I've never made a secret of my NFL allegiance, (but then again I don't make secrets of much of anything). For almost 35 years now, I have been a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. The first ten years were incredible and the second decade was like watching a team of underpowered posers struggle to catch lightining in a bottle a second time. The last fifteen years though, have been nothing short of excruciating. So much so, that the SB XL win inspired relief more than joy. The curse of the "team of the century" had finally been broken.  

So forgive me for not shedding tears over the rumored/impending retirement of William Laird Cowher. Becuase as much as I was a fan of the man they called the Emepror, Chuck Noll, I am not a fan of Cowher.  I'm still amazed although it was as far back as 1992 that the Steelers would change the face of the franchise from an intellectual, almost erudite , student of the game, in Noll, to the model of the missing link in Cowher. True the franchise needed a shot, but this was hardly tanatmount to hiring a disciple of a legend (Paul Brown), it was more like picking the fruit off of the choker (Schottenheimer) tree.

I will give Cowher credit for hiring experienced assistants like Capers, LeBeau, Erhardt and April both to disguise his obvious inadequacies and to let him do what he did best, cheerleading. Those decisions, along with inheriting all the talent from Noll's talent laden last few drafts had Cowher primed for early success. That's why in 1996, the Steelers backed into the Super Bowl they should have been playing in 1995. But Cowher sealed the stamp he pressed gently on the franchise the year prior, with a SB XXX loss.

But somehow in defeat, Cowher managed to stay true to himself and believe that if he just kept throwing the same silly junk on the field year in and year out, he'd get the job done. A mere decade later, his philosophy paid off. A mere year after that, he fielded the most undisciplined, underperforming Steelers squad I have ever seen, ensuring that the Steelers would not even have a chance to defend that fifth trophy.

Not that I blame Cowher, he's been generously rewarded for every postseason failure, every personnel miscue, and every idiotic game plan or lack thereof. Given the opportunity to tease the fans for a season and then fold up in January, for a few million a year, I'd take the gig too.  But now, having been shoved in a sack and carried on the back of his young QB to a SB Trophy, Cowher really believes he's an elite coach and should be even more ridicuoulsy overpaid than he is already.

That's why I think that Cowher's decision has already been made for him. I harken back to new Steelers President Art Rooney Jr. telling the media that it was "about time for another SB win" last preseason. I've long had a feeling that Art (the younger) has a very realistic view of what Cowher is and what he is not, a good but not a great coach. Unlike Dan Rooney, I don't think is enamored of the Coach who peaked a decade ago and is just as likely to give you a losing campaign as a winner.

My intuition is that Art Jr. will be making Cowher's announcement for him if Cowher dilly-dallies too long after today's meaningless season ender. I'm sure the Steelers will comply by whatever idiotic (Rooney (as in Dan) Plan)  interview requirements exist, but I'd wager that they already have a successor chosen. Ironically, it was the same spirit that made Dan the NFL Goodwill ambassador that kept Cowher around as long as he stayed. But now that there's a new Rooney  in town, I'm hoping he'll be less concerned with the letters PR and more concerned with the letters SB.

Because the Steeler FO, if it wants to win SB's, needs to face facts about the team that Bill and Dan built. Aside from the no-brainers of drafting Roethlisberger and Polamalu and a few winners in Alan Faneca and Aaron Smith, the team is  talent thin at many positions. The offense is so predictable that color-men are diagnosing the play calls and the "confusing" Zone Blitz schemes that the Steelers D-employs only seems to confuse the occasional rookie QB. The scheme peaked last week when QB Steve McNair, playing on grass, didn't even have to send his jersey to the cleaners after the game. 

But Cowher will have the chance to dust off his tired, know-nothing cliches at least one more time after the game. I wish he'd call it quits right then and there, but more likely he spew more of the same clueless defiance we've been hearing for years now. But what we see on the field is more telling than any gobbledygook spilling out of Cowher's mouth, these days.

It's time for the legend in his own mind to move along. I can hardly wait.