The Super Bowl smoke has finally cleared and after a fun and exhausting fourth quarter, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the first team to capture a sixth Lombardi trophy.

As the final score indicated, Pittsburgh was obviously the better team on Sunday, which shouldn’t have surprised anybody. As I said repeatedly on my Football NYC Web cast, the Steelers were the better team all season long; they were dominant in their division and played tough in all four of their losses. On Sunday, the keys to them winning the game were the same reasons they were there in the first place.

A) Defense, Defense, Defense – All season long, the Steelers were the top defense in the NFL, led by two of the best playmakers in the league with Troy Polamalu and the defensive player of the year James Harrison, who made one of the biggest plays in Super Bowl history.
 
B) Follow Your Leader – Big Ben is really starting to remind me of John Elway. I’m impressed by his never-say-die attitude and mental toughness; plus it’s nearly impossible not to say “wow” when he’s making plays out of the pocket, which we saw a couple of times on Sunday. He has two Lombardi trophies so far in his short career and has clearly established himself as a man that you would want to lead your team if the odds were stacked against you.

C) Mental Toughness – The Steelers never complained about having the toughest schedule ever created, and they never made excuses when many of their players went down with injuries. After Larry Fitzgerald’s touchdown catch gave the Cardinals the lead late in the fourth, we didn’t see any panic on the Steelers’ bench; instead we saw players rally behind their quarterback, make plays and history.

I, along with most of America, was very impressed with the winning drive at the end of the game. But I wasn’t surprised, as I thought back to a road trip that I took earlier in the season.

In October, I traveled to Pittsburgh for their game against the Giants. (By the way, if anyone has not been to the Steel City for a game try to get there, its one of the best sports towns I have ever visited.) It was a rewarding trip for me since the Giants did win the game, but afterward, I remember going back to my hotel room and watching all of the news reports on TV (after all, the city basically shuts down for the Steelers games). Being a New Yorker, I fully expected to hear reporters and fans trashing the team (especially Ben Roethlisberger who had a terrible game with four interceptions). But that was not the case at all. Instead of being critical, the local media basically gave the Steelers credit for keeping it close against the champs, despite all the injuries that were plaguing the team at the time. Boy, how is that for night and day when comparing it to the New York media after a Giants or Jets loss? Eli Manning was the MVP of the Super Bowl last year and he couldn’t even get a free pass when it ended badly for the Giants this season.

The interviews with the players were no different. They knew they had a great opportunity to win the game but came up short. They looked towards next week and focused on the positives. In the end, what I took away from that weekend in the Steel City was that the fans, the media and most importantly the players all had an optimistic feeling about his season. Even after a tough loss they kept their composure and concentrated on the positives rather than dwell on the negatives and we all saw the results on Sunday.