NFL Scouting Combine: Arizona coach still isn't over Super loss
Monday, February 23, 2009
By Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09054/951018-66.stm"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09054/951018-66.stm[/url]
INDIANAPOLIS -- It has been three weeks since his team lost in the final 35 seconds in Super Bowl XLIII, 21 days since the Arizona Cardinals nearly completed their improbable run through the NFL playoffs with a comeback victory against the Steelers. And the disappointment is still there for Ken Whisenhunt, refusing to go away and, admittedly, sometimes still keeping him awake at night.
Doesn't matter that the Cardinals made the playoffs for only the second time since 1947. Or that they won the NFC West Division and played host to a playoff game -- two of 'em, actually -- for the first time in 61 years. Or even that, after allowing an average of 41 points in their final three regular-season losses, the Arizona defense began playing like, well, those teams with which Whisenhunt was associated in six seasons with the Steelers.
It didn't even matter that the Cardinals came back from a 20-7 deficit and sliced the NFL's No. 1 defense for 14 points in the fourth quarter.
All Whisenhunt remembers is the outcome.
"It's very hard, just because of what we did to get in there, be on that stage and be so close, especially the way our team came back," said Whisenhunt, Arizona's second-year coach. "At some point, maybe you'll be able to get over that and enjoy what we did, but right now it's still tough. You know how hard it is to get to that game, and to be that close, it's difficult."
There was a nice note from his former employer, Dan Rooney, one of many Whisenhunt received after the Super Bowl. "It meant a lot to me," he said. "Very classy. Not surprising."
Rocco Mediate -- another person who almost slayed the giant -- called him and asked him to be his playing partner in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
And Whisenhunt isn't able to walk anywhere at the NFL Scouting Combine without someone wanting to talk to him, someone stopping him to shake his hand.
But he can't stop thinking about James Harrison's 100-yard interception return at the end of the first half, a play that resulted, in part, from a formation miscue by the Cardinals. Or the final drive in which his former quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, moved the Steelers 88 yards in seven plays and threw the winning touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes.
"You know, there are a lot of things; that's what keeps you awake the last two weeks, just thinking about things that could have gone differently," Whisenhunt said.
"I thought we were doing some things in that game, all through the first half, that were effective. We were making some plays and moving the ball. But what we were doing is, we had some penalties that put us in first-and-20 a number of times, and we couldn't recover against that because it's very difficult against a defense as good as the Steelers' to do that.
"I never felt like we were in a position where we weren't moving the football. The only time I felt like we needed to go to that [open] style of offense was when we got down, especially when time was running out on us.
"Would I like to have started out the game the way we finished? Yeah. But I think we had a very good plan for that defense. There were just too many mistakes."
Whisenhunt said the whole game changed when quarterback Kurt Warner, on first-and-goal at the Steelers' 1, threw a pass that was intercepted and returned 100 yards for a touchdown by Harrison -- a play that could go down as the greatest individual effort in Super Bowl history. However, Whisenhunt said the play came about because of a mental mistake: Anquan Boldin, the intended receiver, lined too tight to the line of scrimmage, forcing Warner to jam the ball into traffic.
"Obviously, the play at the end of the half was huge," Whisenhunt said. "It was a big swing. But I was proud of our team. They fought back and came back and took the lead at the end of the game.
"We can't lose sight of the fact we got there. That's something our team had never done before. It's quite an accomplishment for the organization and our players, and you have to focus on that because the other stuff will drive you crazy."
For now, it still does.
Gerry Dulac can be reached at [email="gdulac@post-gazette.com"]gdulac@post-gazette.com[/email].
First published on February 23, 2009 at 12:00 am
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