SUPER BOWL XLV:AARON RODGERS completed one of the most daunting tasks to face an NFL quarterback as he led the Green Bay Packers to Super Bowl glory against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He has now filled Brett Favre’s oversized shoes in Green Bay.
Rodgers, who took the Most Valuable Player award from the 31-25 victory in Dallas, claimed a Super Bowl ring in only his third full season as a starting quarterback.
The 27-year-old spent the first three years of his career on the sidelines as a back-up to Packers legend Favre, the holder of a plethora of NFL records and one of the game’s all-time greats, but a man who won only one Super Bowl.
The pressure on Rodgers to be an effective replacement for Favre when he first stepped into the role was immense, but there are no question marks remaining now.
“I’ve never felt like there’s been a monkey on my back. The organisation stood behind me, believed in me,” said Rodgers.
“I told Ted (Thompson, general manager) back in 2005 he wouldn’t be sorry with his draft pick. I told him in ’08 that I was going to repay their trust and get us this opportunity.”
Prior to this season, Rodgers had played in only one play-off game, and lost it.
“You can stop it now,” Packers veteran wide receiver Donald Driver added. “Aaron has proved that he’s one of the best, if not the best, quarterback in this game today.”
Rodgers threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns without an interception. His figures would have been even better were it not for some big drops from his receivers.
Either way, his composed performance under the spotlight – in contrast to a third-straight under-par Super Bowl showing from Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger – set the tone for the Packers, who led 21-3 before weathering a Steelers rally.
“He is the reason they won,” Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel said of Rodgers.
The Steelers struggled to get going early on, set back by two Roethlisberger interceptions.
Their rally brought them back to within four, 21-17, but as they set out on the drive they hoped would give them their first lead of the game, Rashard Mendenhall fumbled, and the Packers scored another touchdown on the subsequent drive.
The Steelers again got within three, 28-25, but they had no response to Mason Crosby’s field goal for Green Bay as three Roethlisberger throws fell incomplete.
“I feel like I let the city of Pittsburgh down, the fans, my coaches and my team-mates, and it’s not a good feeling,” said Roethlisberger, winner of two Super Bowl rings with Pittsburgh since 2005.
Instead, the Vince Lombardi Trophy returns to Green Bay, the city where the man it is named after worked his magic half a century ago.
“That is where it belongs,” linebacker AJ Hawk said. “As long as the Packers have lived, it’s going to be great to bring that back.”
This is Green Bay’s fourth championship of the Super Bowl era, but only the second time they have lifted Lombardi’s trophy – he was the man coaching for the first two titles.
Packers coach Mike McCarthy on Saturday night took the bold step of having his players fitted for their Super Bowl rings.
“That was just a vote of confidence for us,” said cornerback Charles Woodson, who broke his collarbone in the game.
As the name suggests, McCarthy has strong IrishAmerican roots, growing up in Pittsburgh – in a neighbourhood called Greenfield – to Joe and Ellen McCarthy, who owned an Irish bar.
Super Bowl XLV certainly scored with TV viewers in the US, tying for the highest-rated NFL championship game.
The game earned a 47.9 per cent rating in 56 metered US markets, an increase of 3 per cent over last year’s game, and tying it with Super Bowl XXI in 1987.
The ratings for this year’s Super Bowl capped a strong year for the US sports league.
For the first time, an NFL game was the most-watched show among all programmes in each of the season’s 17 weeks.
The Side Show
CHRISTINA Aguilera fumbled a line of the national anthem, but at least there were no wardrobe malfunctions during the entertainment segments at the Super Bowl.
The Grammy winner flubbed the lyrics of her rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, which preceded the game in Dallas.
Instead of “O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming”, she sang, “What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming”, a variation of a line she had already performed.
The headline performers were the Black Eyed Peas, who made a spectacular entrance, descending from the Cowboys Stadium rafters.
The hip-hop band performed a string of their hits, including I Gotta Feeling, Boom Boom Pow and Where Is the Love?, before they were joined on the giant makeshift stage by Slash and then Usher.
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