DETROIT – While MVP Shaun Alexander has spent most of his NFL career walking around the city of Seattle in anonymity, regular-guy Aaron Smith can’t get any privacy in Pittsburgh.
“Everybody knows you,” the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end said. “Everybody wants to talk to you about the game. I guess it’s like being somewhat of a movie star. Everyone knows you everywhere you go.”
While being a Pittsburgh Steeler is like being Norm Peterson, the life of a Seattle Seahawk is more like living the life of John Doe.
That might be why the Steelers, not the Seahawks, are America’s team this week.
“I love being the no-name team,” Seahawks defensive tackle Marcus Tubbs said as his team prepares to face the Steelers in Super Bowl XL, “the team that people don’t expect much out of, that can come and shock the world.”
Not many teams that go 13-3 during the regular season can enter the Super Bowl feeling like an underdog, but the 2005 Seahawks do. That has more to do with long-term history than it does anything that’s happened over the past six months.
“It’s way different,” Tubbs said of the two teams’ histories. “You grow up watching the Steelers. And then you’ve got little Seattle, who you’ve never heard much about and has never won anything big. But now we’re here to play in Super Bowl XL.”
The Steelers were one of the NFL’s original teams, with a rich history that dates all the way back to 1933. They’ve won four Super Bowl titles and boast 15 players, three owners and a head coach in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Seahawks joined the NFL in 1976 and are making their first Super Bowl appearance. Seattle has as many all-time playoff wins – five – as the Steelers do Super Bowl appearances.
It’s a little bit like Eric Clapton trading guitar licks with the kid from the junior high jazz band.
“The difference is that we’re in the Northwest, and no one really knows about you,” said Seahawks linebacker Kevin Bentley, who used to face the Steelers twice a year while playing his first three NFL seasons for the Cleveland Browns. “They’re in the Steel City, they come from a long history of winning, of being physical and dominant, so they get a lot of exposure.”
What some historically-challenged football fans may not realize is that the Steelers were a Seahawk-like franchise long before the NFL moved to Seattle. From 1933 to 1972, Pittsburgh played in just two postseason games and lost both of them. Only after Chuck Noll took over as head coach in 1969 did things start to turn around.
Noll gave the franchise its first playoff win by beating the Oakland Raiders on Dec. 23, 1972. Just two years later, he led the Steelers to their first of four Super Bowl titles – all of which came between 1974 and 1979.
For a new generation of football fans, Pittsburgh had become a franchise that was the envy of every owner in the league.
“You walk into that (practice) facility and see those Super Bowl trophies, and it reminds you every day,” said Smith, a seventh-year player who has been to one Pro Bowl.
“Being a part of the Steeler organization, it carries a lot of history,” added Seahawks defensive end Rodney Bailey, who played his first three NFL seasons in Pittsburgh. “They’ve had many, many great players from that organization.”
With stars like Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann, Jack Ham and “Mean” Joe Greene, the Steelers have built up quite a following over the years.
The streets of Detroit have been littered with fans wearing black and gold this week, furthering the notion that Motown will become Pittsburgh West for this Sunday’s game.
But the Seahawks are quietly developing quite a following of their own, even though it’s mostly contained in the corner of the U.S. – for now.
“They’ve won four Super Bowls, so they tend to have a little bit more of a following,” Seattle wide receiver Bobby Engram, who played football at Penn State, said of the Steelers. “But Seattle fans have been tremendous. They’ve been great. Funny things start to happen when a team starts to win.”
But the trick to keeping the fans around is to continue winning. The Steelers have been able to do that over the years, while the Seahawks are just getting started.
“We’re starting history, and we’re getting this thing rolling,” the Seahawks’ Bentley said. “And hopefully we’ll be able to do that for years to come.”
The Seahawks could begin that tradition Sunday against one of the best franchises the league has to offer.
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