Tuesday, February 3, 2009

NFL Fun Facts 5: Super Bowl Comebacks

Two years in row?!?!? For 68 years the NFL saw only one quarterback ever lead a last-minute game-winning touchdown drive to win a championship: Bart Starr in the “Ice Bowl”. Twenty-one years later Joe Montana became the first QB to do it in a Super Bowl. And Montana remained the only QB to perform that feat for almost another 20 years. But now, incredibly, we’ve seen it happen twice in back-to-back Super Bowls. Eli Manning pulled it off in Super Bowl XLII and now Ben Roethlisberger brings the Steelers back late to win Super Bowl XLIII.

Of course, as I noted last year, Eli faced a little extra pressure. Starr, Montana and Roethlisberger all trailed by 3 at the start of their game-winning drives. A FG would at least have forced overtime. But not Eli. Trailing by 4 it was score a TD or go home a loser.

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