THE FOURTEEN POINT PASS SUPERBOWL

Not the last 14 points of the game but the minus and plus seven points that ended the first half determined the winner of the Super Bowl this year. The Pittsburg Steelers and Arizona Cardinals were worthy contenders. They played a great game that the Cardinals should have won. Arizona was by a very small margin the better team but could not afford to give away 14 points. I don’t mean the last 14 points scored. They added up to zero. Larry Fitzgerald’s splendid run up the middle for a touchdown after a perfect pass from Kurt Warner with little more than two minutes left in the final quarter of the game was magnificent; Santonio Holmes’ game-deciding leaping catch of Ben Roethlisberger’s lofted pass to the back right corner of the end zone, which Holmes brought down tiptoe in bounds before falling out was all but unbelievable. That set of seven pointers completed the game but added up to a wash. The Pittsburg score negated Arizona’s, leaving the Steelers a field goal plus one ahead with seconds left to play in a game that ended on Warner’s weak forward pass with defenders hanging on him being called a fumble. Time ran out, and Pittsburg had its sixth title. But the really crucial play ended the first half. Minus seven followed by plus seven, despite what your first grade teacher taught you, does not always equal zero. Kurt Warner, a Hall of Fame quality quarterback, still magnificent at 37, did not read the defense accurately as he nosed up to the Pittsburg goal line with under a minute remaining in that first half. He expected an all-out blitz--he was right to expect an all-out blitz--but Pittsburg cleverly had James Harrison fake a rush and then guard against the pass. The result was an easy interception on the goal line followed by a 100 yard runback for a Pittsburg touchdown (and the all but automatic extra point of course). Minus seven for Arizona, plus seven for Pittsburg, a fourteen point difference in one play that rendered the ultimate margin of victory--four points, as in 27-23—miniscule. The Steelers won it all; Arizona was the better team; and there were teams watching—the Giants and Patriots, for example—that may have been better than both of them. Great season for underdogs in both baseball and football this year, not quite great enough to push the under-underdogs over the top, but memorable for fans and teams alike!