It was many years ago, but Arizona Cardinals fans will remember when their team was in Super Bowl XLIII against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They will also remember the end of the half when quarterback Kurt Warner was picked off at the goalline by James Harrison, who returned the interception for a touchdown.
Instead of a potential 14-10 lead for the Cardinals entering the half or at least a 10-10 tie, the Steelers went ahead 17-7.
Warner and former Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson described how halftime in the locker room felt.
On one hand, there was Warner, who felt guilty during the extra long halftime.
“It felt like they put me on a stool right in the middle of all the other 52 guys and everybody was just staring at me like ‘you just blew the Super Bowl for us,'” he recalled on Arizona Sports 98.7FM. “I couldn’t wait to get back out there in the second half. It was a long, long halftime.”
He wanted to be able to erase the mistake and in his mind, his teammates were blaming him.
“That was a tough moment for me just knowing what was going through everyone’s mind there at halftime,” he said.
Wilson, on the other hand, felt differently.
“I remember taking a shower because it was the longest halftime in the history of halftimes,” he said, also on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, citing how very few players on the team had any idea how a Super Bowl halftime went.
“I just remember sitting there and the 15-minute mark had passed by, somebody came into the locker room and said, ‘hey guys, we’ve got 15 more minutes.’ I’m like, ‘a 30-minute halftime?’ At that point, I was irate,” he recalled. “I didn’t care what happened right before halftime. I didn’t care about any of that stuff because I knew we still had a chance and we had the opportunity to play the second half and make adjustments.”
Wilson just wanted to play. In that sense, he reacted in his mind like Warner. He doesn’t think anyone on the team blamed Warner.
“That whole halftime thing, I know Kurt probably blames a lot of that on himself, but half of those guys n the locker room, we didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “We were just happy to be there.”
As the story goes, the Cardinals took the lead on a Larry Fitzgerald touchdown catch with under three minutes to go, but then the Steelers answered with a game-winning drive that ended with Santonio Holmes’ famous touchdown catch.
Despite the halftime adversity, whether it was Warner’s guilt or Wilson’s anger, the Cardinals overcame that tragic play at the end of the half and almost won it all.
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Ep. 267
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Ep. 266
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