It's a label that's as appropriate as these Steelers are deserving of their place in Super Bowl XLIII.

"I started saying it right before the playoffs," Roethlisberger said. "In the locker room when we do our prayer we hold hands and I just kind of say, 'Hey guys, I don't have any brothers, and if I did have a brother or brothers, I'd want it to be you guys.'

"It's a special group. We always have each other's backs."

That's the level of commitment the Cardinals will be confronting.

But after a playoff run that has seen them survive Atlanta, win at Carolina and then finish off Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game -- the Cardinals won the latter two games as underdogs -- it stands to reason that Arizona will be riding a similar emotional wave.

So that's a wash.

Let's likewise assume neither team will be able to run the ball. Fast Willie Parker went nowhere fast against Arizona on Sept. 30, 2007 (19 carries, 37 yards, a 1.9 average), and the Cardinals are better defensively now than they were then. And almost nobody runs against the Steelers -- there's little reason to suspect Edgerrin James and Tim Hightower will.

So it'll come down to passing, specifically to the strength-against-strength matchup of the Steelers' blitz-fueled attack against the Cardinals' unparalleled pass-catching depth, versatility and verticality.

And that's a bad matchup for the Steelers.

Quarterback Kurt Warner will see them coming. He'll recognize blitz, he'll sense it. He might even smell it.

He'll get rid of the ball before the Steelers get to him.

He'll do so, in part, because the players around him will allow him to do so.

"The biggest thing where we've made progress is our team understands now what we need to do in order to be successful against the blitz," Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "Our offensive line -- as far as communication, identification, the ability to make those adjustments to pick up the blitz to save hits on Kurt -- has done a very good job, as well as our backs and our tight ends when they've been involved in that area.

"But where we've made great progress, too, is with our receivers understanding that. A lot of times, when you're getting blitzed, when they're bringing one more than you can block, it really comes down to your receivers and your quarterback being on the same page."

The Steelers' blitzes are much more about who will be coming than they are overwhelming a protection scheme with numbers, but Whisenhunt knows that.

His intimate knowledge not just of the way the Steelers operate schematically but of their personnel, and assistant head coach/offensive line coach Russ Grimm's, is another Arizona advantage.

The Steelers have some of that going for them as well (running backs coach Kirby Wilson worked in Arizona from 2004-06), but not as much.

Defense, traditionally, wins championships.

But pitch-and-catch and the NFL equivalent of insider trading will decide this Intrasquad Scrimmage Super Bowl.

Cardinals, 30-27.