Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game pitting the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers against the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2008 season. It was the 43rd Super Bowl. The Steelers (15–4) defeated the Cardinals (12–7) by a score of 27-23, earning their sixth Super Bowl win, and thus securing sole possession of the record for most Super Bowl wins. This broke the three-way, five-victory tie the Steelers themselves achieved alongside the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XL three seasons prior.
The game, played on February 1, 2009, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, was a contest between one of the NFL's most successful franchises (Pittsburgh) and one of the league's historically unsuccessful franchises (Arizona). The Cardinals entered the game seeking their first NFL title since 1947, the longest championship drought in the league. The club became an unexpected winner during the season and the playoffs with the aid of head coach Ken Whisenhunt, who was the Steelers offensive coordinator during Super Bowl XL, and the re-emergence of quarterback Kurt Warner, who was the Super Bowl MVP in Super Bowl XXXIV with the St. Louis Rams.
Pittsburgh outgained Arizona 158 to 102 yards in the first half of Super Bowl XLIII, jumping to a 17–7 lead at halftime, aided by linebacker James Harrison's Super Bowl record 100-yard interception return for a touchdown . However, trailing 20–7 at the start of the fourth quarter, Arizona scored 16 unanswered points, including wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald's 64-yard touchdown reception, to take the lead with 2:37 remaining in the game. But then the Steelers marched 78-yards to score on wide receiver Santonio Holmes's 6-yard game-winning touchdown catch with 35 seconds left. Holmes, who caught nine passes for 131 yards and a touchdown, including four receptions for 71 yards on that final game-winning drive, was named Super Bowl MVP. He became the sixth wide receiver to win the award, and also was the third Pittsburgh receiver to win the award, following Lynn Swann and Hines Ward.
Despite the global financial crisis and limited amount of ancillary festivities that are normally held before the game, approximately 98.7 million American viewers watched the game on the NBC television network, making it the most-watched Super Bowl in history.
Background
Host selection process
Tampa was selected for the game site on May 25, 2005, beating out three other finalists: Atlanta, Houston, and Miami. Super Bowl XLIII was the second Super Bowl at this venue and the fourth overall in that city.
In February 2008, the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee unveiled the Super Bowl XLIII logo, featuring an abstract representation of a football stadium, with blue and green colors representing the regional waterways and landscapes of Tampa Bay. Eight yards of playing field are shown, alluding to the game's status as the championship of the 2008 NFL season. In a tradition starting with the Super Bowl XL logo, two stars — one red, representing the AFC, and one blue, representing the NFC — are flanked on either side of the Super Bowl XLIII logo. The tagline for Super Bowl XLIII as well as the 2008 NFL season is "Believe In Now".
Teams
The seeds of Super Bowl XLIII can be traced back to the end of the 2006 season. After winning Super Bowl XL in 2005, the Pittsburgh Steelers fell to an 8–8 record the following year. At the end of 2006, Bill Cowher ended his 15-year tenure as their head coach, leaving with a 149–90–1 regular season record and a 12–9 record in the playoffs. Both offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant head coach Russ Grimm were widely considered the front-runners to succeed Cowher in Pittsburgh.
However, without waiting to see if Pittsburgh would hire him, Whisenhunt accepted the head coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals, a team that held the second longest championship drought in U.S. sports (1947, with only the Chicago Cubs last winning their championship in 1908) and had never advanced to the Super Bowl in their franchise history. The Steelers then passed over Grimm and instead hired Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin. Once Tomlin was hired by the Steelers, Grimm joined Whisenhunt in Arizona in the same position as assistant head coach as he had in Pittsburgh, and the two of them began to remodel the perennial losing club into a winner like the Steelers.
Of historical note, the game matched up two franchises previously merged into a single team, "Card-Pitt", for the 1944 season in response to the depleted rosters during World War II. Pittsburgh was going for its sixth Super Bowl win, which would place it in sole possession of the record for most Super Bowl wins, while the Cardinals were seeking their first league title since 1947 and only the second undisputed league championship in their history. (The then-Chicago Cardinals were named the NFL champions in 1925 for finishing with the best record, but also because the Pottsville Maroons had been fined and suspended for playing a game against the Notre Dame football team in another NFL franchise's territory.) It was the third Super Bowl in history to feature two pre-expansion era (pre-1960) teams, joining Super Bowl XIV (Steelers vs. Los Angeles Rams, the latter of which coincidentally also went 9-7 in the regular season) and Super Bowl XLI (Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears). The Cardinals and Steelers played each other twice per season from 1960 through 1969, first in the Eastern Division (1960-66), then in the Century Division of the Eastern Conference (1967-69).
It was also the first time that two quarterbacks who previously started for a Super Bowl winning team (Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger) opposed one another since Jim Plunkett's Los Angeles Raiders defeated Joe Theisman's Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII. Warner started for the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowls XXXIV and Super Bowl XXXVI, winning the first and losing the second one, while Roethlisberger was the winning quarterback in Super Bowl XL.
Pittsburgh Steelers
For more details on this topic, see 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers season.Under Tomlin's first season as head coach, the Steelers improved to a 10–6 record in 2007. Pittsburgh then finished the 2008 season with the second best record in the AFC at 12–4, making the playoffs for the 6th time in the last eight seasons, and went on to earn their seventh Super Bowl trip in franchise history, breaking a three-way tie with the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos for second most Super Bowl appearances. The Steelers are now one Super Bowl behind the Dallas Cowboys, who currently hold the record for most appearances with eight.
The Steelers excelled on defense, leading the NFL in fewest points (13.9) and yards (237.2) per game allowed, while also ranking second in sacks with 51. Up front, their line was anchored by defensive end Aaron Smith, who recorded 60 tackles and six sacks. Behind him, two of the Steelers starting linebackers ranked among the top ten sack leaders in the NFL, LaMarr Woodley (11.5 sacks) and Pro Bowler/NFL Defensive Player of the Year James Harrison (16 sacks). Pro Bowl linebacker James Farrior was also a big contributor, recording 4 sacks and leading the team with 133 tackles. The Steelers secondary was led by pro bowl safety Troy Polamalu, who ranked second in the NFL with a career high seven interceptions.
For the fifth year in a row, the Steelers offense was led by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who finished the season with 3,301 passing yards and 17 touchdowns, with 15 interceptions. His top target was the Steelers all-time receiving leader Hines Ward, who recorded his fifth 1,000-yard season with 81 receptions for 1,043 yards and seven touchdowns. Other reliable receiving options included Santonio Holmes (55 receptions for 821 yards), Nate Washington (40 receptions for 631 yards), and tight end Heath Miller (48 receptions for 514 yards). The Steelers ground game was led by two-time pro bowl running back Willie Parker, who had rushed for over 1,200 yards in each of his last three seasons. Injuries in 2008 limited him to 791 yards in 11 games, but running back Mewelde Moore proved to be a solid replacement, rushing for 588 yards and catching 40 passes for 320.
For their efforts, Tomlin won the 2008 Motorola Coach Of The Year Award and Harrison was awarded with the 2008 GMC Sierra Defensive Player Of The Year.
Arizona Cardinals
For more details on this topic, see 2008 Arizona Cardinals season.Under Whisenhunt's first season as head coach, the Cardinals finished with an 8–8 record in 2007. Arizona then finished the 2008 season with a 9–7 record and went on to earn their first trip to the Super Bowl in franchise history, becoming only the second NFL team to do so with nine wins.
One reason for Arizona's success was the re-emergence of 37-year old quarterback Kurt Warner. After going undrafted and spending a few years in the Arena Football League, Warner became the St. Louis Rams starting quarterback in 1999 due to a pre-season injury of starter Tre
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