PITTSBURGH — Bill Cowher was back in his new North Carolina home Wednesday, weighing whether to resign as the Pittsburgh Steelers' coach, return for one more season or negotiate a contract extension.

The Steelers are giving Cowher until early next week to make up his mind — possibly because he likely would have resigned if he had been pressured to make a call this week. Several players who met privately with Cowher said it was obvious he was leaning toward quitting.

The 49-year-old Cowher also met with team chairman Dan Rooney and his son, team president Art Rooney II, before leaving for a postseason vacation in Raleigh, but he did not speak with reporters. Cowher may work this weekend as an analyst for NBC's wild card playoff coverage.

Cowher, who has led the Steelers to the NFL playoffs 10 times in his 15 seasons as their coach, never seriously considered stepping aside until the Steelers finally won the Super Bowl last season. Before that, he said he was driven to fill "the void" in his career — the lack of an NFL title.

Cowher's agent and the team held preliminary talks last summer about extending his contract, which runs through 2007, but the two sides were never close to an agreement.

Because of Cowher's popularity with his players and his success, the Steelers are giving him more time to make up his mind than many teams would.

They also are agreeable to Cowher returning this year without a contract extension, if he were to decide he wants to keep coaching for at least one more season, or to discussing a multiple-year extension.

"He knows he's wanted and we love having him as our coach," guard Alan Faneca said.

If Cowher leaves, it would probably be to spend more time with his family, which relocated to Raleigh last summer. His youngest daughter, Lindsay, is a high school sophomore who wanted to play basketball in North Carolina this season. Her two older sisters, Meagan and Lauren, currently play at Princeton.

While this was the first season Cowher spent away from his family, he said it was not a distraction — possibly because the time demands on NFL coaches are so great, they have little free time during a season. He did make brief trips to North Carolina during the team's bye week and the two weekends after the Steelers played Thursday night games.

Cowher might decide he wants to leave the NFL for a year or two, possibly working as an NFL analyst, until his youngest daughter graduates high school. He could then return to the NFL as a coach, almost certainly with a contract comparable to the league's highest-paid coaches.

In its recent survey of NFL coaching salaries, Forbes magazine chose Cowher as the league's biggest bargain — his $4 million-plus salary is about half that of Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren.

However, the Steelers president doesn't think money is a hang-up with Cowher since last year's contract talks did not advance far enough for a salary to be negotiated.

If Cowher leaves, the Steelers have two strong in-house candidates to replace him in offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant head coach Russ Grimm, both of whom will interview with other teams in the next few days. The Steelers also would talk to candidates outside the organization.

Whisenhunt is scheduled to interview today with the Atlanta Falcons and this weekend with the Arizona Cardinals, while Grimm has a Monday interview with the Cardinals. Both have been finalists before for NFL head coaching positions, and Whisenhunt apparently could have had the Oakland job last year if he had wanted it.