No one wants to blame coach Bill Cowher for what some regard as their Super Bowl hangover season of 2006, when the Steelers lost six of their first eight games to virtually end the defense of their Super Bowl championship.

Other circumstances, and not the coach, produced an 8-8 record and no playoffs the year after they won Super Bowl XL, they say.

"For whatever reasons, the forces aligned to get us off to a very slow start," said defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. "At the end of the year we were playing good football again, so we were obviously a pretty good football team.

"You can examine, kick the can all you want. The facts are we didn't have a good year."

Other forces might have been working on Cowher as he prepared for what would be his final season with the Steelers. His family moved to Raleigh, N.C., and he visited them on occasion during the season when he could. Fans also complained that the normally effusive Cowher grew silent along the sideline on game days.

If so, players did not see any differences in him.

"I think coach Cowher did a great coaching job because he turned us around from 2-6 to 6-2. He didn't give up," said nose tackle Chris Hoke.

Others said similar things. It wasn't until late in the season -- when they were on a roll -- that players picked up clues that Cowher had some things on his mind.

"Let me give you an example," Hoke said. "I remember back in '03, we were 6-10; that whole last part of the season coach Cowher said, 'I'll tell you right now, I'm going to evaluate everybody right now for next season!'

"So everybody's going crazy, playing hard. Well, in '06, he never said that. He never said I'm evaluating you for next season."

But he did try to pull out other stops to get them back on a winning track. The night before their final game at Cincinnati -- a loss would have given the Steelers a losing season -- Cowher showed a tape of the famous Jim Valvano "Never give up" speech to his team.

"He actually played the video of it," tackle Max Starks recalled. "It was the night before game, to get us riled up before the last game of year."

There was something different in the air.

"You could kind of tell," Starks said. "Seeing that speech. He never really showed speeches the night before game. It kind of gave a hint. Then he gave us his pregame speech -- 'Never give up, never give in, it's the last game of the season, go out there and win."

The Steelers won Cowher's last game as the team's coach, beating the Bengals, 23-17, in overtime. Then he resigned and joined his family in North Carolina.