Old-hand Steelers repel Ravens, take AFC title

PITTSBURGH -- Tough and mean, like the original Steel Curtain.

These Pittsburgh Steelers delivered too many hard hits and their quarterback was steady enough to outplay the kid and the rest of the Baltimore Ravens.

With Troy Polamalu ending any chance Baltimore had for a comeback with a 40-yard interception return, the Steelers bullied their rivals 23-14 on Sunday to reach their seventh Super Bowl.

"It was a typical, hard-hitting, physical game. It's the way every Baltimore-Pittsburgh game is," said Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, who missed most of the game with a knee injury.

"Sometimes guys get hit so hard, you don't know if they're going to get up. They say defense wins championships. Well, we have the No. 1 defense. And they're the reason why we're really going to the Super Bowl."

Next, Ben Roethlisberger and Pittsburgh will play the Arizona Cardinals in two weeks in Tampa. The Steelers were quickly installed as 7-point favorites.

After beating Baltimore for the third time, the Steelers set up an intriguing matchup -- coach Mike Tomlin versus the Cardinals' Ken Whisenhunt, the offensive coordinator when the Steelers won the Super Bowl three seasons ago, who went to Arizona after being passed over for Pittsburgh's job.

Whisenhunt and his top assistant, Russ Grimm, left after the Steelers unexpectedly hired Tomlin, who has done something even Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher couldn't do by taking Pittsburgh to the Super Bowl in his second season.

The Steelers harassed Joe Flacco all game long as he tried to become the first rookie quarterback to carry a team to the Super Bowl. Normally unflappable, he looked lost at times and finished 13-for-30 for 141 yards and three costly interceptions.

Instead, Pittsburgh ended its home-field jinx in AFC title games.

"It's always that way," said Roethlisberger, who took a shot to his shoulder in the first half. "This is always a 12-round slugfest. We always go at it. It's always violent from start to finish. I was ready when I took a knee at the end, you never know when somebody is going to fire off the ball."

Roethlisberger, picked off four times by New England in his rookie-year AFC title game, was a workmanlike 16-for-33 for 255 yards and, most importantly, no interceptions. If nothing else, it showed how much experience mattered in a game so important.

"Here's my advice to the Arizona Cardinals: Don't rush Ben Roethlisberger," the Ravens' Trevor Pryce said. "After that, he's a playground football player. That's what he is, and he's a damn good one."

Roethlisberger would laugh at that analogy. He said the Steelers' big play of the game, a 65-yard touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes that made it 13-0, was an improvised play "just like on the playground."

After Polamalu's twisting, turning interception return sealed it with 4:39 to play, the game was held up when Willis McGahee, who scored both Baltimore touchdowns, was carted off the field following a frightening hit to the helmet by Pittsburgh safety Ryan Clark.

The Ravens said he had "significant neck pain," but movement in his arms and legs.

Only the Steelers, 49ers and Cowboys have won five Super Bowls, and Pittsburgh can be the first to win six. If the Steelers defeat Arizona, the 36-year-old Tomlin would be the youngest coach to win an NFL championship.

"They did it tonight the way we've done it all year," Tomlin said. "We've got a very humble group, a very selfless group."

Earlier in the day, before Whisenhunt knew the outcome of the Steelers-Ravens game, he said he wanted to match up against Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl.

"I mean, I'm glad we're playing in it, but the reason I'm here is because of my time with Pittsburgh," Whisenhunt said, "and I am very grateful for that."

The Steelers proved it is possible to beat a good team three times in a season, and will now face a team they share a history with. They were merged as Card-Pitt during World War II in 1944 when the Cardinals were in Chicago and went 0-10, the only winless team in Steelers history.

Steelers owner Dan Rooney recalls them being nicknamed the Car-Pitts "because everybody walked all over us."

Nobody walks over these Steelers, a hard-hitting, tough-guy team with the NFL's best defense, at least statistically, in nearly 20 years. The unit is a worthy descendant of the Steel Curtain teams of the 1970s that defined the way defense is supposed to be played.

They spent the game pressuring Flacco, who was outplayed as badly as Roethlisberger was by the Patriots' Tom Brady in his first AFC title game four years ago, and the mismatch at QB may have made the difference.

Trailing 16-14, Flacco tried to rally the Ravens in the closing minutes. That's when Polamalu stepped in.

"I think Troy was probably just able to read my eyes," Flacco said. "I think he was just able to jump over there, read a little bit and he made a nice play."

Roethlisberger said: "He went against the No. 1 defense in the world."

Ravens teammate Terrell Suggs said, "I don't think (Flacco) struggled. They just made plays. When you got a defense that can make plays like that, I don't think he was placing the ball where he wanted to but this was just their night."

Still, Roethlisberger cautioned, "You can't make mistakes and win a big game."

Maybe it helped that the two athletes largely responsible for Pittsburgh's last two major sports championships -- former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis and Penguins co-owner and Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux -- were among the record crowd of 65,350 in Heinz Field.

The franchise, for all of the success it has enjoyed while playing in a record-tying 14 AFC title games, had lost an unprecedented four of its five most recent conference championship games in Pittsburgh. The run of losses almost made the Steelers glad to go on the road for the entire Super Bowl run-up to their last title.