Just Win, Baby!

It's been a mighty fine, mighty comfy moral perch we've been allowed to sit on, we Steelers fans. Our beloved team's owners, the Rooney family, don't take no mess. They draft for character; they reward good conduct; and they tolerate no bad conduct. Player after player who have messed up wearing the black and gold end up getting a pink slip.

And they've been able to win with that philosophy. Raiders owner, Al Davis, made amorality famous with his "Just win, baby!" motto. But look where that's got him. The Raiders haven't won a Super Bowl since the Marcus Allen era, and they've been utterly abysmal since losing to Tampa Bay in the Big Game back in '03. The Cincinnati Bungholes Bengals tried the same strategy a few years back and only wound up collecting more parole officers on the sidelines than wins on the scoreboard.

But it's not as though morality wins ball games. This high moral road the Rooneys have taken hasn't always resulted in Super Bowl victories--just more than any other team. The Steelers have spent a lot of time in my lifetime sucking (remember the end of the Noll years?). But when they have, we fans have always been allowed to feel a little smug in our frustration.

We've been able to deride Ray "Murder" Lewis. We scoffed at the Jimmy Johnson Cowboys and all their legal troubles. All those thugs and villains, drug dealers and drug fiends weren't in Steeler uniforms. And I admit, it felt a bit nice being so smug, so morally superior. The Rooneys seemed so serious about this stance, I don't think I'm the only Steelers fan who started adopting it as their own.