super bowl recap -- the game itself

the winning touchdown

the only thing i wanted from the super bowl was that it wouldn't be boring.

well, it wasn't.

santonio holmes, a wide receiver for the pittsburgh steelers, caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from ben roethlisberger in the corner of the end zone with 35 seconds left to play. that touchdown gave the steelers a 27-23 win over the arizona cardinals.

but it wasn't easy.

three cardinal defensive players surrounded holmes as he grabbed the pass. then he made sure both feet -- or at least the tiptoes of both feet -- were in bounds after he caught the ball. (for the record, a receiver must catch the ball with both feet in bounds for a complete pass in professional football.)

holmes' touchdown came after kurt warner threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to larry fitzgerald with 2:37 left to play. it gave arizona a 23-20 lead: its first of the game.

the cardinals were down 20-7 deficit at the end of the third quarter, but scored two touchdowns -- both of them warner passes to fitzgerald -- and a safety to make the game close, and therefore interesting.

for a change, the game was exciting. but it wasn't the best super bowl played. it was sloppy because many penalties. arizona had 11 of them for 106 yards while pittsburgh had 7 of them for 56 yards.

while holmes won the super bowl's most valuable player award -- he caught nine passes for 134 yards and the touchdown -- i believe he should've shared it with roethlisberger, who went 21-30 in passing and had 256 yards. that includes the touchdown to holmes. no roethlisberger pass, no holmes touchdown for the win.

run, harrison, run!

the most spectacular play came at the end of the second quarter. the cardinals were inside pittsburgh's 5-yard line when steeler linebacker james harrison -- by the way, no relation -- interecepted a warner pass and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown as time expired. that put pittsburgh up 17-7 instead of a possible deficit of 14-10 to the cardinals if arizona had scored.

harrison's run was the longest single play in super bowl history.

for the last 5 to 10 yards, i could tell harrison was running out of gas.he practically stumbled into the end zone. and as he was going there i got a chuckle, because it's always entertaining to see big men run in the open field.

the victory of pittsburgh's sixth in the superbowl, which sets a record. it had been tied with the dallas cowboys and san francisco 49ers with five super bowl wins each.

and it was nice to see joe namath, of whom i've written before in this blog, brought the vince lombardi trophy to the victory stand after the game.

so ends the2008 serason of trhe national football league. in six months, though, training camps will open for all 32 teams. then they will start playing exhibition games. that will lead to the 2009 national football season.

and as i review this blog, football has been the only sport that i've written about.

so it goes. football is my favorite spectator sports. but i probably will write about other sports as the spirit moves me to do so.