Poll

Who was the LUCKIEST team in SB XLIIII and WHY?

Only registered users are allowed to vote for this poll.
11 votes were received.

The Steelers in winning	6		55%
The Cards in coming so close	1		9%
Luck had nothing to do with it because	4		36%

---

The Steelers in winning

The Cards in coming so close

Luck had nothing to do with it because......

I think it was a well-called, well-played game on both sides. Both coaches deserved to win, but only one team can be the champion. I like the fact most recently the Superbowls have been exciting games.
Warner was on the other end of a really close one before. I couldn't stand all the blowouts in the 80's.

I, too, was glad that it was not a blow-out no matter how frustrating the outcome was for me.

I voted that the Steelers got a little four leaf clover in this game, because they got a little help from the refs. Most of the referee calls were ok, but I think they favored the Steelers slightly. Especially that ridiculous roughing the passer call. Also, without the cards falling down on the job on that 100 yard TD int and run, they don't win. An interception is one thing, but a linebacker to be allowed to run to the other end zone for that distance is either absolutely perfect blocking or someone on the cards team fell asleep at the switch.

Steelers deserved to win, I was actually rooting for them. But they had some good fortune their way too. Cards came back and made it a good game.

Also, I don't understand why the rules regarding QB's have come full circle so much. It used to be you'd have him "in the grasp" and it was over. Now QB's are allowed to make all kinds of ridiculous moves to avoid a sack. I don't know why, on one of Ben's throw-down's, ruled not a fumble, wasn't at least considered intentional grounding? It was obvious he was going down and wanted to avoid a sack. It seems a pretty sweet deal, you're being dragged down, you don't want to throw it up in the air to risk an int, so you just get your arm going forward and throw it into the ground!

It was a great game I must say. I enjoyed it thoroughly. If Warner doesnt make throw the Pick 6 in the end zone the Cards probably win. They go into halftime will all the momentum. But exciting game and congrats to the Steelers.

---------------------

"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"

Cardinals gave it away and got beat by the better TEAM.

.....................................................................................
“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

after watching how far the cards came quick someone remind me again that we are 2-3 years away from a championship... The nfl is so even that anyone can go on a run, any one can win on any givin sunday. Once you get to the playoffs everyone is 0-0, there is no record only one and done. Those that were hating and wanted us to lose this year congratulations you got your wish. Now lets see how well we do next year, please dont think that another playoff push next year is a givin.

I said it after the NFC Championship game and I'll say it again after the Super Bowl, but Arizona's offensive staff needs to be fired. There was absolutely NO excuse for not attempting to get the ball to Larry Fitzgerald more in the first half of the Super Bowl. After all week of hearing about how he is ALWAYS open, even when he is covered (and its true), and then they go into the game with a run first mentality???

With a talent like him on your team, the title for your offensive game plan should be "Throw it to Larry!" Doing that is what made them sail through the playoffs... yet when they got a lead on Philly they abandoned it and let them creep back into the game, nearly losing it in the process. In the Super Bowl, they tried to get cute and use the "Well they think we are gonna throw it to Larry, so lets do something else and catch them off guard." game plan. And again... it nearly cost them the game until late when they woke up they were nearly out of it, and somebody "brilliant" on the sideline said, "Hey I know, lets try throwing it to Larry!"

I'll give Pittsburgh credit, but Arizona sure showed that they did deserve to be in the big game.

Most of the experts I follow picked Pittsburgh, and some even said easily. There was no easy to this game. Arizona trounced them in yardage and all that.

Pittsburgh was the most consistent team all season, I give them props for the 6th win.

grooves12 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I said it after the NFC Championship game and I'll
> say it again after the Super Bowl, but Arizona's
> offensive staff needs to be fired. There was
> absolutely NO excuse for not attempting to get the
> ball to Larry Fitzgerald more in the first half of
> the Super Bowl. After all week of hearing about
> how he is ALWAYS open, even when he is covered
> (and its true), and then they go into the game
> with a run first mentality???


HUH??? the arizona coaching staff needs to be fired? and if they forced it to fitz and got picked off 3 times in the first half then what you be saying? Why are they forcing it they should used the other weapons... Come on man, for a team that people were upset were in the playoffs, a team that at the start of the playoffs were 20:1 underdogs to win it all (meaning if you put just $50 on the cards they could have made you $1000!!!) and you want to fire the coaching staff, are you OK? The first 9 win team to ever get to a superbowl? If they are double and triple covering fitz you DONT force it in a game of this magnitude especially when your defense is playing as well as they played that game. I do agree they got away from what they do best and did not start the game in the shot gun which was not very wise but you dont fire a coaching staff that got you to the big game...

the steelers of course, they won after all!

Miami Reppa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> grooves12 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I said it after the NFC Championship game and
> I'll
> > say it again after the Super Bowl, but
> Arizona's
> > offensive staff needs to be fired. There was
> > absolutely NO excuse for not attempting to get
> the
> > ball to Larry Fitzgerald more in the first half
> of
> > the Super Bowl. After all week of hearing about
> > how he is ALWAYS open, even when he is covered
> > (and its true), and then they go into the game
> > with a run first mentality???
>
>
> HUH??? the arizona coaching staff needs to be
> fired? and if they forced it to fitz and got
> picked off 3 times in the first half then what you
> be saying? Why are they forcing it they should
> used the other weapons... Come on man, for a team
> that people were upset were in the playoffs, a
> team that at the start of the playoffs were 20:1
> underdogs to win it all (meaning if you put just
> $50 on the cards they could have made you
> $1000!!!) and you want to fire the coaching staff,
> are you OK? The first 9 win team to ever get to
> a superbowl? If they are double and triple
> covering fitz you DONT force it in a game of this
> magnitude especially when your defense is playing
> as well as they played that game. I do agree they
> got away from what they do best and did not start
> the game in the shot gun which was not very wise
> but you dont fire a coaching staff that got you to
> the big game...

The suggestion of firing them may be a little hyperbole... but they should have won that game, and would have ran away with it with the right game plan. You have the best receiver in the game, a former Super Bowl and League MVP quarterback, great 2nd and 3rd Wide Receivers... and have a running attack that struggles consistently all year facing a tough defense which didn't allow ANYONE to have success running the ball, and you go into the game running EVERY first and second down??

It makes no sense... Fitzgerald was also double and triple covered against the Eagles, and they still threw him the ball over and over in the first half, and guess what... it worked. Their coverage wasn't any tighter on him in this game, in fact I saw several plays where he WAS open but they were not looking to him as the first option. They were trying to get cute and use him as a decoy, and the results weren't too hard to predict. Why was Warner throwing to a backup Tightend in traffic in the red zone, rather than to Fitzgerald on the outside on that pick 6??

Im sorry, but they handicapped themselves in that game by taking their biggest playmaker out of the game plan.

grooves12 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I said it after the NFC Championship game and I'll
> say it again after the Super Bowl, but Arizona's
> offensive staff needs to be fired. There was
> absolutely NO excuse for not attempting to get the
> ball to Larry Fitzgerald more in the first half of
> the Super Bowl. After all week of hearing about
> how he is ALWAYS open, even when he is covered
> (and its true), and then they go into the game
> with a run first mentality???
>
> With a talent like him on your team, the title for
> your offensive game plan should be "Throw it to
> Larry!" Doing that is what made them sail through
> the playoffs... yet when they got a lead on Philly
> they abandoned it and let them creep back into the
> game, nearly losing it in the process. In the
> Super Bowl, they tried to get cute and use the
> "Well they think we are gonna throw it to Larry,
> so lets do something else and catch them off
> guard." game plan. And again... it nearly cost
> them the game until late when they woke up they
> were nearly out of it, and somebody "brilliant" on
> the sideline said, "Hey I know, lets try throwing
> it to Larry!"

I have to agree with Reppa (god help me). Warner threw for 377 yards, Fitz caught 127 of them. Don't you think that maybe Pittsburgh's game plan was to stop LF? I'm sure he was doubled all day long and he still caught 127 & 2 TD's so you can't put this on the staff. Pittsburgh is the number 1 Defense in the league.

IMO, they did a great job to take an 8-8 team (07) to the SuperBowl in the HC's second year. Todd Haley is most likely on his way to Kansas City to be the HC and the D Coordinator took a bunch of underacievers and helped them play at a high level in the playoffs so they could actreach the SuperBowl.

They just did not play well all around. No running game or outside pass rush and look at all the penalties and mistakes the Cards made...and thru all of that they were still in the game until the final seconds.

I will say one thing, Darnell Dockett looked like John Randle yesterday. Whether that was due to Pit's pathetic o-line, I don't know but he looks like a star in the making.

If they can some pass rushers on the edge, beef up the o-line and add a good RB...they will be tough....if they can keep it all together.

.....................................................................................
“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

I too think that the refs called it WAY TOO MUCH the Steelers way. Dolphin Sam was mad about the roughing the quarterback call but I say, even more, what about that roughing the holder call? The guy was stumbloing down and naturally you put your hands up to cushion yourself against hitting the object your head is moving toward. And remember, it was not a "running into the kicker" call. It was an intentional roughing call. Just totally outrageous, although it did not result in any extra points.

But my take on my own question was that the Steelers were the luckiest team which caused them to win. (apologies to my sly friend Toko 34).

True, the Steelers clearly dominated Arizona in the first quarter and through most of the second. But from the mid-second quarter to the end of the game, the Cards clearly dominated but at crucial times, Lady Luck would come through for the Steelers.

To give one small example (although again The Cards did not lose any points over it), the Steelers were operating from their own 1 yard line. I kept hoping for a punt from the Steelers and hoping they did not do what Bob Griese did in one of our important games (memory escapes me) and that was to take an intentional safety to punt out for better field position on the exchange.

Although, the penalty of holding in the endzone nullified a Steeler catch that would have made a first down, it resulted in a safety making the Cards touchdown much harder since they had to start from their own 35 yard line whereas a punt from the endzone would have probably resulted in a run back from midfield.

Next, in an ironical way, I knew the minute Larry Fitzgerald ran into the endzone that the Cards had scored too early.

The last piece of luck was the Arizona defensive back that fell down on Santonio Holmes catch that led to a 40 yard gain. Instead of just respectable distance for a field goal, the Steelers positioned themselves to win the game.

eesti Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I have to agree with Reppa (god help me).
>
Hey what does that mean... do you not feel the reppa's ora, when you roll with the reppa you are rollin with correctness.

Very entertaining SuperBowl, impressive play by both teams...so it's hard to label one as "lucky".

I think the Cardinals were "unlucky" on that long Steeler drive, with THREE Unsportsmanlike penalties. NONE looked flagrant.

Definitely did not understand the running-in-to-the FG holder, could be a rule to protect the "vulnerable" holder but still be bad on a couple levels:
1.) Wasn't flagrant
2.) Hadn't the kick left the foot, to "change possession", yardage to be assessed on the kick-off.

There were 2 other, not-flagged Steeler violations, I think one on that series (Steeler OL falling on Cards DL during pass rush that may have been one of the 15-yd penalties) and then one on the next series (Steeler OL holding/pulling down Cards DL while Ben was getting sacked...ultimately the penalty would have been declined, IF it had been called). The latter one ticked me off because it just looked SO blatant right after those 3 other questionable 15-yard penalties.

Calls started going Arizona's way after that *BUT* they looked legitimate.

Steelers....because they got to play the Cardinals! Should have been the Giants or Eagles. I just hate the Rusty Curtain, but hats off to them, 6 championships is pretty impressive.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME the reffs where deffinatly in the tank for the steelers, come on the last play a fumble? my butt it was a incomplete pass was there a review? the superbowl was b/s the reffs did everything they could to bring home the black and gold. there lucky the cards did not run like a smart team would when on the goal line. BAH now everyone is going to start saying BEN ROTHLISBERGER IS GREAT! the guy is average with a big frame and he is concusion prone 3 serious ones in two years? can you say another troy aikman?