No team seeded sixth in the National Football Leage playoffs has ever gone on the road to beat the teams seeded one, two and three to earn a Super Bowl berth. No team until the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers.
Ben Roethlisberger arrived in The Steel(ers) City to be the quarterback on the future. "The future" arrived sooner than anyone expected...when Tommy Maddox went down in game two of the 2004 season. "Big Ben" took the reins and the Steelers never looked back; rolling through the remainder of the regular season like Sherman marching to the sea.
But then the playoffs came. Roethlisberger tired as the campaign entered the playoffs. The college season would have long been over. But in pro ball, it was time to step up or step aside. There were two playoff wins at Heinz Field. Two ugly wins. Tom Brady led the Patriots into Pittsburgh, over the Steelers and onto another Super Bowl championship.
The 2005 regular season became as much of a week to week adventure of not knowing what to expect as the previous year had been a fairytale. It came down to the final week. The Steelers were in, but hopes were dim. And now, none of it matters. There's one more game to play. That's ALL that matters. It's been 25 years that Art Rooney's team has been trying to win "One For the Thumb". There's one more game. For now, that's ALL that matters.
Photograph by KILROY_60
"The journey toward health and sanity is nothing less than an invitation to wake up to the fullness of our lives as if they actually mattered..." - John Kabat-Zinn
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