The Nightmare of Reality

By Jared Trexler

For just a few paragraphs, I'm not a writer.

Objectivity be damned, at least until this diatribe's conclusion.

The NFL is a nasty business. A conglomeration built more on ebb than flow, failure than success, defeat than victory.

Even though just one team truly ends each season a winner, winning is an expected norm written into each coach's contract.

Losing is an untolerated truth. It happens, and then you pay for it.

Except the revolving door of necessary unfairness is permanently shut in Pittsburgh. The Rooney family uses a set of keys -- based on family, loyalty, stability -- to keep the door locked.

They refused to open it after three straight seasons home in January during the early part of this decade. Every coach in this league, even the large one in the City of Brotherly, would lose his job with 22 wins over three seasons.

Not Bill Cowher.

That's what makes tomorrow more painful. Not because Cowher is the only coach many young Steeler fans know -- the pronounced jaw, flying spit, ability to jack up his players without seeming overbearing. Not because of the relationship with his players -- they all love him, and I mean serious man love.

When a guy can bring Joey Porter to the verge of tears we know there is some serious mutual respect.

Rather, the pain stems from a break in stability. A comfortable feeling that the world is in fact round. Each morning you wake up to a rising sun, the morning news, and Cowher as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It was an absolute truth, divine certainty. And that doesn't happen but once every Golden Age in the NFL.

Is the passionate football fan really ready for Jeff Fisher to be called the Dean of Coaches? STAY BILL!

But, I regress. No shouts of desperation can change a man's mind, especially when it comes to family.

The NFL is a demanding business, wears on marriages and fatherhood. Not many coaches -- in fact none in today's game -- could withstand the length of Cowher's stay without a break.

Time to recharge one's batteries. Dine with the wife. Watch the daughters play hoops. Be a family.

I can't blame the man. I can't hate him now, nor three years from now when he inevitably yearns competition and returns to the highest bidder.

He's a Hall of Fame coach. A Super Bowl-winning coach. A man who bears a striking resemblance to my father.

At the age of seven I would face my mirror with a Gregg Lloyd jersey on and shout, "Let's Go! Let's Go!" As a kid, I wouldn't listen every time my parents said it. But when Cowher shouted it from the sideline, I would join in chorus.

Again, I regress.

The Steeler organization is too stable to not recover. The team is too talented to suffer a dramatic drop off.

But that's not the point.

When the sun rises on the 2007 season, things just won't be the same. The Chin is gone, except for this one last clip...

Jared Trexler can be found on this page every Sunday Morning. So read him after Church, or after the frat party hangover. Except today isn't Sunday. You can also read Jared's work when the sports world decides something must be written. (jtt128@comcast.net).


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The Phanatic