Most of New England was rooting for Jacksonville to beat Pittsburgh Sunday night. After all, even if the Patriots run the table they need a single Pittsburgh loss to garner the AFC's No. 1 seed and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
But the Cold, Hard Football Facts had a mid-game epiphany Sunday night: we want the Steelers to run the table and head into the AFC title game with a 16-1 record. That's right. We want 16-1 New England to walk into frenzied Pittsburgh to play the 16-1 Steelers for the right to go to the Super Bowl.
Quite frankly, it would be one of the great epic showdowns in the history of professional football and a game so tantalizing that the Cold, Hard Football Facts are hoping it happens. Hell, the adrenaline's pumping right now just thinking of it. Yours will be, too. After all, this will be the most compelling and most hyped conference title game in NFL annals. Here's why:
It will be a game for the history books. Only once in the entire history of the NFL have two teams with a better combined record faced each other in the postseason. In the 1942 NFL title game, 10-1 Washington beat 11-0 Chicago, 14-6. Their combined 21-1 (.954) record narrowly edges the possible combined 32-2 (.941) record of a New England-Pittsburgh contest.
The Patriots will seek redemption. The Steelers hammered New England earlier this season in Pittsburgh, ending the longest win streak in pro football history at 21 games.
The Steelers will seek redemption. The last time the two teams met in the playoffs, the heavily favored Steelers lost to New England, 24-17, at home in the 2001-02 AFC title game. Pittsburgh's players and fans shot their mouths off, insisting the Steelers were still a better team, even after New England went on to win the Super Bowl. This game will be a chance to put some ammunition in the vocal chamber.
The ghost of Vince Lombardi will be watching. With a victory in the AFC championship game, Bill Belichick will tie Lombardi for the best postseason coaching record (9-1) in NFL history.
Bill Cowher's legacy will hang in the balance. The Cowher-era Steelers will enter this game with eight division titles, nine playoff appearances and 130 regular season victories in 13 seasons. All they have to show for it is a single AFC title and one crushing Super Bowl loss. A defeat at the hands of New England would be Cowher's fourth loss in an AFC title game.
The city of Pittsburgh's morale will be at stake. A fourth AFC title game loss – with all four coming at home – would be a crushing blow to the morale of a football-loving city that has appeared in just one Super Bowl in 25 years.
Ben Roethlisberger will look to supplant Tom Brady. Roethlisberger will try become the first quarterback to beat Brady in the playoffs, he could upstage Brady's 2001 Super Bowl run and he could put himself in position to supplant Brady as the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Brady would enter this AFC title game with a career record of 56-13, the best in NFL history, and a playoff record of 7-0, also an NFL record. It was a career that began when Brady replaced an injured veteran in his second year in the league. Roethlisbeger replaced an injured veteran in this, his first year in the league, and has already set records for consecutive and total victories by a rookie QB. In this AFC title game at Pittsburgh, he will have led his team on a 15-0 run.
Once and future dynasties will clash. Three championships seem to be the magic number needed to ascend to dynasty status. The Patriots are on a quest to become the first dynasty of the 21st century and just the third team in NFL history, and the first from the AFC, to win three championships in four years. Not even the great Steelers of the 1970s, who won four titles in six years, achieved that kind of dominance in a four-year period. This year they stand to defend the franchise's honor. Players and coaches may not care, but fans certainly will.
A win at Pittsburgh would be a tasty addition to New England's victory feast. The buffet table in New England has been filled with one thrilling and historic win after another over the past four seasons, highlighted by two last-second Super Bowl victories. There was also something about breaking an 86-year baseball curse in there, too. Squashing the 16-1 Steelers and muffling a rowdy Pittsburgh playoff crowd once again would be another tasty treat for gluttonous New Englanders fattened by victory.
Of course, we won't waste too much emotional energy cheering on the Steelers: 15-2 Pittsburgh at 16-1 New England has a nice ring to it, too. Especially when the Patriots haven't lost at home since dinosaurs roamed the planet. And let's face it. The build-up for that game won't be half-bad, either.
But 16-1 vs. 16-1 will be one for the record books.
