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Terry McAulay should be headed to Disney World this morning. He should be the toast of Pittsburgh, a guest on PTI and Jim Rome's Jungle and driving whatever luxury vehicle that is awarded to the Super Bowl's MVP.
McAulay outshined Santonio Holmes, James Harrison, Big Ben Roethlisberger, Larry Fitzgerald and Kurt Warner.
Fitzgerald and Warner ruled the fourth quarter, erasing a 13-point deficit with two clutch TD connections.
Harrison uncorked one unforgettable play, trucking 100 yards with an interception just before halftime, and sporadically causing Arizona tackle Mike Gandy to illegally use a lasso.
But on a play-to-play, quarter-to-quarter basis, no one influenced the greatest Super Bowl in history more than McAulay and his crew of black-and-gold-wearing, I mean, black-and-white-wearing officials.
For the Cardinals, it was 11-on-17 for much of the evening. Had Bobby Knight been patrolling the Arizona sidelines rather than Ken Whisenhunt, the basketball coaching legend would've gotten teed up in the first quarter and ejected for tossing a chair by the time McAulay flagged Karlos Dansby for roughing Big Ben in the third quarter.
I admit the Cardinals were sloppy, and leaving Gandy one-on-one with the league's most valuable defensive player was a gigantic strategic error. Harrison drew three holding penalties on I-69, the Arizona superhighway to Kurt Warner Drive.
But the 11-7 penalty disparity was actually much worse when you consider McAulay and Co. turned flag-happy in the fourth quarter, dropping six yellow ones on the Steelers (Arizona declined one) to close the gap.
And let's also keep in mind it wasn't just the 106 penalty yards marked against the Cardinals. The eye in the sky caught McAulay's crew favoring Pittsburgh twice, overturning two bad calls after replay review.
And then there were the things the refs didn't call. Big Ben got away with an obvious intentional grounding. On the series after the refs handed Pittsburgh a 16-play, clock-killing third-quarter drive with a bogus roughing-the-passer call and a should-have-been-ignored roughing-the-holder penalty, McAulay ignored Harrison's brutal (and late) head shot on Kurt Warner. Holmes could've been penalized for his theatrical end-zone celebration. And Warner's fumble should've been thoroughly reviewed.
Did the better team win the game? Absolutely.
The Cardinals had no answer for Harrison. He made the biggest play of the game, a one-man 14-point swing that stopped the Cardinals from leading at halftime. The Steelers took Fitzgerald out of the game for three quarters with bump coverage and safety-over-the-top help.
And Big Ben engineered the most impressive postseason two-minute drive since The Drive that established John Elway as a legend.
Let's call this The Big End.
Big Ben's Big End was more electrifying than Elway's 98-yard march to glory, and, of course, Ben's End came on a much larger stage. Officially listed at 78 yards, The Big End actually measured 88 yards. McAulay's crew flagged the Steelers into a first-and-20 hole at their own 12, catching a Steeler guard holding on first down.
That was no problem for Roethlisberger. He danced away from the Arizona pass rush and tagged Holmes with a 14-yard strike that kick-started The Big End. From there, it was relatively easy. Roethlisberger and Holmes found a cavity in an Arizona zone, made a safety pay for losing his footing and put the Steelers in scoring position with a 40-yard catch-and-run. The leaping, toes-tapping, game-icing grab in the back of the end zone was nothing.
Roethlisberger is without a doubt the most nimble big-man passer we've ever seen. Elway, Steve Young and Donovan McNabb were/are compact scramblers who could/can wing it with the best. Big Ben is 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. He's a blend of Tom Brady and Vince Young. Roethlisberger doesn't pass as accurately as Brady or move as swiftly as Young, but Ben throws, slides, surveys and improvises in combination better than anyone.
He's a modern-day Roger Staubach.
That makes sense. The Steelers are the new America's Team. They've won six Super Bowls, one more than the Cowboys and the 49ers. Pittsburgh's last two championships have been hand-delivered by overzealous officiating crews. Yeah, I'm sure Arizona fans will receive sympathy cards from Seahawks fans.
The difference between Super Bowl XLIII and XL — a 21-10 dud — is that Sunday's wild, dramatic, fourth-quarter finish erased an annoying officiating performance that nearly stood in the way of the Steelers and the Cardinals making magic.
You can e-mail Jason Whitlock at [email protected]
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