Seahawks: Steelers Had Advantage in Super Bowl
Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is one of 13 quarterbacks in NFL history with multiple Super Bowls to his name.
Few victorious performances have come in less flattering fashion – he completed nine of 21 passes for 123 yards and two interceptions – but hey, that’s not what the Pittsburgh faithful remember.
What matters is that the Steelers won, 21-10, and hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, defeating the Seattle Seahawks.
© Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
One former Seahawk had something to say about how the game went down.
As pointed out by Steelers Nation, Mack Strong spoke about the Super Bowl in Sean Deveney’s book, “Facing the Pittsburgh Steelers: Players Recall the Glory Years of the Black and Gold.”
“They had history on their side and everyone in the media was talking about that, but I didn’t think it mattered,” Strong said. “Every angle on every story, it seemed like was the fact that it was the first Super Bowl in history for the Seahawks, and they had won four. For us, I think we looked at it like the history does not affect us.”
Despite the stellar season Seattle put together, going 13-3 with the league’s best offense and two easy playoff wins, the Steelers proved to be too tall a task.
It’s possible playing in Detroit, rather than the typical southern destinations of the big game, had something to do with it.
“Where it was different, though, was on game day. Detroit is like an hour flight from Pittsburgh. There were probably 60,000 Steelers fans there and about 10,000 Seahawks fans,” Strong said. “It definitely felt like a home game for them, an away game for us. That was the only time – I stepped out onto that field and I was like, ‘This is different.’
“It was supposed to be neutral. But we were just building our fan base at the time, and the Steelers, of course, had 30 or 40 years of winning and history behind them. It was weird walking into a neutral stadium and literally trying to figure out, ‘Wait, where are our fans at?”
The Super Bowl has often turned into a corporate affair, with indifferent fans there for the event more so than the players on the field.
For one night in February, though, it may have been just enough of a Steelers home game to make a difference.