Walking away

A few of us gathered around to talk in the hours we had to kill before the Super Bowl and talked about what we thought was going to happen.

The subject of Jerome Bettis came up. One guy said he thought Bettis would announce his retirement later in the week if the Steelers won. Me and another guy felt he would wait until later.

He fooled us all.

Bettis hanging it up as he raised the Lombardi Trophy above his head Sunday night will go down as one of the great moments in Super Bowl history.

Bettis had been the storyline all week here in Detroit, his hometown, even though he's been relegated to backup status with the Steelers.

But so much more than being a backup, Bettis was the leader of this team, a championship team.

I consider myself fortunate to have covered him for the past 10 seasons of his Hall of Fame career.