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Fennelly: Defense Wins Another Championship

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 1, 2009

TAMPA - Everywhere you look there are Pittsburgh Steelers fans. They outnumber Arizona Cardinals fans by an uproariously wide margin. They stand outside the Steelers hotel. They chase team buses like the zombies chased the humans in "Night of The Living Dead." You can't stop them, you can only hope to contain them.

Everywhere you look in this country there are Steelers fans. There's one in the White House; President Obama is on board. The Big O has come out for the Steelers. Granted, the president was also a big White Sox fan, and that didn't help the Sox against the Rays, but watch out, Big O's been on a roll since then.

You can even leave the Earth's atmosphere and there are Steelers fans. The other day, Mike Fincke, commander of the International Space Station, waved a Terrible Towel, gravity-free like. For his next trick, he will eat a perogi upside down. People are born Steelers fans and are buried in Steelers caskets.

All of these are excellent reasons to pull for the upset and the Cardinals. All of these are reasons to hope the Steelers don't become the first NFL franchise to win six Super Bowls.

There is only one problem with all this:

The Steelers.

They'll win this Super Bowl and they'll win it the old-fashioned way, with teeth-rattling defense. Yes, after NBC's six-hour pregame show, which will feature NBC news anchor and New Jersey native Brian Williams "essay" on The Boss, Bruce Springsteen (could someone, pretty please, rattle Brian Williams' teeth?) and after the pregame festivities and the flyovers and the fireworks, the Steelers will hear the whistle blow and go to work, as if the mills were still running all night long along the Three Rivers.

Yes, the Cardinals have a 4,000-yard passer and three 1,000-yard receivers. They have Kurt Warner, whose story is again irresistible, and Larry Fitzgerald, whose talent is unimaginable. The Cardinals have this destiny thing going with great guns.

There is only one problem with this:

The Steelers.

They have the best and nastiest crew in football. A 30-second Super Bowl commercial will cost $3 million. The Steelers defense will deliver a 60-minute ad for how defense wins championships.

Remember when the top-ranked Bucs defense met the top-ranked Raiders offense in the Super Bowl?

Remember?

Quarterback Rich Gannon was sacked five times and threw five interceptions. Defense won a championship.

Our friend and football writer Rick Gosselin made a great point the other day. He noted that since the 1970 merger, eight teams have taken the top-ranked defense into a Super Bowl. Those teams are 7-1 in those Bowls. The only loser was the 82' Dolphins against the Redskins. The winners were the '02 Bucs, the '96 Packers, the '92 Cowboys, the '85 Bears, the '77 Cowboys, the '74 Steelers and the '72 Dolphins.

Getting the idea?

The Steelers haven't allowed a 100-yard receiving game in nine games. Only once did a team get 300 yards against this defense. It allowed only 12 passing touchdowns all year.

San Diego's Phillip Rivers led the NFL with a quarterback rating of 105.5 - he had a rating of 44.0 against the Steelers in the regular season. Ravens rookie quarterback Joe Flacco came in at a whopping 18.2 in the AFC title game.

In the regular-season finale against Pittsburgh, Cleveland quarterback and blast from the past Bruce Gradkowski had a record low quarterback rating of - hold onto your hats-1.0.

Don't you get a 1.0 just for signing your name?

Getting the idea?

Granted, Kurt Warner is no Gradkowski. He has won a Super Bowl, he plays well against the blitz. But the Steelers will get to him. It is very hard to complete passes from the seat of your pants.

On the other side of the ball, Pittsburgh has a former Super Bowl MVP in Hines Ward. It has Willie Parker, who three years ago set a Super Bowl record with a 75-yard touchdown run. And in quarterback Ben Roethlisberger it has a guy with something to prove. He went only 9-of-21 with two picks in his only other Super Bowl, and is out to prove the Steelers will win because of him rather than in spite of him.

On both sides of the ball, these guys have been there, done that, won that. Yes, it was under a different coach (Bill Cowher), but Mike Tomlin has a sea of men who knows what it takes to win a championship.

The Cardinals are in their first Super Bowl. They are a wonderful story. But 26 other franchises have made the Super Bowl. The record for teams in their debuts? 8-18.

Getting the idea?

True, the Bucs won.

All it took was defense.

Forget the international space fan.

President or no, who needs the Big O?

The Steelers have the Big D.

That will do you every time.

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