Tagged: Super Bowl
How a Giant loss led to a Super win
The Super Bowl smoke has finally cleared and after a fun and exhausting fourth quarter, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the first team to capture a sixth Lombardi trophy.
As the final score indicated, Pittsburgh was obviously the better team on Sunday, which shouldn’t have surprised anybody. As I said repeatedly on my Football NYC Web cast, the Steelers were the better team all season long; they were dominant in their division and played tough in all four of their losses. On Sunday, the keys to them winning the game were the same reasons they were there in the first place.
A) Defense, Defense, Defense – All season long, the Steelers were the top defense in the NFL, led by two of the best playmakers in the league with Troy Polamalu and the defensive player of the year James Harrison, who made one of the biggest plays in Super Bowl history.
B) Follow Your Leader – Big Ben is really starting to remind me of John Elway. I’m impressed by his never-say-die attitude and mental toughness; plus it’s nearly impossible not to say “wow” when he’s making plays out of the pocket, which we saw a couple of times on Sunday. He has two Lombardi trophies so far in his short career and has clearly established himself as a man that you would want to lead your team if the odds were stacked against you.
C) Mental Toughness – The Steelers never complained about having the toughest schedule ever created, and they never made excuses when many of their players went down with injuries. After Larry Fitzgerald’s touchdown catch gave the Cardinals the lead late in the fourth, we didn’t see any panic on the Steelers’ bench; instead we saw players rally behind their quarterback, make plays and history.
I, along with most of America, was very impressed with the winning drive at the end of the game. But I wasn’t surprised, as I thought back to a road trip that I took earlier in the season.
In October, I traveled to Pittsburgh for their game against the Giants. (By the way, if anyone has not been to the Steel City for a game try to get there, its one of the best sports towns I have ever visited.) It was a rewarding trip for me since the Giants did win the game, but afterward, I remember going back to my hotel room and watching all of the news reports on TV (after all, the city basically shuts down for the Steelers games). Being a New Yorker, I fully expected to hear reporters and fans trashing the team (especially Ben Roethlisberger who had a terrible game with four interceptions). But that was not the case at all. Instead of being critical, the local media basically gave the Steelers credit for keeping it close against the champs, despite all the injuries that were plaguing the team at the time. Boy, how is that for night and day when comparing it to the New York media after a Giants or Jets loss? Eli Manning was the MVP of the Super Bowl last year and he couldn’t even get a free pass when it ended badly for the Giants this season.
The interviews with the players were no different. They knew they had a great opportunity to win the game but came up short. They looked towards next week and focused on the positives. In the end, what I took away from that weekend in the Steel City was that the fans, the media and most importantly the players all had an optimistic feeling about his season. Even after a tough loss they kept their composure and concentrated on the positives rather than dwell on the negatives and we all saw the results on Sunday.
Six in the city? … Steel City, that is
Hello fellow football fans and thanks for reading my thoughts on the NFL. I just want to say up front that although I am an NFL analyst, I am also a fan, a fanatic is more like it, which means that I have many opinions and often play the armchair quarterback position to a tee. There is no right or wrong answers in this blog, I rarely bring up stats and I will try my best not to be too biased towards the Giants, because above all I am a football fan. I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts and opinions on the league and your views on the Giants, Jets and all of the teams in the NFL during the year.
Okay, now that the official stuff is out of the way, we move on Sunday and say goodbye to another NFL season (c’mon do you really count the Pro Bowl as a real game?). Two teams with very different histories will compete for the Lombardi trophy. It’s not the David and Goliath matchup that we had last year, but it does have a Cinderella story feel to it because these teams had two very different paths to the big game, so here are a few thoughts on the game.
The Arizona Cardinals came into the season as the favorite to win their division, but let’s face it folks, that really is not saying much when you have the Rams, Seahawks and the 49ers (total of 13 wins collectively). The Cardinals went on to win all of their divisional games and clinch their division in November, something never before seen in Arizona. You could tell that they really didn’t know how to handle the success; if you were watching any of their games down the stretch, you would have thought they were preseason games.
Look, did anyone out there really think that when the playoffs started the Cardinals were going to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl? I didn’t even think they were going to win their first playoff game at home versus the Falcons. Better yet, I thought that the matchup versus the Panthers was the most lopsided of the divisional weekend. Boy was I wrong. The Cardinals then went on to beat the Eagles and capture their first NFC championship.
It was an impressive playoff run for Cardinals and it opened my eyes to of a couple of things.
A) Why am I surprised that’s the same Kurt Warner, who was a league and Super Bowl MVP, looking very comfortable in the playoffs and looking like he is still wearing the horns on the side of his helmet?
B) Larry Fitzgerald is flat-out the best receiver in football… has all of the physical tools and no one goes up and gets a ball like him.
C) The defense is legit. They bottled the Falcons and the Panthers running backs and made Jake Delhomme look like he was playing junior varsity ball.
D) Oh yeah, they remembered that Edgerrin James was still on the team and he can still be effective.
On the opposite side of the field are the Pittsburgh Steelers; just hearing their name evokes memories of John Facenda’s voice as he narrates the old the NFL Films Super Bowl memories. They are no strangers to this game and are hoping to become the first team to capture their sixth title.
Unlike the Cardinals, the Steelers had the highest of expectations entering the season. They played one of the hardest schedules ever drawn up and they have the best defense in the league, hands down. James Harrison and Troy Polamalu are the difference makers for the Steelers much like Aquan Boldin and Fitzgerald are for the Cards. Pittsburgh’s weakness lies with its offensive line and it will be interesting to see if Ben Roethlisberger tries to do too much because of his poor performance in the last Super Bowl.
The greatest intangible in this game will be the Ken Wisenhunt-Russ Grimm connection to their former team; both were considered to be top contenders for the head coaching job until Mike Tomlin went in and blew away the Steelers in his interview. I do think that the Steelers are the better team and I expect them to win the game. Then again, I thought that the Panthers were as close to a sure thing there is and as we all know, there is no such thing as a sure thing in football.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.
Football NYC 