Are Cardinals steeling themselves to pull an upset?

GLENDALE, ARIZ. — On the surface, this Super Bowl is a super blowout.

It's steel versus sandstone.

Road graders versus roadrunners.

Iron City versus Sun City.

But the Arizona Cardinals are capable of beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII. And, if they play the way they did Sunday, they will.

The Cardinals have gotten their dose of disrespect -- including in this space -- but they have proved over the last three weeks that they are the NFL's team to beat, having knocked off Atlanta, Carolina and Philadelphia when all were at the top of their game.

Now comes their toughest opponent. It's also their most familiar. In fact, the Cardinals have so many Pittsburgh connections on their roster and coaching staff -- at least 16 -- they might as well reside on the other end of the Fort Pitt Tunnel from the Steelers. Some of those connections are loose -- receiver Steve Breaston grew up in the Pittsburgh area, for instance -- but others are intimate links to the Steelers.

Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm, Arizona's head coach and his No. 1 assistant, both were Steelers assistants who interviewed for the top job there before Mike Tomlin was hired. When neither Whisenhunt nor Grimm got the Pittsburgh job, they headed for Arizona and teamed up.

They know that Steelers team, its many strengths and its few-and-far-between soft spots. Pittsburgh was undefeated when it came to Arizona in Week 4 last season. But the Steelers left with a 21-14 loss, a game in which the Cardinals picked off two Ben Roethlisberger passes and sacked him four times.

"It's obviously a special win for me to beat the Steelers," Whisenhunt said at the time, "but I don't have any animosity toward that football team. . . . The thing that I'm the proudest about is that our football team beat a good football team that nobody gave us a chance to do."

When Whisenhunt was asked Sunday if he'd like to play the Steelers again, he didn't hesitate.

"Absolutely," he said.

And now he'll get the chance.

Super Bowl familiarity can be a scary thing. Just ask those Oakland Raiders who were stomped in the big game six years ago by their former coach, Jon Gruden, and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Todd Haley knows the Steelers too. He's the brilliant offensive coordinator for the Cardinals, the coach whose play-calling helped Kurt Warner pick apart the normally watertight Philadelphia defense.