During a Hall of Fame career that saw him win 161 total games and one Super Bowl as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bill Cowher experienced some of the highest of highs and lowest of lows.
For Cowher, who was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton with the Class of 2020, those lowest of low moments stick with him to this day.
During an appearance on “The Steam Room” podcast with Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, Cowher stated that those lows center on the four AFC Championship Games he lost during his coaching career, especially the 1994 AFC Championship Game against the San Diego Chargers, because those losses hurt more than losing Super Bowl XXX, like he did in 1995, against the Dallas Cowboys.
“I think probably the very first AFC Championship Game in 1994,” Cowher said to Johnson and Barkley when asked what was his lowest moment as a head coach. “I’ve always said, you get to the Super Bowl. I’ve lost a Super Bowl. We lost to Dallas in Super Bowl XXX and came back 10 years later to beat Seattle. Losing the Super Bowl, that was tough. But, you know that you had the whole two weeks, you had the whole hoopla that went into it, and there was finality on that game.”
Though that loss in Super Bowl XXX was certainly devastating for Cowher and the Steelers as they reached the final game and had a chance to cement themselves in franchise lore, the losses in the conference championship games were the most painful for Cowher.
The loss to the Chargers still sticks out for Cowher as it was a game in which the Steelers were heavily favored entering the showdown at Three Rivers Stadium.
The Chargers were the No. 2 seed that season and also got first-round bye (the Steelers were the No. 1 seed). However, Pittsburgh was still favored by six points entering the game between No. 1 versus No. 2.
The Steelers were in control throughout the game, never trailing through about the first 55 minutes of it. But then the Chargers took a late lead, and the Steelers’ ensuing offensive drive stalled at the Chargers’ 3-yard line, leading to a heartbreaking 17-13 loss.
Later in his career, Cowher also lost in the AFC Championship Game to the Denver Broncos in 1997, and then to the New England Patriots in 2001 and 2004 before getting to the mountaintop in 2005, winning Super Bowl XL over the Seattle Seahawks.
Those losses in the conference championship game though, they hurt more than the Super Bowl XXX loss for Cowher, because they were so close.
“The championship games, I lost four of those, and I can tell you every one of ’em,” Cowher said, going on to list all four losses and the opponent. “…And then you watch those teams go to the Super Bowl. Every one of those games came down to the fourth quarter. Every one of those games were games we could have and probably should have won. But then to watch the team that beat you go to the Super Bowl, all the stories that are being told about them, you gotta listen to that for two weeks. You can’t get away from it.
“…It was hard. Championship game next week, the loser of that game, it hurts more than losing the Super Bowl.”
Those championship game losses really took a toll on Cowher, especially as he got late in his career and hadn’t won a Super Bowl. He had come so close so often yet came up painfully short. And then he had to hear about it for two weeks straight as the teams had a week off between the conference title games and the Super Bowl, making the pain all that much greater.
Fortunately, Cowher was able to taste victory at the highest level in the NFL and doesn’t have those championship games still lingering over his career as what-ifs. But that doesn’t make those losses any less painful.
