FanHouse Nfl Playoffs

In anticipation of Cardinals-Steelers, FanHouse takes a look back at some forgotten storylines from past Super Bowls.

The Game: Up until the Giants stunned New England last season, Super Bowl XXIII was arguably the most exciting Super Bowl ever played – some would argue that it still is.

Cincinnati led San Francisco 16-13 in the game's final moments. Everyone knows what happened next: Montana, with the 49ers down to their last chance, led his team 92 yards in 11 plays, then found John Taylor in the end zone with 34 seconds left for a dramatic 20-16 Niners victory.

What Might Have Been: Montana's last drive was the stuff of legends – his team's collective back against the wall, on the game's biggest stage, all the future Hall of Famer did was hit eight-of-nine passes (not counting a completion negated by a SF penalty) in a game-winning drive.

The Arizona Cardinals shocked the NFC by advancing to Super Bowl XLIII. It's an incredible accomplishment for two reasons: 1) They're the Arizona Cardinals, a team that has forever been synonymous with losing and 2) They were a 9-7 team in the regular season, losing four of their final six regular season games, some in embarrassing fashion. And here they are in the biggest game of the season, playing for all the marbles.

The Cardinals' meteoric rise to the spotlight has prompted some discussion as to how fair the NFL's one-and-done playoff system is compared to the BCS, and if the Cardinals are "bad for the NFL" -- including this article by Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated. Naturally, the NFL FanHouse crew had some opinions on the matter.

Fred Jackson, Ernest Graham, Fred Taylor, Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes. Those are the five running backs that finished No. 37-41 in rushing yards during the NFL's regular season – all ahead of the league's 42nd-leading rusher, Arizona's Edgerrin James.

Here's the list of guys with more postseason rushing yards than James: No one.

Whatever happens Sunday, the Patriots will undoubtedly be the team to beat come September -- at least according to the predictably sycophantic media who assume that, as long as Bill Belichick is breathing and Tom Brady is walking, New England is winning.

There are still concerns about Brady's reconstructed left knee, but if he's fully operational by training camp, the prognosticating bobbleheads should take great comfort in anointing the Patriots as favorites to win their fourth Super Bowl this decade. It's the same banal "analysis" that fans have been beaten about the head with since New England won its last championship four years ago.

As a Steeler fan, I'll be the first to admit that life is good. I'm a child of the 1970s, which means that I watched the Steelers win their first Super Bowl when I was two. They won another the next year and were striving for one for the thumb before I was 10. It took another 25 years for Pittsburgh to get that fifth Super Bowl title, but here we are just four years later and they're working on the other hand.

All of that got me thinking: is there any franchise in U.S. pro sports over the past 20, 30, or 40 years that has been more fun to be a fan of than the Steelers?

TEMPE, AZ. – Larry Fitzgerald should lug around a telephone booth, to step in and out of whenever he feels the need to change personalities.

The Arizona Cardinals' incomparable wide receiver moves smoothly from Superman to Renaissance man, depending on the situation. On the field he is fearless, a human marvel who possesses keen eyesight and the ability to leap over double coverage and tall buildings. Off the field, he's a seeker, an adventurer, and, incongruously, a man who would rather walk across hot coals than talk about where he has been or how he got there.

Fitzgerald didn't exactly have to be forced to the podium Friday afternoon, after the Cardinals went through another practice in preparation for Super Bowl XLIII. But it was clear this was perhaps the one place on the planet where he felt uncomfortable, maybe even out of his element.

Super Bowl Prop Bets are as American as your mother and as addicting as, um, stuff. Will Brinson's got a program for your all-American fix.

Super Bowl Prop Bets are as American as your mother and as addicting as, um, stuff. Will Brinson's got a program for your all-American fix.

For the remaining few days until the Super Bowl, I'm going to be gathering prop bet stories from around the blogosphere (and you, if you're interested, so e-mail me if you've got a funny one).

Now that we've covered that, obvious apologies are due for the tardiness of this (because we're actually on Day Five -- coming soon also). But you know how life as a blogger is -- wake up, look at your pants lying crumpled on the bed, laugh at them, play some Sega Genesis, laugh at your pants again, get in your desk chair and start cranking out the snark. Tough.

The military's Color Guard, since 9/11, has been prominent at almost every major sporting event, displaying America's colors during the national anthem. This will be no different during Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa. However, there's been a little media stir today about their attendance during the game.

Witness an email that The Thunder Run claims to have received from a military mother, upset at the fact that her son will present the colors and then be escorted out of the stadium to watch the game remotely.

Some Cardinals' players might be using the opportunity to meet Barack Obama as motivation for winning the Super Bowl, but the country's 44th president will almost certainly be a Steelers' fan on Feb. 1.

Owner Dan Rooney, a life-long Republican, campaigned heavily for Obama in the months leading up to the election, and on Monday, traveled to Washington to hand-deliver the AFC Championship game ball.