Bill Cowher explains why losing the AFC Championship hurts even more

Legendary NFL head coach Bill Cowher explained why losing the conference championship was much harder to deal with than losing the Super Bowl.

Cowher led the Steelers to two Super Bowl appearances from 1992 to 2006. The team narrowly fell short in 1995 against the Dallas Cowboys. However, his teams lost four times in the AFC Championship.

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He said Monday in an interview on the “Dan Patrick Show” that what-if scenarios always persist when watching the Super Bowl.

“Losing the (conference) championship game was a lot tougher,” he said. “And I lost that four times. I lost a Super Bowl once, I won it once. But losing those championship games was harder because, you know, you sit there for two weeks and you look at the team that you had a chance to beat and you could have beaten them. Look at the Rams, they could have done it. Is Denver, if they had their quarterback, is that a different outcome?

CBS sports broadcaster Bill Cowher before the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High on November 16, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)

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“After this game? After next weekend, everyone watches NCAA basketball. There’s no more football. There’s a purpose to what you do.”

Cowher added that when he won the Super Bowl in 2005, he immediately got back to work. He watched his daughter play basketball and did household chores that were postponed until the end of the season.

Bill Cowher on the set of “Thursday Night Football” before the game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers at Ford Field on December 3, 2015. (Tim Fuller/USA TODAY Sports)

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Then he had to prepare for the NFL Combine with free agency and the draft behind that.