DALLAS COCKY - AND LUCKY.

Byline: Michael Ventre

It was the Cowboys against the world and the world lost.

Let the bragging begin.

"We did it! We did it! We did it!" Barry Switzer bellowed to Jerry Jones on the winner's podium, just when you thought the brain trusts - such as they are - would have been humbled a bit by the tungsten-tough performance of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday's Super Bowl XXX.

"It's really sweet," Emmitt Smith said after the Cowboys' 27-17 triumph at Sun Devil Stadium. "It's like slamming the door on a whole lot of people's faces.

"Everybody thinks we're arrogant. Everybody thinks we're cocky. We're not. We're just confident in our team, confident in our coach, confident in our organization. It's not like we're glamorous. You guys made us glamorous."

So get ready. At the Pro Bowl, they'll pop off. At the NFL draft, they'll defend their choices as if their families were being attacked. At the start of next season, they'll lash out at anyone who doesn't mention them in the same breath with the greatest of all time.

The Dallas Cowboys never have enough opposition. The Steelers played magnificently. It wasn't nearly enough. No team ever is.

The Cowboys love it when the whole world hates them. They need to play against everybody.

What they need to understand this time is that they barely showed anybody. They did not dominate. They escaped.

"We didn't get blown out," Pittsburgh running back Bam Morris said. "We beat ourselves today. I think everybody knows that."

This won't stop the Cowboys from strutting. If anything, they might become even more obnoxious.

But when they go home, they'll admit to themselves that they were humbled. They understand that they came so very close to looking like dopes.

Larry Brown caught two interceptions that were thrown right into his hands and somehow the Cowboys publicly interpret that to mean that they are destined to have their own wing in Canton.

Deep inside, they know better.

"They were tired. They were scared. They were worried," Morris said.

They weren't just worried about losing the game. They were worried about losing their place on the pedestal they erected and scaled themselves.

It started off like most Super Bowls start. One team establishes control and threatens to blow open the game. Usually, it does.

This time, Pittsburgh responded just before the half by converting in the red zone just in time to swing the momentum its way. By the time Diana Ross appeared, it was 13-7 Dallas and the Cowboys had to wonder if maybe they didn't go too far this week with the late nights past curfew and the limos.

"I think this was the toughest challenge we had to face," Russell Maryland of the Cowboys admitted.

The Steelers were the ones who played as if they were aggressive and dynamic, starting the game with a no-huddle offense that took Dallas by surprise. And they kept up the attack, recovering an onsides kick and scoring on a 1-yard run by Morris with 6:36 left to cut it to 20-17. In Big D, the good old boys didn't feel so good.

But a second Neil O'Donnell interception by Brown brought the ball to the Pittsburgh 6. Soon it was 27-17 Dallas and the smirks returned to stay.

In the postgame maelstrom, Switzer was one of the first to take the podium. He made a brief statement, then he tried to leave. He was reminded by the media that the winning head coach in the Super Bowl is obliged to answer a few questions. He returned.

"I've never been here before," he explained. "I'm a rookie. I guess that's the way you do it here."

He went on to explain that this victory does not mean vindication for his infamous fourth-and-1 call against Philly, nor does it suggest redemption for succeeding when the critics scoffed at his ascension to Jimmy Johnson's throne.

"This is a team game," he said. "We won the Super Bowl. We did it, and we did it my way."

Switzer's way involves treating his players like professionals and allowing them to be individuals. The downside of that is apparent. The Cowboys today are the world champions, but they are also the most loathed assemblage in professional sports.

All you had to do was catch a glimpse of team owner Jerry Jones in his private box near game's end, signing an autograph on a dollar bill. It didn't matter how it looked. Nobody on the Cowboys gives a hoot how anything looks.

"To the victor goes the spoils," Nate Newton said. "We're still gonna swagger. We're still arrogant. We're still gonna be ridin' limos late into the night."

But while they do that, they'll also be mindful of just how close the Pittsburgh Steelers came to riding them out of town on something considerably less flattering.