PITTSBURGH – The Steelers, without a home playoff game, won a storybook Super Bowl championship in February. They also know that, since only three championships repeated in the last 12 seasons, they’ll have to write a difficult appendix.
This is particularly true because quarterback Ben Roethlisberger no longer has an appendix, having been rushed to surgery to have it removed on Sunday.
“Charlie Batch will be fine,” said coach Bill Cowher about tonight’s starter against the rising Dolphins.
But as the Steelers open their title defense and the NFL season, anyone suggesting that there isn’t a dropoff has been playing too long without a helmet or riding a motorcycle too long without one.
Roethlisberger, saved from death by a paramedic after his bike hit a car on a Pittsburgh street, survived with a broken jaw and concussion and seemed fine during training camp. But this has been one traumatized body that may not fully recover from surgery in just a few weeks.
If he doesn’t, can the Steelers – who have lost Jerome Bettis to retirement and Antwaan Randle-El (Redskins), Kimo van Oehlhoffen (Jets) and Chris Hope (Titans) to free agency – be anywhere near the same team that ran the table from Week 13? Bettis was a short-yardage staple, and Randle-El a playmaker who broke open the Super Bowl with an option touchdown pass. But the character players on defense and offensive line are still in place, as is Coach Cowher, for at least another season.
“It’s going to be very difficult for them to repeat,” said Bettis, now a color commentator for NBC. “It’s not the same team. If you’re the champs, everyone is gunning for you.” The Dolphins are not only first on that list, but high on it, too. The Steelers, noting Miami’s 6-0 close in Nick Saban’s first season, have patronizingly pointed this out, much to South Florida suspicions.
“They’re acting like we’re the Super Bowl champs going in there,” said linebacker Zach Thomas.
Still, not everybody thinks that’s such a stretch, now that Daunte Culpepper is the Dolphins quarterback.
Saban, who does his homework, believes Culpepper, who tore three knee ligaments last season, can come back from a devastating injury in what would be record time. Saban also believes the addition of tackle L.J. Shelton finishes off last year’s much-improved offensive line.
Culpepper has Chris Chambers as a target, a good thing. In the year-long absence of the drug-suspended Ricky Williams, Ronnie Brown will be the running back, maybe not such a good thing. But the defense anchored by the ageless Thomas and Jason Taylor and emerging linebacker Channing Crowder. They also have a considerable front four – Vonnie Holliday, Kevin Carter, Keith Traylor and Taylor. A big turnover in secondary personnel includes ex-Giant Will Allen, so obviously that’s a question, but half the teams on the Dolphins’ schedule drafted in the top 10.
The Steelers obviously were not one of them. Batch has 48 starts under his belt, all but one with Detroit. He had two wins (one in relief) of Roethlisberger last year and, when healthy has gotten jobs done.
“He’s played in playoff games,” said Cowher, “this won’t be any different.” Ask any former champion:
Trying to win the second time is different.
