It’s no secret that Dallas-Fort Worth wants the Super Bowl back in town as soon as possible. Texans always want to do things the grandest way possible. So the local officials who brought Super Bowl XLV to the area used the experience as a primer for grander things to come.

The North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee (can we use NTSBHC for short?) has already notified the NFL that it will submit a bid for Super Bowl L in 2016. What would be more grand than to stage the league’s premier game in its (for now) premier stadium for a grand 50th anniversary. More practically, it’s sure to be the most expensive and most-attended game ever, so why not put it in the league’s largest (for now) stadium?

The cold weather may have scared some league officials away from a Sun Belt host site for a while. But let’s not stay away from any southern sites not named Miami, Los Angeles or Arizona because of North Texas’ bad-luck weather this week. Let’s see what Mother Nature has in store next year for Indianapolis, for New Orleans in 2013, and God-help-us New Jersey in 2014 before we pass any judgment. Each of those cities endured rugged weather the past 10 days as well.

Super Bowl L is sitting there in 2016. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones certainly wants it. There’s sentiment to have it back in Los Angeles, site of the first Super Bowl in 1967. It’s a nice sentiment, but NFL rules as they exist now mandate that a host site also have a league team. Los Angeles, for now, doesn’t.

The NFL owners will vote on the 2015, and probably 2016, host sites in the spring meetings one year from now. Following a fine two weeks in the area despite the poor weather, expect North Texas to be at the top of that list for discussion at that time.

Sorry for the cliche, but defense wins championships. What’s most intriguing about this Super Bowl is that that sentence alone doesn’t reveal which team I’m picking to win Lombardi’s latest hardware.

This is only the third time in Super Bowl history that the top-ranked scoring defense (Pittsburgh, 232 points) has faced the second-ranked scoring defense (Green Bay, 240 points). Only a touchdown separates the two defenses, but I’m going with the team that gave up fewer points.

Put me down for Pittsburgh 20, Green Bay 17.

I’m not a betting man, because I follow the one universal rule of gambling – don’t bet more than you’re willing to lose. And I hate losing.

But I love researching numbers. Statistics speak to me, and I understand their language. Of the past 44 seasons leading up to a Super Bowls, the top-ranked scoring defense has qualified 19 times. Those 19 top defenses are 14-5.

Compare that to the 13 times that the top-ranked overall defense has reached the Super Bowl. That defense is 10-3. Those two records alone – 14-5 and 10-3 – are enough for me to hand my prediction to the Steelers.

By the way, in games featuring the NFL’s top-ranked offense, that team is 10-11.

Top offenses are great, and sexy, and tempting, and fun to watch. But they don’t beat top defenses. Not in the Super Bowl, anyway. The high-flying Buffalo Bills of 1991 fell victim to the top-ranked scoring defense of the New York Giants. The vaunted 2002 Oakland Raiders with NFL MVP Rich Gannon lost to Tampa Bay’s defense, which actually scored more points in that game than the Raiders’ offense. San Francisco returned to its championship form in 1984 with a great defense, beating Dan Marino and Miami with its record-breaking offense.

You could make an argument that the Orange Crush defense Denver had in 1977 might have beaten Dallas that day, if the Broncos didn’t turn the ball over six times.

Defense wins championships. You don’t score, you can’t win.

Pittsburgh 20, Green Bay 17.

Pittsburgh’s defense has received plenty of praise this year, and rightly so. The latest version of the Steel Curtain closed the scoring curtain on opposing offenses all season, allowing the fewest points in the NFL during the regular season at 232.

The Steelers’ defensive coordinator, Dick LeBeau, has been hailed as a mastermind for assembling all the parts together in creating a defense that’s as difficult to prepare for as it is to play against. The NFL doesn’t award an Assistant Coach of the Year Award anymore, but if it did, certainly LeBeau and Steelers offensive line coach Sean Kugler, who quilted together a patchwork offensive line that had changes at every turn, would be finalists.

LeBeau has deflected most of the praise, and did so again this week during one of the Steelers’ press conferences.

“We’ve been fortunate to keep a pretty solid core of guys that have played a lot of years for the black and gold,” LeBeau said. “That helps us as coaches tremendously.”

LeBeau has the Steelers’ defense ahead at the finish line because he’s built the best and most consistent car. Check under the hood, and you’ll find that Pittsburgh has enjoyed rare steadiness with its roster with little turnover on its defense. In an NFL where the average length of a player’s career is 3.5 seasons, the Steelers’ 11 defensive starters have averaged 6.5 seasons of service in Pittsburgh alone.

Only one of the Steelers’ current 11 starters, defensive end Ziggy Hood, has played fewer than four years in Pittsburgh. Six of the starters have eight or more seasons with the Steelers.

That’s amazing longevity to one club (read: it’s great to play in Pittsburgh and players are far less likely to leave in free agency). That type of loyalty, from player to team and team to player, results in tremendous trust between players who are very familiar with each other in the locker room and on the field. Players react instinctively on the field, and their longevity within the system allows LeBeau to focus on nuances within his aggressive and complex 3-4 defense and not be teaching it from the start.

It’s the kind of trust that can only be built by players who have been around each other for an extended amount of time. And it’s a unique, rare bond that lies hidden within the Steelers’ success, but may well lead to another Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.

Hello again from Dallas, where the sun actually peeked through some clouds today to tease football fans everywhere with decent weather.

It’s good to be the Black Eyed Peas. Turns out after coming in on a chartered Lear jet, they went through a runthrough rehearsal at Cowboys Stadium on Wednesday. Then it was off to the posh restaurant Kenichi in Dallas’ Uptown district. The restaurant, alerted ahead about the Black Eyed Peas’ want for Asian food, stayed open late so Fergie, Taboo, apl.de.ap and will.i.am could come feast with their assorted handlers and crew.

More than 500 members of the international media attended the Black Eyed Peas’ press conference Thursday afternoon. They’ll host their own Super Bowl party Friday night in Dallas’ historic Fair Park.

I haven’t found the official announcement yet, for let’s assume that the Prince concert that was to be in an outdoor plaza at what used to be Reunion Arena has been canceled. Unless of course the tents could withstand six inches of snow Thursday night (remember the Metrodome?), not to mention setting up during four consecutive days of 20-degree temperatures.

Dallas and country music always fit snugly in the same sentence. But it was a little odd on Wednesday seeing Randy Travis at the annual Aces & Angels Party in Dallas’ Fair Park, the shindig hosted by KISS legend Gene Simmons. Duet, anyone? Not this time. Oh yeah, former Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed, mother of Simmons’ two kids, was there as well.

Kid Rock headlined the Fan Jams at the Verizon Theatre next to the stadium. Duran Duran (remember them?) and Jason Derulo were the opening acts. All three were filmed for an hour-long broadcast that is airing on VH1.

Former 49ers chairman Eddie DeBartolo was spotted with Joe Montana in one of Dallas’ most popular steakhouses on Wednesday. The DeBartolo family still controls the 49ers, who are unhappy with the Alex Smith-Troy Smith-David Carr situation at quarterback. You don’t think . . . nah.

One of the great things about the Pittsburgh Steelers is they expect to play in the Super Bowl every season. It’s a hallmark to their organization and is exemplified in everything they do from the draft to marketing to personnel decisions to game-day execution. There’s only a handful of franchises that can carry the same expectations year-to-year with some amount of validity.

Prior to training camp, Pittsburgh thought it had an offensive line worthy of getting it to the Super Bowl in tackles Max Starks and Wilie Colon, guards Chris Kemoeatu and Trai Essex, and center Maurkice Pouncey to steer it all at center.

Instead, the Steelers go into Sunday’s game with only one of those projected starters – Kemoeatu – actually in the starting lineup. He’ll join tackles Jonathan Scott and Flozell Adams on the ends, Ramon Foster at right guard, and Doug Legursky at center. Quality players all, but not the names the Steelers had on the board when planning the season.

Injuries foiled those plans. Colon ruptured an Achilles’ tendon, a season-ending injury, before training camp even started. Essex’s high ankle sprain took this out in the second week of the season, and despite only missing four weeks, hasn’t been at full strength since. He’ll be suited up in the Super Bowl, but as a reserve.

In the eighth week, Starks went to the injured reserve list with a neck injury. Pouncey suffered a high ankle sprain and a broken bone in his foot in the AFC Championship game, and despite a valiant attempt to play Sunday, won’t make it back.

Pittsburgh offensive line coach Sean Kugler has pieced it all together, working what seemed to be a new set of linemen into a cohesive unit every week. That’s in stark contrast to the Steelers’ defense who core starters have been together for four-plus years, an eon on NFL clocks.

If there’s a mismatch to the units in the Super Bowl, this is it – Pittsburgh’s offensive line vs. Green Bay’s defensive front.

Among the Super Bowl starters, Scott signed with Pittsburgh in March in time for off-season work. Besides Kemoeatu, he’s the experienced veteran with 18 games wearing the black and gold. Foster came to Pittsburgh as an undrafted free agent out of college two years ago, and will be making a 15th career start. Adams, who had a distinguished Pro Bowl career in Dallas before the Cowboys released him, signed the day before training camp started. The Super Bowl will be only Legursky’s fifth career start, but his first at center.

They face a Green Bay front featuring four first-round draft picks and an overall defense that finished fifth in the NFL in yards given up and second in sacks. The advantage goes to Green Bay, but you don’t count the Steelers’ front out. Pittsburgh’s starting line is not the picture it painted at the season’s start, but the colors have mixed well enough to look good in its final frame.

So much has been made of the Packers’ practice location this week. The media’s acting as if Green Bay has never practiced in an indoor facility before the way they’re talking about the digs at Highland Park High School.

The high school’s indoor all-sports facility, home to the Packers’ practices this week after the Dallas weather turned into Green Bay’s, is quite nice, sure enough. You’ve seen it on SportsCenter by now, I’m sure. The MPF (multi-purpose facility, as it’s called on campus) is less than a year old and has a 90-yard football field with room to spare on the sidelines. It has two batting cages that drop down from the ceiling, soccer lines painted onto the field (soccer’s a spring sport in Texas), a dynamic sound system, and even the marching band and drill teams have practiced in there.

It rivals any college or pro facility, and is nicer than the one at well-known Southlake Carroll High School where the Dallas Cowboys practice during sloppy weather. But the media’s been carried away on this. Yes, it had a $4.7 million price tag – a lot of money on anyone’s ledger. It’s arguably the nicest indoor facility in the region, and it’s regarded as the largest. Which is probably why the Packers are working out there rather than one of the other 35 facilities at high schools in the area.

That’s right, there are 36 high schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that have indoor facilities of some sort. So let’s not go nuts on the cost of Highland Park’s MPF. It was raised with private funds – the Highland Park Booster Club gave an even $1 million, saved up over a 10-year period, to help the construction get started.

That’s the part of the story that the media has left out. I have to defend the ol’ alma mater on this one. Yes, Highland Park is the former stomping grounds of Doak Walker, Bobby Layne, Clayton Kershaw, Matthew Stafford . . . and me. Please notice I placed myself last on that short list on purpose. Everyone knows we love our football in Texas. But it’s not like they skipped out on new textbooks for the kids, laid off 100 teachers and serve Spam in the cafeteria in order to build an indoor practice palace.

Highland Park’s is the latest of the area’s 36 facilities to be built, although more are sure to come. It’s been cool to see the place on SportsCenter, and Highland Park’s received plenty of positive pub from Green Bay’s visit. But enough’s enough. Remember everyone – private donations. That’s $4.7 million in personal checks donated to the cause, and they even left out the air conditioner, not that anyone’s looking for cooler air this week as the North Pole blows through. (Why leave out the $300,000 air conditioning system when they’ve already spent $4.47 million? But I digress.)

I just had to get that off my chest and defend my alma mater lest the media blow out rumors that the priorities are out of whack there. They’ve got it right at Highland Park – academics first, then football second, and third, and fourth and fifth.

But who’s counting.

You have to feel for Daniel Sepulveda, the Pittsburgh punter who will miss playing in the Super Bowl for a second time while on injured reserve.

The fourth-year punter for the Steelers tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee against Baltimore on Dec. 5. Surgery to repair the knee five days later cost him the remainder of the season.

It’s the same ligament and the same injury he suffered during training camp prior to the 2008 season. Sepulveda watched from the sidelines as Pittsburgh beat Arizona in the Super Bowl.

That’s where he’ll be again Sunday, making the most of the opportunity to be a part of the action without being in the action.

If the sting of missing the chance to play the Super Bowl in your hometown of Dallas, he isn’t showing it.

“I could think of a lot worse problems to have in life,” the fourth-year veteran said in an interview last week with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Sepulveda tore the ligament back trying to make a tackle on a punt return, just doing what comes instinctively. He started his college career at Baylor as a walk-on linebacker, after all, the same position he played at Highland Park High School in Dallas, which ironically will host Green Bay’s indoor workouts Wednesday and perhaps Thursday.

Not getting much of a look at linebacker at Baylor, Sepulveda captured the coaches’ attention as a sophomore during an open punting tryout. He dabbled with punting in high school, but no one saw him becoming a two-time All-American and the only punter to win the Ray Guy Award twice. He never missed a game due to injury in college.

“I guess I just have a biological predisposition to tearing an ACL,” Sepulveda said in the Tribune-Review story. “I have been told I have loose joints.”

Not that he’s feeling sorry for himself. A strong Christian faith carried him through the 2008 season in which he still got a Super Bowl ring, and it will carry him through again this summer’s training camp. Whether the Steelers will hand the job back to Sepulveda without competition as they did in 2009 awaits to be seen. He was fourth in the AFC with a 45.5-yard average at the time of the injury.

“I want to be as closely related to God as I can be,” he said. “In order to do that, I recognize the truth in the Bible that God can work for my good in the midst of all circumstances, even when they are bad. And this is something I would call a bad circumstance.”

Despite the injury, the circumstances are in Sepulveda’s favor based on the team he plays for. The Steelers stayed loyal to Sepulveda, especially while he’s been injured during their two extended postseason runs. Loyalty to kickers is rare in today’s NFL, where the specialists are expendable and too-easily replaceable.

Just ask journeyman punter Jeremy Kapinos, who replaced Sepulveda in the Steelers’ lineup two months ago. Kapinos filled in for one game for Indianapolis earlier this season, then was back home a week later. When Pittsburgh called, it was the fourth team in four seasons for Kapinos, who punted for Green Bay last season but was not asked to return in 2010.

Sepulveda may well get another Super Bowl ring on Sunday. Here’s hoping that the Steelers will stay loyal to him once again so he can be on the active roster the next time Pittsburgh reaches the big game.

Hines Ward will have a few hours of down time this week to work on that ’cowboy’ fashion he was sporting on the Steelers’ charter flight today. The veteran receiver and Pittsburgh’s all-time leading receiver came to town Monday wearing a black cowboy hat, a Western-style black shirt, black cowboy boots and a polished silver belt buckle big enough to pick up FM signals.

Welcome to town, hoss.

Dressing like that will fit right in around Fort Worth, which will host the Steelers for the next week. They don’t call it “Cowtown” for nothing (or nuthun’, as it’s said at the Stockyards).

Should Ward want to update that look and move past the Gunsmoke and Urban Cowboy genre, there are plenty of places around town that would gladly tip their hat to do so.

Both teams arrived today, and thank goodness. Maybe now the local talk can segue to actually being relevant to the game. First off, let’s all take a deep breath and let Ward’s wardrobe selection today be the last time we hear the words “Cowboys” and “Super Bowl” in the same sentence until training camp. Even if it is relating to, uh, fashion.

The local media has made a week-long talk topic of how the Dallas Cowboys won’t be playing in a homefield Super Bowl, but how two franchises that are negatively notorious in Dallas’ postseason past, will.

Ward’s boots were barely off the plane today before he was asked in a midday presser whether it would be cool to win a Super Bowl in the home of the Cowboys, given the rivalry between the teams.

“I don’t think we want to win it just because we’re in Cowboys Stadium. It would be cool just to win it just to win it, to win three Super Bowls for a lot of guys on this team, to win our organization’s seventh Super Bowl,” Ward said.

Pittsburgh has now tied Dallas for most Super Bowl appearances with eight. They already passed the (once) mighty Cowboys for most Super Bowls won with six to Dallas’ five, and could open a bigger gap with a win Sunday. One of Dallas’ proudest claims has now been wiped clean by the Terrible Towel.

The locals have reasons to be bitter. Pittsburgh beat Dallas twice in Super Bowls, but the last time Dallas won a Super Bowl was a 27-17 win over Pittsburgh in SBXXX following the 1995 season. Dallas’ animus for Green Bay stems from the 1960s. It was the Packers who beat Dallas to get to Super Bowls I and II, among a handful of other postseason defeats.

The Steelers have been back now three times since taking their only Super Bowl loss the Cowboys. Dallas has won only two playoff games in the 15 years since, but who’s counting?

“It’s kind of ironic the history between the Cowboys and the Steelers over the years,” Ward said. “I’m pretty sure a lot of Dallas fans don’t want to see Pittsburgh win the Super Bowl on their home field. That’s a motivation but I don’t think that’s the main motivation for guys to try and win it on Cowboys turf. We win it, we want to win it for ourselves, for our city of Pittsburgh and for our organization.”

So there. If Cowboys fans still have venom for Pittsburgh because of the past, save it for the game. The teams are here, so enough about Dallas already, unless we’re talking geography.

Ben Roethlisberger showing up for tomorrow’s Media Day on horseback would just be rubbing it in . . .