adrian is rad

It was a quiet sort of celebration. I gave a quick hug to my fellow former Pittsburgh resident, dug, leaned against the wall for a minute, did a quick run up and down the street shouting a little bit. And that was that.

A call to pat confirmed what I expected. Pittsburgh is going nuts. I’m happy it is.

After the AFC championship game, I figured the Steelers would win today. Not because if they can beat the Bronco’s, surely they can beat the Seahawks. My reasoning was actually completely different. It was the same as my assumption that the RedSox would crush Cardinals in the World Series after that amazing ALCS against the Yankees back in ’04. After having to win each game for seven straight games to get to the Super Bowl, while making history (like the BoSox did to get to the World Series), to get to Bettis to the Big Game in his hometown, after coming so close last year with what seemed like the perfect team, they had to win the Super Bowl this year because it’s a good story. That’s how the story’s supposed to end. Funny enough, it did.

It wasn’t the prettiest of games. Honestly Ben was all nerves for the first bit and a lot of parts of the game didn’t seem to click like they did in the past two to three games.

I’m happy that we won by 11 points because after the “questionable” calls of Ben’s rushing touchdown and the Seattle touchdown taken back on offensive pass interference, I didn’t want the game to be won by three points.

The two main offensive plays of the game were both absolute beauties. Willy Parker. Fast Willy Parker. One of Seattles corners has an obvious chance to catch him, but doesn’t because this undrafted back is just really, really fast. Fantastic play by the offensive line to open up that hole, but congrats and most of the credit goes to Willy on setting the record on that one.

And the gadget play. We all knew it’d happen, right? I sometimes think Cowher is a bit silly with his gadget plays, but he (and Whisenhurst) have been really smart with them this post season. So let’s see: a hand-off to Parker. Okay. Oh wait, it’s a reverse to Randel El. Sweet. He’ll get a few yards. And then what has to be the most beautiful pass thrown in the Super Bowl by a non-quarterback ever. Perfect arc, right smack-dab on target. Absolutely gorgeous. And he didn’t even set his feet, just sort of threw it off of his right foot. It made me just jump out of my seat.

The MVP pick was a hard one. There weren’t any stand-out players besides Hasselback, who played really solid ball until the last couple drives. To give it to Bettis would have been nice, but wrong. Randel El or Parker were both somewhat reasonable picks, Randel El more than Parker. Hines Ward is one of my favorites. I like his attitude and his loyalty to the team, to Pittsburgh and to Bettis. That doesn’t warrent an MVP trophy, but those things make me happy that he got it. He’s also underrecognized around the league and it gave him some good exposure.