Steel-gray clouds

I might as well just get this off my chest now.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl.
No, I haven't been won over to the dark side. It's just a premonition. But it's the same one I had when the Baltimore Ravens made their Super Bowl run in the 2000 playoffs.
The premonition works like this: I'd be cool with any other team winning the Super Bowl. Carolina, Seattle, even Denver. The one image that would really grate me is Bill "The Chin" Cowher glowing as he holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy over his head with black and gold confetti fluttering around him.
The one soundbite I wouldn't be able to stand is Ohio turncoat and budding Browns killer Ben Roethlisberger thanking everyone from God to the water boys for making his Super Bowl MVP possible.
That's how I know. If I don't like it, and it involves the NFL, it's probably going to happen.
Back in my Bowling Green days, I wrote a column about how the Super Bowl seems to have it in for Cleveland. Since I wrote that column prior to New England's victory over St. Louis in February 2002, nothing has changed. Seven of the last eight Super Bowl champions have anti-Cleveland overtones.
John Elway, Lord of the Browns Killers, won Super Bowls off the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Then came back-to-back wins by former Cleveland teams: the St. Louis Rams after the 1999 season and the Ravens after the 2000 season.
After that, the Reign of Bill started. In Cleveland, Bill Belichick was closer to Fred Sanford as a football coach and person. In New England, he is Napoleon, Genghis Khan and George S. Patton rolled into one.
Now Belichick is the coach of a generation, with three Super Bowl titles in four years.
The only solace I have gotten since 1997 was watching the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl after the 2002 season. Even that soured, though, as I tried to wrack my brain to figure how a stalwart NFL franchise like the Browns can fail to make the Super Bowl in 37 years, but the Bucs, who sucked eggs for 90 percent of their existence, could suddenly rise up and win a championship.
So, you see, I know Pittsburgh will win the Super Bowl next month. If it will turn the perpetually-placed knife in Cleveland's back a bit more, the NFL gods will gladly do it.
Next year, when the Steelers pay the Browns their annual visit and subsequent butt-whupping, Browns fans had better wear flak jackets to the lakefront. Prideful, arrogant Pitsburgh fans will be out in full force, wearing their world championship merchandise.
At least we'll have a warm-up, when White Sox fans/frontrunners show up in force at Jacobs Field this summer, tooting their own horns.