Pony

Super Bowl 60 features a matchup of teams the Steelers played back in September.

Beat one in New England.

Lost to the other here in Pittsburgh, the Steelers' home opener, but a game they could have won if not for massive brain farts from Caleb Johnson and, to a lesser extent, Calvin Austin III.

And so, two teams...

That the Steelers would view, I think, as beatable.

Are going to play for a Lombardi trophy Sunday night.

And I do think that does... I think that that is a big reason why they went with this plan this offseason.

I was kind of surprised, actually...

I don't think it came up from Art because Art never did more of a season wrap-up press conference where it was just his thoughts on a lot of things because we just rushed right into Tomlin's resignation and then a head coach getting hired.

But let's say if Art Rooney had been pressed to do a Q&A, I think that's one of the things that would have come up by him.

I don't think a Kabaly or a Hathorne would have brought it up, but I think he would have said, look,

the two teams that played in the Super Bowl, we beat one and we could have beaten the other.

So we're not that far off.

And I will concede as a guy that doesn't want Aaron Rodgers back, that is way more true and more accurate than it has been when, say, the Chiefs and Eagles played in the Super Bowl and both teams opened up a can of whoop-ass on the Steelers.

So...

In that respect, they are closer, but I don't necessarily think next year is going to be like this year where we kind of have a random season where two good teams, but by no means great teams, are playing in the Super Bowl.

I think that you could look at beating the Patriots and understand that their roster was not a good roster last year, and they went 4-13 under Gerard Mayo, and then they flipped that 10 games different this year, and you could maybe squint and look at them and say, hey, we beat them.

They have a quarterback, yes, that's a big part of it, but the rest of their roster is not overwhelming.

Now, I think they have been playing a lot better lately defensively, the Patriots.

Vrabel started to get them, I think, pretty dialed in, especially in the playoffs.