THE CATCH !
This is the catch – with only 35 seconds left and 3 points down – that sealed a record-setting sixth Super Bowl victory for the Pittsburg Steelers, 27-23 over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday night. And it is bound to go down in NFL history as one of the greatest catches of all time, placing Santonio Holmes in the pantheon of Hall-of-Fame wide receivers alongside the likes of former Steeler Lynn Swann.
As I declared in my post predicting an Arizona upset win, however, my team is the Philadelphia Eagles. Therefore, I really did not care which team won last night. Yet, as a football fan, I was still hoping for a good game. And I was not disappointed, notwithstanding a mostly soporific first half.
Because in addition to that game-ending catch by Holmes, the game’s MVP, there were many plays that made Super Bowl XLIII the most exciting in living memory – surpassing even the NY Giants’ upset victory over the New England Patriots last year.
Indeed, with all due respect to Holmes, the highlight of the game for me was watching linebacker James Harrison lumbering down the field with a 100-yard interception return, making it the longest in Super Bowl history. Not surprisingly, he collapsed in the end zone…
Meanwhile, even though they’re suffering the agony of defeat this morning, the Cardinals must derive meaningful consolation from the fact that they went from being called the worst team to ever make it to the NFL playoffs just weeks ago to being just seconds away from Super Bowl champions last night.
But, since no player personified their path towards redemption more than quarterback Kurt Warner, no player is probably more disappointed by their loss than he. And no doubt his disappointment is all the more painful because it was he who threw that historic interception to Harrison just before halftime, which was a definite game-changer….
NOTE: There’s no greater indication of how boring the overhyped commercials turned out to be than the fact that, even now, the only one I can remember is the Pepsi ad featuring Bob Dylan and Will.i.Am.
Related commentaries:
Super Bowl XLIII: My pick, the Arizona Cardinals
chris says
James Harrison is a thug and should be fined. He has an evil,ugly and mean spirit the way he leaned on Francisco of the Cardinals and wouldn’t let him get up. He was bullying him and then shoved him twice as he tried to get up. Dumb Ass Harrison has a mean spirit. He couldn’t let his runback interception be enough. As far as I’m concerned he wiped out his good deed with the extremely bad one. Steelers deserved to lose based on the bullies on their team. I wish they would have lost and taught dumb ass harrison a lesson. He cost them 2 points and lots of momentum when he did that. The steelers are thugs!!
chris says
also the steelers team is boring. if they didn’t have defense ( based on the mean players on their team ) they wouldn’t have anything. their offense is boring i.e. run, fall down – run fall down etc.. at least the cardinals had some colorful plays downfield. poor atheletes and no talent on steelers. steelers are a boring and meanspirited team and greedy also– as if 5 championships is not enough already!! dumb creeps. I’m so sick of seeing the steelers in stuff.It’s time for other teams to emerge.