Steelers know homefield advantage offers no guarantees
Perhaps the Indianapolis Colts are as dominant as their 14-2 regular season indicates, and trying to beat them in their RCA Dome has only a remote chance of success, at best.
Still, if any team should be unfazed by the task of traveling to Indianapolis for a playoff game, it should be the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Well, any team other than the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, who have their own aura of invincibility.)
The boys from the Steel City know from personal experience how little guarantee a lights-out regular season and homefield advantage can mean in the playoffs.
Last season, the Steelers were the Indianapolis Colts - the team that made mincemeat of opponents in the regular season.
A 15-1 record, including crushing victories over the highly regarded Patriots and Eagles in successive weeks, had the Steelers looking like a shoo-in for Super Bowl XXXIX with the AFC road having to go through Pittsburgh.
As we in Philadelphia know all too well, the reigning champions of the NFL are the Patriots.
Before breaking the hearts of Eagles fans, the Patriots steamrolled into Pittsburgh and smacked around the Steelers, 41-27, for the AFC title - a memory not lost on the black and gold as they head to Indianapolis for Sunday's Divisional Playoff with the Colts.
"When we were 15-1," Steelers receiver Hines Ward told reporters after their 31-17, wild-card victory at Cincinnati, "everybody was asking (opponents) the question, `Do you think you can win in Pittsburgh?'
"You can lose on any given day, and we understand that. We've been on that side when you have a great year and homefield throughout. Now it's a little different for us."
It's a lot different - so different that you get the feeling the Steelers are enjoying their role as nine-point underdogs.
From the way some Steelers talked after beating Cincinnati, you'd think they were barely a playoff-caliber team despite their 11-5 regular season.
"We had hoped we'd be able to get back to Indy, because we knew they'd be the No. 1 seed and that if we got back there, that would mean we made the playoffs," quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. "By no means are we - I'm not, anyway - excited to go play Indianapolis in Indianapolis.
"It will definitely be a challenge for us, a big task. We have to go out and play good football. If we can play Steelers football, who knows?"
He also said, "It's going to take our A-plus game to go out and beat their B-minus game."
And if you believe Roethlisberger really feels so wimpy about the Steelers' chances, then you also believe the Eagles will be able to sucker someone out of a first-round draft pick in a trade for Terrell Owens.
Obviously, the Steelers know that going to Indianapolis will be a challenge. They got kicked around, 26-7, in the RCA Dome by the Colts on Nov. 28 on "Monday Night Football."
"We went up there and basically laid an egg," receiver Antwaan Randle El said. "But this is a different level in the playoffs. Everything in the past is over with and it's time to get going."
Of course, Indianapolis should be favored.
It has the best offense in the game, directed by the most feared quarterback in the game - two-time MVP Peyton Manning.
And if the Colts' explosive attack featuring Manning, versatile running back Edgerrin James and receivers Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne weren't enough, this season the Indy defense learned how to stop people.
But just remember that before you pencil in Indianapolis for the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance since the franchise won Super Bowl V while still based in Baltimore, the Colts have their own demons to overcome.
You always want to play at home in the playoffs, but the fact is that of the 30 teams that have secured the No. 1 seed since 1990 when the NFL went to the current playoff format, only 15 have made it to the Super Bowl.
Five AFC No. 1 seeds have lost in the divisional round of the playoffs.
The Colts are coming off a bye week and also will be playing their first meaningful game since the death of coach Tony Dungy's 18-year-old son.
If Indianapolis is off its game for whatever reason, the Steelers are more than capable of taking advantage of that, regardless of the noise and energy in the RCA Dome.
"It just doesn't matter where you play," Manning told reporters in Indianapolis the other day. "If you don't play well, you won't win.
"You like to be able to play at home and you should play well at home, but it doesn't guarantee you anything."
The Steelers know from personal experience the veracity of that statement. It's why they shouldn't be fazed about a playoff game in Indianapolis.
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