PITTSBURGH -- One of the few veteran newcomers to a Pittsburgh Steelers team that enjoyed a remarkable rate of retention during the offseason, Terance Mathis signed as a free agent because he had some goals still not accomplished, and the ever-perceptive wide receiver has sensed in his very brief time here that this is a team with similar purpose.

In his 13th season in the league, Mathis is still chasing a Super Bowl ring. Seven months removed from an AFC championship game meltdown against New England, a series of critical faux pas that resulted in Pittsburgh's third loss in the last four conference title games at home, so are the Steelers.

	Kordell Stewart threw 14 TDs and only 11 INTs last season.

"I don't know everything that went on here last year," said Mathis, "but it doesn't take long in camp with these guys to sense they feel they've got some unfinished business. The thing is, it's a process, right? Last year, good or bad, has nothing to do with this year. You have to start all over again. It's not like you get a bye into the championship game just because you were in it the previous season. You can't pick up right where you left off, you know?"

Actually, the Steelers, heavily favored this year to represent the AFC in Super Bowl XXXVII, painfully picked up in Thursday night's preseason opener at Heinz Field precisely where they left off in the 2001 playoff exit.

In the exhibition loss to the New York Jets, which was eerily familiar to the defeat in the AFC championship contest, there were myriad special teams pratfalls; an overthrown pass by Kordell Stewart that sailed over the head of wideout Plaxico Burress and was intercepted; missed tackles on defense and squandered offensive opportunities in "red zone" situations; and a very unproductive outing by tailback Jerome Bettis.

Thankfully for coach Bill Cowher and his team, the exhibition defeat cost the Steelers only a little pride, not a Super Bowl berth. Twenty-two years after the dynasty teams of the '70s won their fourth and final title in a brilliant six-year run, Pittsburgh is still after the long awaited one more ring for the thumb. And if Thursday's shoddy performance definitely earned a thumb's down grade, with Cowher more than a little peeved by all the mental errors, there remains among the players a quiet confidence that this is the year.

And, really, why shouldn't it be?

Pittsburgh is without only two starters, inside linebacker Earl Holmes and right guard Rich Tylski, from its 2001 lineup. All but two of the current starters, left tackle Wayne Gandy and strong safety Lee Flowers, are signed through at least the 2004 season, giving the Steelers a wide window of opportunity for adding a fifth Vince Lombardi Trophy to those that already reside in the lobby of the team's new Southside training complex.

For all his title game failures, Cowher remains one of the league's best coaches, and a consummate motivator. Creative offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey has some new and exciting personnel that should keep him doodling the league's most innovative X's and O's. Defensive coordinator Tim Lewis, who had the NFL's top-rated unit in '01, knows his charges should be every bit as suffocating this time around.

The lone caveat is the special teams units and, while the sloppy kicking game is still a concern, there is a sense that Cowher will make it right even if he has to take over the stewardship of the group. Cowher is so intent on improving the special teams, in fact, that one player noted he frequently sits in on the unit's meetings now.

"There are a lot of franchises that would love to have (Pittsburgh's) so-called problems," acknowledged a scout from another AFC team who watched Thursday night's game. One scout from an NFC franchise assessed that the Pittsburgh roster includes 8-10 veterans of Pro Bowl caliber.

Despite a suggestion by New York middle linebacker Marvin Jones that the Steelers may already be feeling some pressure, the weight of lofty expectations really doesn't weigh all that heavily on the players, it seems. The loyal Terrible Towel-toting fans are, by nature, a pessimistic lot. They love their Steelers but are only now recovering from the shock of the team's failure to advance to the Super Bowl in 2001.

The team, though, appears to have put last season in the rear-view mirror.

	"	We feel like this is a very, very strong roster. Better than last year. More complete. Even more explosive. "
		— Jerome Bettis, Steelers running back

Privately most of the Pittsburgh veterans allow that they should be the favorites in the AFC this year. They also concede that the manner in which the 2001 season ended has served as motivation for this year. As early as a June minicamp, when the team had one of its most rousing practices in recent memory, Steelers players have seemed to be on a mission of atonement. That sense of urgency, Bettis acknowledged, has carried over into training camp as well.

While some of the coaches eschew discussion of 2001, at least for attribution, players are not bashful about agreeing the Steelers should enter the season as AFC favorites. That is not meant as a slight to the Patriots, with whom Pittsburgh opens the season in a Monday night matchup, but rather an acknowledgement of the talent in the Steelers locker room.

There are, indeed, plenty of playmakers on both sides of the ball. The arrival of Mathis and second-round draft choice Antwaan Randle El, both of whom flashed brilliance on Thursday night, gives the Steelers what is arguably the deepest wide receiver corps in the history of the club. The defense is so steeped in talent that the most notable free agent addition, former Jets linebacker and first-round choice James Farrior, has yet been able to crack the starting lineup.

Although the team's September dance card is daunting, the team's overall schedule is rated as the second easiest in the league. Certainly this isn't a bunch that needed any breaks from the schedulemaker.

"We feel," said Bettis, "like this is a very, very strong roster. Better than last year. More complete. Even more explosive."

More than raw talent, though, what is most notable in the Steelers locker room is the undeniable sense that this needs to be a season of redemption. Fueled by the revenues from Heinz Field, ownership has invested more than $60 million in singing bonuses over the last 15 months to keep the Pittsburgh roster together, and the unspoken assumption is that a Super Bowl trophy will be part of the return dividend.

Certainly the players expect to be playing in the Super Bowl, although most of them keep their proclamations modest, and attempt to downplay their excitement. But some veterans said the atmosphere in the locker room, when the doors are closed to the outside world, is already stoked.

"If anything, I think we've got to calm ourselves down a little, because it's like we're all chomping at the bit," said Flowers. "This is a very focused team. But what we have to focus on is playing hard every week, not getting ahead of ourselves, not taking anything at all for granted. We do that and there's no reason we can't take it one step further than we did a year ago."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.