a long, long time ago. They won four Vince Lombardi Trophies in six seasons in the 1970s, yet there were fans in their 30s who could not remember it, and fans in their 40s who were too young to remember that first trophy.

A generation had grown up knowing not the Super Steelers but the almost-made-it Steelers. It was time.

"I think for the people who have been around for a while now, I think we all feel like it's time," Rooney said that March day at the NFL meetings in Maui, Hawaii. "We've been close and we have to take that last step."

They played five AFC title games in the previous 11 seasons and had five losses, one in the Super Bowl, to show for it. Bill Cowher had a reputation as the greatest regular-season coach of his time. It was time for him to make good in the postseason.

"I know Bill feels that way, that we have to get this done," Rooney said 10 months ago. "I think he has a very good staff and feels like we have to get this done, that we're in a position we can do this now. I think there's that kind of commitment to it that we have to take advantage of the opportunity when it's there."

Cowher took those words to heart that day in Hawaii.

"There is no question," Cowher said. "I agree; no one wants it more than myself, our team and my staff."

So far, Cowher and his team have followed through, but merely getting to the Super Bowl is not what Art Rooney had in mind in March, and they all understand that.

"The job isn't done," guard Alan Faneca said after the Steelers thumped Denver, 34-17, Sunday to win their second AFC championship in 26 seasons. "It's 60 minutes of football left to play."

Nobody remembers the Super Bowl losers, Cowher said Sunday, and he's right. Who lost to the Patriots last year or the year before that? Who lost in Super Bowl XXXI? Steelers fans remember who lost Super Bowl XXX because it was their team, but the rest of the country remembers who won it, the Dallas Cowboys. Those Cowboys tied the 49ers as winners of the most Super Bowls, five. The Steelers, who once had two more victories than anyone else after their fourth in January 1980, can join them with a victory Feb. 5.

"We just have to go there and finish," said veteran cornerback Willie Williams, the only member of the Steelers' last Super Bowl team on the roster. "This is a different team from 1995 and, hopefully, we will have a different result."

Ben Roethlisberger will not turn 24 years old until March 2 and thus can become the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. But, he said, he's motivated to win the next game not for himself but for others. He also said he likely will have a ceremonial shaving of his beard if the Steelers beat Seattle.

"There is quite a bit that is my motivation," Roethlisberger said. "My grandfather passed this summer and never got to see a Steelers game. Getting Jerome back to Detroit and winning for coach Cowher. I also want to win for the offensive linemen."

Getting Jerome Bettis to the Super Bowl in his hometown of Detroit for what surely will be his final game was a mantra for the Steelers. He's there, but he and they won't be home unless they win the game.

"We're happy to be going to the Super Bowl, but we want to win," Hines Ward said. "We want to go there and win the whole thing and give him that ring; and it would be a book in the making of the Jerome Bettis story."

After losing three in a row to fall to 7-5, the road to a Super Bowl victory was a simple but seemingly impossible one for the Steelers: Win eight consecutive games.

"We've knocked down seven of the eight," linebacker Clark Haggans said. "We just have one more to go."