Fans chanted "Super Bowl, Super Bowl" as Shaun Alexander carried the NFC championship trophy down the field at Qwest Stadium, a joyous trip that was 30 years in the making.
Alexander, a killer defense and playing on a field where they didn't lose this season, all combined perfectly on Sunday to help the Seahawks rout the Carolina Panthers 34-14 in the NFC title game.
"I think we got people excited about football again here in the Pacific Northwest," coach Mike Holmgren said. "They're all coming to Detroit with us, everybody in the stadium's coming. They were great for us all year. Home-field advantage in this place means everything."
PHOTO: AP
In this case, it means the Seahawks (15-3) will meet the Pittsburgh Steelers, 34-17 winners over Denver in the AFC, in the Super Bowl. That game will be played in Detroit on Feb. 5 and the Steelers already are favored by 3 1/2 points.
Alexander, the league's MVP, came back from last week's concussion to rush for a team playoff-record 132 yards and two touchdowns, and Seattle pressured Carolina stars Jake Delhomme and Steve Smith into oblivion.
"We have an unbelievable team, an unbelievable group of fans," Alexander said. "Prayer works. I get knocked out and guys step up. One guy goes down and another guy steps up."
The Seahawks picked off three passes in winning their 12th straight home game and shattering the fifth-seeded Panthers' stunning postseason road run.
"We're not done yet," said quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who was a precise 20-for-28 for 219 yards and two scores. "We've got another game we've got to go win."
A game the Seahawks only approached once before, losing the AFC championship game to Oakland in 1984. A dozen years later, then-owner Ken Behring was planning a move to Los Angeles.
But current owner Paul Allen stepped in, eventually getting Qwest Field built. And Holmgren, now the fifth coach to take two franchises to the Super Bowl, put together the NFC's best team.
"We've come a long way, it's taken five years to put this group together," Alexander said. "Now we are one of the elite teams."
The focus in these playoffs has been on the spectacular success of the road teams, with Pittsburgh becoming the first sixth seed to make a Super Bowl. Carolina (13-6) had beaten the Giants and Bears on the road, and an all wild-card Super Bowl appeared very possible.
Until about 16 minutes into the NFC championship game, when Seattle led 17-0.
"I don't know if we ran out of gas," Panthers coach John Fox said. "I'm not sure what the problem was. Their defense played tremendous. We knew we'd have our hands full with their offense.
"We didn't play well enough in all three phases to win," he said.
While Alexander paced the ball-control offense, it was the defense that really carried the Seahawks. It yielded only 62 yards, three first downs and no real threats in the first half.
Then, with Carolina desperate, Seattle allowed virtually nothing until it had a 20-point lead.
Holmgren, who won the Super Bowl in 1997 and lost in 1998 with Green Bay, praised his defense last week for the enormous pressure it applied to opponents all season. That defense was always in Delhomme's face, helping force two first-half interceptions that were decisive.
"We've always got a chip on our shoulder, they always say the offense has to pull us through," defensive tackle Chuck Darby said. "But in order to win games in the playoffs, we knew our defense had to step up."
The Panthers weren't helped when starting running back Nick Goings was sidelined in the first quarter after a massive hit by linebacker Lofa Tatupu. They already were minus their top two runners, Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster.
The Seahawks had their horse, though, and by the second half, they could turn to Alexander. As he always has this season, he delivered some big runs as the crowd chanted "M-V-P, M-V-P."
Hasselbeck finished off the Panthers with a gorgeous pump fake that had cornerback Chris Gamble on all fours. Darrell Jackson caught the 20-yard pass for a 27-7 lead, and it was time for Seattle fans to celebrate.
"I was at the Super Bowl last year just hoping that one day we'd be able to get there," Allen said. "I may seem like a mild-mannered guy, but my gut was churning inside: `Let's win this game. Just win this game. We've got to win this game.'"
Alexander grabbed the George Halas Trophy and hauled it to the end zone as majestically as he totes a football. For all of his record 28 regular-season scores, this carry meant the most.
Allen raised the team's 12th man flag before kickoff, then waved a white towel to whip the crowd of 67,837 into a frenzy. What really got the fans going was when Holmgren sent in backup quarterback Seneca Wallace as a wideout, then Hasselbeck threw to him. Wallace, one of the better athletes in the NFL, made a superb over-the-shoulder catch for 28 yards.
One play later, Jerramy Stevens slipped uncovered down the middle for a 17-yard TD pass.
Josh Brown made it 10-0 with a 24-yard field goal set up when Delhomme forced an ill-advised pass for Smith into triple coverage and rookie Tatupu speared it. His 21-yard return got Seattle to the Panthers 20.
On the next series, Delhomme's lollipop throw for Keary Colbert instead fell into the waiting hands of Marquand Manuel, who weaved through traffic for 32 yards to the Panthers 17. Alexander swept left for 15 yards before his 1-yard run made it 17-0.
Then the dynamic Smith broke free on a 59-yard punt return down the right side. An official threw a flag for a block in the back, but after a long discussion, referee Ed Hochuli announced there was no foul, and Carolina was within 17-7.
But the Panthers weren't making any miracle comebacks. Led by Tatupu and Manuel, plus the fierce pass rush -- Rocky Bernard had two sacks -- the Seahawks dominated up the middle. Smith, who made 12 catches for 218 yards in last week's win at Chicago, managed just five catches for 33 yards.
Of course, the Panthers almost never had the ball; Seattle held it for nearly 42 minutes. And after Michael Boulware got the Seahawks' third interception -- surpassing Delhomme's career playoff total -- late in the third quarter, all doubt was removed.
Alexander added a 1-yard scoring run, and Drew Carter's 47-yard TD reception meant little for Carolina. To finish it off, Smith fumbled on a reception in the final two minutes.
Pittsburgh 34, Denver 17
The wildest road trip since Animal House rocks on.
The next stop for Big Ben, The Bus and all those Terrible Towels will be the Super Bowl in Detroit, thanks to a 34-17 dismantling of the Denver Broncos on Sunday in the AFC title game.
"We were sitting, looking at an outside shot to be in the Super Bowl," Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans said. "This is an unbelievable feeling to be here right now."
Unbelievable and almost unprecedented.
Led by 275 yards and two passing touchdowns from Ben Roethlisberger and a touchdown by Jerome Bettis, the Steelers became the first team since the 1985 Patriots to win three postseason road games en route to the Super Bowl. Counting the regular season, they've played five of their last six away from Pittsburgh.
Next up: Seattle, a 34-14 winner over Carolina in the NFC title game. The teams will meet in two weeks at Ford Field, and the Steelers were the early favorite by 3 1-2 points.
And while there's no Otter or Boon -- the characters who called for a road trip when things got tough for the Delta House fraternity -- this Pittsburgh group has plenty of characters of its own.
There's Bettis, The Bus, who stuck around for a 13th year with hopes of playing in his first Super Bowl, in his hometown of Detroit.
There's Roethlisberger, Big Ben, the second-year quarterback who looked every bit the veteran in this one, completing 21 of 29 passes and keeping the Steelers going on six of seven crucial third-down situations in the first half.
There's the coach, jut-jawed Bill Cowher, who worked the sideline in his usual manner, jabbing his finger at Bettis, then hugging him, smiling and scowling, too. This was tough love at its best -- and good enough to move the Steelers back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1995.
And all those loyal Pittsburgh fans. An estimated 8,000 came to Denver and they stayed well after the game, waving their Terrible Towels in the corner of Denver's Invesco Field until security finally had to ask them to leave.
"It feels great today, I'll tell you that," owner Dan Rooney said. "The coach already told me we're going to the Super Bowl to win it, not just to be there."
Outschemed, outplayed and pushed around all day, the Broncos (14-4) shuffled off to their locker room, heads down, after their first home loss in 10 tries this season.
"We did not complete the mission and it's frustrating," linebacker IanGold said. "But anytime you make it to the AFC championship game and you lose, you hope to lose to a team like that."
Indeed, it's hard to deny the Steelers (14-5) are deserving. Their next game will be for their fifth championship -- that elusive "One For The Thumb" -- that the franchise couldn't get in the 1970s heyday of Bradshaw, Swann, Stallworth and Harris.
Against Denver, the Steelers came out passing, not running, much the same way they did when they upset Indianapolis last week. Roethlisberger called pass plays on seven of Pittsburgh's first 11 snaps and threw completions on five of those.
The first drive resulted in a field goal. On Denver's next possession, Pittsburgh's Joey Porter blitzed to force a Jake Plummer fumble. Five plays later, Roethlisberger hit Cedrick Wilson for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead, quieting the Invesco Field crowd much as the Steelers did in Indy last week and Cincinnati the week before.
After a Denver field goal, the Steelers essentially salted this game with a 14-play, 80-yard drive that ate up seven-and-a-half minutes and had the Broncos defense totally off balance and gasping for air.
Bettis capped it by bulling in from the 3 for a 17-3 lead to put him well on his way to the Super Bowl. Cowher smiled widely for that one, remembering Bettis' near disaster on the goal line last week in Indy.
"This is a great group of guys, how we got here, we're a different team," Cowher said. "We're a focused team, no matter what's happened, we've stayed together. We've got a resilient group."
The Broncos trailed by two touchdowns, yet everyone in Denver knew they had escaped worse predicaments in the past.
But there was no Drive, no Fumble, no comeback and no you-know-who on the field this day.
John Elway was on hand, but sitting in a luxury suite, watching the Broncos fall short of the ultimate destination for the seventh straight year since he led them to their second championship.
Plummer, who had played so well in the lead all season, finally faced some comeback pressure and failed miserably. He went 18-for-30 for 223 yards with two lost fumbles and two interceptions.
He threw one pass underhanded, scrambled for his life and, though valiant as always, proved what had been proved many times before -- that he can't do it by himself. He said he woke up with a bit of a cold, but it had no effect on his game.
The Steelers certainly did.
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