DETROIT — The NFL was engaged in one of its periodic discussions about ways to increase marketing opportunities when a custom-designed team jersey arrived. Adorned with sponsorship decals, it resembled a NASCAR driver's uniform. Dan Rooney, chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the league's patriarchs, used the jersey to send a message to the league. His point?

"Our business is the game; we're not in this thing to make all the money in the world," Rooney said Tuesday. "I think some other teams still do things our way. But on this, we might be the last guy on the mountain."

Perhaps they are, but the Steelers are close to the top of the NFL's mountain. They will face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL today with a chance to win the franchise's fifth championship.

Win or lose, the Steelers may also serve as an example to NFL team executives, whose win-now mentality has caused an avalanche of coaching changes in recent weeks and who will soon engage in a fevered pursuit of high-priced free agents in the offseason.

While other teams go through periodic overhauls, plummeting to the bottom of the standings as they scramble to rebuild franchises and generate revenue, the Steelers have stressed building their roster through the draft, keeping their key players off the free-agent market, pursuing free agents from other teams only occasionally and sticking with a coach through troubled times.

The strategy is rarely headline-making. It places a premium on patience, a quality in short supply in many quarters of professional sports. But it has kept the Steelers competitive, even as the NFL has embraced free agency and a salary cap, for all but a handful of 35 years.

"The Steelers have done better than most teams at avoiding the temptation of 'We're just one player away,' " said Michael MacCambridge, the author of "America's Game," which chronicles the history of the NFL. "That will kill you quicker than anything in pro football. If you mark it back to the last 12 years since free agency started, what teams have had more success than you'd expect, the Steelers would be in that column. They are a team that has understood and adapted to free agency and the salary cap as well as anybody else."