Talking the Talk : Cowboys Love to Do That, but Steelers Would Love to Make Them Eat Their Words

“When we win, oops, I mean, if we win.”

--Michael Irvin, Dallas Cowboy receiver

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Did you hear the one about the Pittsburgh Steelers and the limousine?

Tackle James Parrish climbed into one the other day.

“I was seeing if the guy would give me a discount,” he said. “He couldn’t, so I got out.”

The Cowboys will hear this and smirk.

A child trying to act like a man.

The Cowboys pay their limo drivers by the day.

“They’ve got to realize, they are not the Cowboys,” cornerback Deion Sanders said of the Steelers. “They do not have Troy Aikman. They do not have Emmitt Smith. There is a big difference between good players and stars. . . . We have stars.”

Did you hear the one about the Steelers and their lavish hotel?

Quarterback Neil O’Donnell was visited Wednesday night by a room service waiter bearing prune juice.

“I didn’t order prune juice,” he said.

A hour later, he was visited by the same man, with the same juice. An hour after that, same deal.

When O’Donnell was awakened at 2 a.m. with yet another knock and another offering, the waiter apologized.

“I’m sorry sir, but your father has been calling and ordering this for you, says you really need to drink it,” the man said.

“My father is deceased,” O’Donnell said. “And I’m moving.”

The Dallas Cowboys will hear it and howl.

The first Super Bowl quarterback run out of his hotel room by a natural laxative.

The Cowboys, who have their own suites at a lavish resort.

“You ask me if I think we are going to win Sunday. You bet I do,” Irvin said. “And if you think something is wrong with that, I’m sorry. But that’s the way it has to be.”

Did you hear the one about the Steelers and the chip?

Look for it on their black-covered shoulders on Sunday in the Super Bowl. It has been stuck there after enduring a week of tiny insults and heaps of trash.

What has been common during past Super Bowl weeks has become “comical,” said Steeler linebacker Chad Brown.

The silly victory guarantee usually given by a forgotten player has become dozens of promises from superstars.

Confidence has donned the coat of conceit.

The annual joshing has turned into jousting.

The Steelers have heard all they can stand from the favored Cowboys, who have already yapped their way into Super Bowl infamy.

At first it was funny.

Now, the Steelers are furious.

It is this rage that will now provide Sunday’s soundtrack.

“The Cowboys definitely don’t respect us,” Brown said Thursday. “If we do beat them--and please, say if--they will be the kind of team that will make up all sorts of excuses.

“A bad call. Something went wrong. That’s their kind of team. Excuses.”

Then there is a running back who grew up in Texas and has listened to Cowboy preaching all his life.

It might concern the Cowboys that power-rushing Bam Morris, considered the key to the Steelers’ chances, has also finally heard enough.

“I don’t know why they keep trying to psych us out, because they can’t,” he said. “You wait until after the game. And then we’ll get the limos.”

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“I would be absolutely shocked if, when I’m done playing for the Cowboys, we haven’t won a third Super Bowl.”

--Quarterback Troy Aikman

Cowboy defensive end Charles Haley already knows what he’s going to do with that fifth Super Bowl ring.

“I’m going to put all five on my hand and smack that hand on a head and leave a dent that will last forever,” he said.

Cowboy owner Jerry Jones already knows what he’s going to be doing at midnight Sunday.

“We’re planning a little party,” he said.

And this is serious planning.

Why else would he have tried to persuade Arizona lawmakers to suspend the 1 a.m. ban on alcohol sales?

His request has been ignored. No matter.

“Either way, we’re going to have a good time,” a spokesman said.

That’s either way, as in law or no law.

The winning part? There is no “either way” about it.

Which is driving the Steelers even crazier.

“We aren’t talking about planning parties,” Morris said. “We’re talking about playing a 60-minute ballgame.”

The Steelers used to talk about parties before 60-minute ballgames. Once. Last year, before the AFC championship game. They even practiced a championship rap video.

Three days later, they were beaten at home by the underdog San Diego Chargers. They have not made a peep since.

“Last year we were cocky, and it bit us,” guard Justin Strzelczyk said. “This year, if we had taken limos, Coach [Bill] Cowher would have had an absolute fit.”

Cried the Cowboys’ Irvin: “What is the big deal about limos? I don’t care how you get to practice. I don’t care if you walk. As long as you practice.

“And let me tell you. We practice.”

There they go again. Acting as if they are something that their underdog opponents are not.

The Steelers continue to burn.

“This is like the week before a heavyweight boxing match, and they are Don King,” Parrish said.

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“I would like to challenge Kordell Stewart to a punt, pass and kick contest on the 50-yard line. Maybe they’ll put it on pay per view. You know how I am about my money.”

--Deion Sanders

Why do the Cowboys talk?

Other than the fact that they have the best talent in pro football and should easily win the game?

Gary Mack, a Phoenix-based sports counselor who has worked with the Cowboys this week, said their words may have been misinterpreted.

“Is it trash talk, or are they just talking loud?” Mack said. “Those are two very different types of talk. Trash talk is downplaying the other team. And I don’t think the Cowboys have done that.”

Mack says that players such as Irvin and Sanders are simply being, well, Irvin and Sanders.

“They are just being true to their character.”

Dr. Marc Shatz, a former UCLA psychologist practicing in Beverly Hills, looks at the Cowboys’ regular-season losses to underdogs Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington (twice). He wonders if something else isn’t happening.

“The Cowboys want to present themselves as omnipotent--Godlike--because sometimes in the short run, that can help them function,” Shatz said. “If they believe they are, then maybe they can really play like that.”

One problem, Shatz said.

“They are not omnipotent; we saw their earlier losses this year, they’ve gotten kicked,” he said. “They are deluded, along with their owner.”

Which, Shatz said, means one thing.

If the Steelers can stun them in the early part of the game, as the 49ers did in scoring four times in the first 17 minutes, they can win.

It is not merely their best chance, it is probably their only chance.

“If the omnipotence is punctured in the first quarter, they might sink into a depression, realize they are not who they thought they were,” Shatz said. “And the Steelers will get them.”

And wouldn’t Bill Cowher’s guys love that.

“I hope we play well,” Brown said.

He paused and added, “Basically, to shut them up.”

As if such an amateur threat would work with such professionals.

Across the desert, Jerry Jones bowed his head.

“We all know what a clever ploy it has been for the Steelers to cast themselves as somebody who just goes about their business,” Jones said. “I want to congratulate [owner] Dan Rooney and Bill Cowher for doing such a good job making us look cocky.”

A good job indeed.