Dreams can come true

SUPER Bowl XL proved many things, but for one man, it proved that dreams can come true – Jerome ‘The Bus’ Bettis.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers overcame the Seattle Seahawks with a 21-10 victory, there many remarkable firsts – the first team to win after qualifying for the play-offs as a wild card; the first win for the longest serving head coach, Bill Cowher; amongst many others. But it will be forever ‘The Bus Bowl’ now.

Unfortunately that will overshadow the remarkable game that Super Bowl Xl turned out to be. It wasn’t an all-guns blazing aerial shoot-out, nor was it a hard running smash-mouth line battle. Instead it was an intellectual battle between two coaching staffs desperate to out-smart each other.

Bill Cowher’s play-calling – as well as some resilient performances eventually won out. However, ultimately the Seattle players did their best to defeat themselves, despite the best efforts of coaches.

Mike Holmgren will look back ruefully on a game that, in the first quarter, looked to be a perfect execution of a game plan; a slow and steady capturing of field position.

Seahawks fans can moan about the refereeing calls – of which the officiating crew got too many wrong – but needless penalties called back too many plays. The Steelers conceded almost as many penalties; but they did not give up the yards in critical areas.

Mike Hasselbeck, after playing an exemplary first quarter simply didn’t get it done, because he and his offensive line could not adopt when the Steelers began to make adjustments.

They were unable to individually take responsibility, and when Pittsburgh running back Willie Parker escaped for a 75-yard run – it was not just the defence that looked deflated, it was an offence that looked out of ideas and frustrated.

Each time the Steelers showed Hasselbeck a new look they either failed to see it, or simply did nothing to address it.

The Bus, in the end, didn’t play a huge part in this game; Ben Roethlisberger deserves most of the Steeler’s offensive credit. But it would be churlish to deny Jerome this time. For in sports sometimes emotion can trump anything else, and there can be no doubt that Bettis’ desire to win that one last game, one last time in his hometown helped ever Steeler rise to the challenge.