So I was watching NBC last night - got to see a ton of yellow flags, thoroughbreds and Danica Patrick in the process - when, all of a sudden, a football game broke out.
It's hard to say exactly when Super Bowl XLIII turned from a snoozefest of Arizona Cardinals penalties, dropped passes and largely uninspired commercials (more on those later) into one of the greatest NFL championship games of all time - Commissioner Roger Goodell went so far as to proclaim it even better than last year's epic Patriots-Giants duel.
But the turning point was probably when Cards wideout/freak-of-nature Larry Fitzgerald hauled in a six-yard pass from Kurt Warner with 10:33 left in the fourth quarter for just his second reception of the game.
Fitzgerald, whom the Pittsburgh Steelers secondary had completely shut down until that point in the game, finally turned from a nonfactor into the "meast" (short for half-man, half-beast for anyone who doesn't read kissingsuzykolber.com) we're so accustomed to. He grabbed another Warner pass out of the air two plays later for an 18-yard gain, then a six-yarder on the next play. After a completion over the middle to running back Tim Hightower got the Cards to the Pittsburgh one-yard-line, Fitz reeled in a touchdown pass over Ike Taylor to bring his team to within six.
Later in the fourth, after a safety netted the Cards two more points, Fitzgerald made what was this close to being the game's biggest play when, in classic Larry Fitzgerald fashion, he caught a pass from Warner on a post route over the middle, turned upfield and zoomed 64 yards to the end zone, watching himself on the Jumbotron the whole time - 23-20 Cardinals after the extra point.
But it wasn't enough, as just over two minutes later Steelers receiver and soon-to-be-named Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes made a spectacular catch on his tip-toes in the right corner of the end zone to give the Steelers the lead for good and their NFL-record sixth Super Bowl victory - obviously the play of the game, though the clearly freaked-out stagehand who juggled Bruce Springsteen's recklessly thrown guitar at the beginning of the halftime show and just barely managed to hang on provided us with a close runner-up.
As for the commercials, the enduring memory from this year's Madison Avenue throwdown may well turn out to be an advertisement than many viewers could have easily missed, one that I at first thought was the result of an NBC screw-up. I am of course speaking of the widely hyped one-second ad from Miller Brewing Co. in which a delivery man whips up his arms and screams "High Life!" - the result of a shoot that apparently lasted 17 hours.
The diet soda hater in me also enjoyed the Pepsi Max ad where we see guys who have just been whacked with golf clubs, bowling balls and thousands of volts of electricity shake it off with a cool "I'm good."
The punch line: "Men can take anything ... except the taste of diet cola."
Alex Mazerov '10 agrees with John Madden: "That was a real super Super Bowl."
