Super Bowl 49: Ranking the most dramatic finishes
By Will Osgood
- Super Bowl XLIII: Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Arizona Cardinals 23
To be honest, I vaguely remember this game in real-time as it was my first Super Bowl being of legal drinking age. But it holds up as one of the finest Super Bowl finishes ever. Kurt Warner led another team with seemingly no business being in the Super Bowl (the ’98 Rams team, not 2001, being the one of which I’m speaking) to the brink of a Super Bowl title.
Larry Fitzgerald also played the game of a lifetime, after having the best overall postseason of any wide receiver in NFL history—30 grabs, 547 yards (136.5 yards per game) and seven touchdowns. In said game, he caught seven passes for 127 yards and two touchdowns.
But he was ultimately outdone by Santonio Holmes, who caught nine passes for 131 yards and made one of the best catches in Super Bowl history, somehow dragging both feet in the end zone for a six-yard touchdown on a perfect throw from Ben Roethlisberger with just 42 seconds remaining in the game.
That, of course, came not long after Larry Fitzgerald had given the Cardinals the lead on a quick slant which he caught and sped by Steelers defenders for 64 yards.
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