Tom E. Curran • E-mail

LATROBE, Penn. - It’s a late summer rite. Show up at defending Super Bowl champion’s training camp. Ask if team is ready for its encore.

Will anyone ever tell the truth? Will some guy ever step to the mic and say, “Well, actually, we’re pretty impressed with ourselves right about now. And with the shortened offseason thanks to our Super Bowl win (pause for dap with nearby teammate) we feel like we reserve the right to ease into this training camp like a sore guy getting in a hot tub. Honestly, we’d been working a title for so long that we’re still feeling fat. And happy. So we plan to ratchet it up intensity-wise around Columbus Day. And that includes with the media. So unless you want to talk about the serious injustice I had done to me with my Madden rating this year — did they not get the memo? WE WON THE SUPER BOWL — I gotta jet.”

The 2006 Steelers didn’t say that after they won it all in 2005. But that’s what happened. After getting turned away in the AFC Championship by the Patriots in 2001 and 2004 after going a combined 28-4 in those years, the almost unexpected championship in 2005 was like found money.

They came back the next season and — distracted out of the chutes by Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle crash — fell flat. That Bill Cowher-led team went 8-8. It took a late-season flurry to even get to that point after starting out 4-7.

And here we are, three summers later with the Steelers coming off a Super Bowl win.

Why will it be different?

Special feature 3 things to know about each team Tom Curran and Gregg Rosenthal break down the crucial info as NFL training camps begin NBCSports.com

Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert considers the question. Seated at a picnic table that’s perched on a hill at bucolic St. Vincent’s College, Colbert’s fresh from Sunday morning Mass. He turns his palms to the sky and explains, “The team in ‘05, that had been their first experience at winning a Super Bowl and quite honestly there was a feeling of relief that we had finally accomplished that.”

And?

“And now, it’s a totally different situation because it’s two totally different teams,” he explains.

“We have 21 players that are still on this team from 2005. They know how to handle it much better than they did in 2006 because they’ve experienced it. And the guys who weren’t here, they have these veteran guys to remind them, ‘Hey, this is what it’s going to be like.’ You are now THE big game on everybody’s schedule. There’s a lot of extra incentive to beat the previous Super Bowl champion. It’s just there, it’s just natural.”

Every NFL team has questions at the start of their season. But while the bad ones wonder who will play where or if their defense can stop anybody, the very good ones — like Pittsburgh — deal with things on a different level.

Such as what tone Mike Tomlin, the Steelers’ gifted young coach, strikes with his team. Or how touches will be divided on an offense that figures to have running backs Willie Parker and Rashad Mendenhall (both injured for huge chunks in 2008) back for the duration.

And dealing with the knowledge that, at the end of the season, nine major contributors have expiring contracts and deciding if its time to groom the men behind them.

The Steelers were good in 2008, going 12-4. But they should be even better this year. Especially on the offensive line, their one glaring weak spot in 2008 (49 sacks allowed, 3.7 yards per carry in the running game).