Over the course of their history, the Pittsburgh Steelers have won plenty of Super Bowls, among the most of any NFL franchise. One of their most recent Super Bowl wins came back in 2009, when the Steelers narrowly edged the Arizona Cardinals.
A game they came very close to losing. Part of the reason for that was a safety late in the fourth quarter, when center Justin Hartwig was called for a holding penalty in the end zone. Hartwig spoke about that play, and how devastated he would have felt had the Steelers’ lost.
“It’s one of those things where, it’s almost a blur, right?… It could have been traumatic, if we would have lost the game, of course. But I just got a lot of encouragement from my teammates,” Hartwig said on The TransAtlantic Sports Show. “Looking back, had we lost that Super Bowl game, I would have, like I said, been hard on myself. I probably would have been ran out of town. My life would have looked a lot different.”
To be fair to Hartwig, it was a tough call. While he was flagged for holding, there really wasn’t a ton he could do on the play. He was outmatched on a bull rush, and was plowed over by the defender who ended up falling on top of him.
Hartwig also was dealing with a knee injury during that game, as he described.
“I had a torn MCL in my knee, I was getting retaped, I could use the extra time,” Hartwig said.
In the immediate aftermath, that safety aged very badly. The Cardinals got the ball back down four, and immediately scored with Kurt Warner hitting Larry Fitzgerald for a 64-yard touchdown on the second play of the drive, giving Arizona a 23-20 lead with just over two minutes left.
Fortunately, the Cardinals scored too early. Pittsburgh was able to march back down the field. Eight plays and 78 yards later, Ben Roethlisberger hit Santonio Holmes in the corner of the end zone for an iconic game-winning score. One that likely felt sweeter to Hartwig than anybody else. Pittsburgh’s defense stood tall to end the game, and the Steelers were able to raise the Lombardi shortly after.
That game was one of the more iconic Super Bowls in recent memory, but it could have ended very differently. Justin Hartwig is certainly glad it didn’t.