Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good

DETROIT.

Some Super Bowls are harder to describe than others. What are you supposed to say when one of the receivers on the winning team, Antwaan Randle El (one pass, one back-breaking, 43-yard touchdown), throws the ball more effectively than his quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger (21 passes, one nearly disastrous interception)?

Or when you don’t think the first touchdown of the game — Roethlisberger’s 1-yard swan dive — was really a touchdown? Or when the losing team seemed to have the upper hand much of the time, except when freaky things kept happening to it?

Things like its tight end dropping two passes deep in scoring territory. Things like its strong safety going to sleep on a third-and-28 play. Things like a TD being called back because of offensive pass interference and a completion to the 2-yard line being wiped out by a holding penalty.

“We came out flat in the first half,” Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor said. “Coach [Bill Cowher] told us to bend but don’t break.”

Pittsburgh kept bending, all right — and Seattle, to its eternal chagrin, kept breaking.

Play this game again next Sunday, and who knows who wins? So there won’t be much gushing in This Space over the Steelers, the victors in Ultimate Game XL, 21-10, over the Seahawks. What Bill Cowher’s club did in the AFC playoffs, knocking out the conference’s top three seeds on the road, was a tremendous achievement. But yesterday’s conquest of Seattle at Ford Field was far less impressive, having a lot more to do with the Seahawks — and, perhaps, the forces of fate — than with the Iron City crew.

It will probably be a while before another quarterback completes nine of 21 passes for 123 yards, with two picks and no TDs — and wins the Super Bowl. Those were Roethlisberger’s numbers, and isn’t it fortunate he didn’t need to do more? Of course, he’s only 23, the youngest QB to win an NFL title since the Redskins’ Sammy Baugh in ’37, and certain allowances can be made. He’ll be back in this game, you have to figure, and he’ll undoubtedly play better, too; but right now he truly is the Golden Child, blessed beyond belief.

After all, when the final quarter began, with Pittsburgh trying to hang onto a 14-10 lead, the Steelers’ offense had essentially consisted of two plays — the aforementioned third-and-28 conversion (Roethlisberger to game MVP Hines Ward, setting up the quarterback’s maybe/maybe not score) and a 75-yard touchdown run by Willie Parker at the start of the second half. Michael Boulware, Seattle’s second-year strong safety, goofed on both occasions, losing track of Ward while Big Ben was scrambling around, and then whiffing on Parker as he popped through a hole in the middle of the line.

A few minutes later, the Pittsburgh offense made a third play — Randle El’s surprise heave to Ward — and that was it, folks. That was all it took. Three plays, three touchdowns. In their other 53 snaps, the Steelers gained 184 yards, an average of 3.5. Needless to say, you hoped for better from this game, a more decisive, definitive performance.

But then, Super Bowls almost never turn out the way you expect them to. You expect offensive fireworks … and you get a defensive tug-of-war. You expect smashmouth running … and you get space-age passing. You expect a big day from Emmitt Smith … and you get a big day from Larry Brown.

Super Bowl XL kept the tradition going. Seattle’s offense, which played virtually error-free in playoff victories over the Redskins and Panthers, was its own worst enemy yesterday. As Shaun Alexander put it, “We missed some great opportunities that could have made us world champions. But I think we’re really close to being a dominant team, establishing a winning tradition for a long time.”

Pittsburgh’s offense, meanwhile, looked nothing like it had against the Bengals, Colts and Broncos. In those games, Bill Cowher let Roethlisberger air it out early, then fell back on his running attack to kill the clock and protect the lead. The Seahawks wouldn’t let the Steelers do that, though, basically because they played so tough on first down.

Here’s the yardage Pittsburgh gained on its first-down plays in the first half: 0 (run), 0 (run), 0 (incomplete pass), 0 (incomplete pass), 18 (end around), 0 (incomplete pass), 1 (run), 1 (run), 0 (incomplete pass), 2 (run), minus-1 (kneeldown). Twenty-two yards in 10 plays (not counting the kneeldown), 18 of them gained by hocus-pocus.

This, as much as anything, is why the Steelers kept going three-and-out until four minutes into the second quarter. They were always looking at third-and-long — and failing to convert. Seattle rookies Leroy Hill and Lofa Tatupu stuffed the Pittsburgh running game, and then the secondary dropped and covered on the obvious passing downs. Worked just like Ray Rhodes and his staff drew it up on the chalkboard.

Unable to do much of anything by conventional means, the Steelers turned to the improvisational. Late in the first half, Roethlisberger got a drive going by darting out of the pocket on third-and-6 and hitting Ward for a first down. Then he did the same thing on the improbable third-and-28. Despite being outplayed to that point — “terrible” was Jerome Bettis’ description of their efforts — the Steelers were ahead 7-3 as they headed to the locker room, and they were able to stay ahead the rest of the game.

That’s what makes the Pittsburgh offense so hard to shut down, even when your defense is doing just about everything you’d want it to do. Not only is Roethlisberger difficult to sack because of his size (6-5, 241), he’s also surprisingly elusive and can find receivers on the run.

And the Steelers defense, despite giving up nearly 400 yards, had the wherewithal to withstand the Seahawks’ more than six-minute edge in time of possession. But again, if there were a rematch next weekend, we might well have a different result. You know they feel that way in Seattle, where the fans had such a long wait — 30 years — for their first Super Sunday.