Steelers stay cool to outfox Ravens

By Larry Fine

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - The Pittsburgh Steelers squandered chances to bury the Baltimore Ravens early in their AFC Championship game on Sunday and needed to keep their cool in the second half to reach the Super Bowl with a 23-14 victory.

"We don't have a crew that blinks that much," Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said after his players booked a trip to Florida and a February 1 Super Bowl date with the Arizona Cardinals.

"Thirty minutes to go. We could be going to Tampa, we could be going home," he told reporters.

Dropped passes by Willie Parker, Santonio Holmes and Limas Sweed -- all touchdown possibilities -- as well as the failure to get a field goal attempt in before halftime despite being at the 12-yard line, all kept the Ravens in the game at 13-7.

The Steelers were not, however, hanging their heads after failing to kill it off before the intermission, Tomlin said.

"We live one snap at a time," he said. "The mood was pretty crisp, guys were communicating. We knew we had some critical work in front of us."

After a fourth-quarter pass interference call in the end zone led to a Baltimore touchdown to make the score 16-14, safety Troy Polamalu picked off a Joe Flacco pass and dashed across the field and into the end zone to ice it.

"I was free to just kind of react to the quarterback's eyes," Polamalu said about his decisive interception.