Playoff loss to Steelers doesn't haunt Herm

Herman Edwards isn't about to stick index fingers in his ears, pretending as if it never happened. But that doesn't mean he wants to hear about it.

With the Jets preparing to play a playoff game in Pittsburgh for the first time since dropping a 20-17 overtime heartbreaker there Jan. 15, 2005, it's stirring up old emotions for some.

The Jets' Doug Brien missed field-goal attempts of 47 and 43 yards in the last 2:02 of regulation. The Steelers won on a 33-yard Jeff Reed field goal to reach the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots.

Edwards insists he got over that emotional defeat long ago.

"In 30 years of football, coaching and playing, when the game is over with, it's over," Edwards, an ESPN analyst, told Newsday Tuesday. "Ain't no demons, man. No demons. That's just how I'm built. I don't hang on to stuff. I ain't built that way, I never have been. People always say, 'Well, they should've done this or they should've done that.'

"We lost the game, OK? I'm sorry we lost. We weren't trying to lose. We were trying to win, just like we won the [wild-card] game in San Diego nobody thought we could win and we won that game to get there. So that thing happened so long ago, I don't even think about it. If that's the case, then I'm still mad at the Raiders for beating me in the Super Bowl in '80."

Six years ago, some criticized Edwards for not being more aggressive before Brien's 43-yard try. The Jets had the ball at Pittsburgh's 24-yard line with 16 seconds left in regulation. After a timeout, Edwards had Chad Pennington take a knee for a 1-yard loss rather than run Curtis Martin to get the ball closer for Brien in the notoriously difficult kicking environment at Heinz Field.

The kick sailed wide left as time expired in regulation, opening up Edwards to second-guessing.

"I can't worry about that, you know what I mean?" Edwards said in a high-pitched voice. "That ain't me. Maybe it's because of the position I played. I played corner. Once the play is over, you've got to move to the next one, brother, because you can't worry about what happened. You can't go back and say, 'Well, what if I would've done this?'

"I talk to people all the time and they say, 'What if this would've happened?' I say, 'The cards you are dealt are the cards you are dealt. You should play them and don't worry about anybody else's cards. You don't worry about what happened. It happened.'

"You could go back in your life and say, 'Man, I wish I was 6-foot-3 rather than 5-11.' You are what you are. You just go and you enjoy your life, and you don't worry about the things you don't have."

That's precisely what Edwards has done. He navigated his way out of New York after the 2005 season to succeed Dick Vermeil as Chiefs coach. Now he's in his second year with ESPN, and that playoff loss in Pittsburgh is ancient history.

"Man, that's over with," he said. "That game happened, I don't even know how long it happened - five years ago, six years ago? I have moved on, brother. Once that week is over with, I'm on to the next thing. One thing about life, to me that's where people get it screwed up. In life, there ain't no finish line.

"So you've got to move on to the next thing, OK? Let me go. I've got to go do something else."