Former Green Bay OL Daryn Colledge was a guest on the Prater & The Ballgame radio show on 93.1 The Ticket in Idaho, and he shared his memories from his Super Bowl XLV win with the Packers over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Colledge talked about going up against Brett Keisel, and how he thought he lost Green Bay the game in the final minutes.
Colledge talked about defending Keisel, a player he clearly had a lot of respect for.
“I think I hung on with hope, prayer and fingernails. Obviously, Brett was extremely talented, the Fear of the Beard campaign was in full swing, and I knew who he was, I played [against] him before,” Colledge said. “Extremely talented, I knew I was gonna have my hands full the whole game. I knew I was gonna be facing him 90% of the snaps. And I knew what he was capable of, he was a try-hard guy, good length, good strength, and he was savvy. And it was one of those things where it’s like I had to be at my best the whole game.”
Colledge did a solid job against Keisel, who finished the game with three total tackles and one quarterback hit. But with 5:59 left in the fourth quarter and Green Bay facing a 3rd and 5, Colledge was flagged for a false start which made it a 3rd-and-10 situation with Green Bay holding a slim 28-25 lead. On third down, Green Bay converted on a 31-yard pass from QB Aaron Rodgers to WR Greg Jennings, but Colledge thought his penalty cost the Packers the game.
“It’s one of the only things I still remember from that game,” he said. “I remember the feeling I had when I jumped, and there was literally a flash in the mind where I’m like, ‘I just lost us the Super Bowl.’ I just gave them the chance to get the ball back and we’re only up by three and we needed that drive to finish.”
Colledge said the completion to Jennings was an “elephant off the chest” because he knew they could still extend the game to win. The drive would end with a field goal by Mason Crosby to extend the lead to 31-25 with 2:10 left, and that ended up being the final score.
If Green Bay didn’t pick up that 3rd and 10 and the Steelers got the ball back with over five minutes left, maybe we’re talking about another fourth-quarter Super Bowl comeback leading to a Steelers win instead of Rashard Mendenhall’s fumble or Ben Roethlisberger’s pick-six to Nick Collins or Pittsburgh’s defense just being unable to stop Aaron Rodgers.
In a game like the Super Bowl between the two best teams in the league, the result can come down to one play, one mistake, or one heroic play. In the case of Colledge, he thought his mistake was going to cost Green Bay the Super Bowl, and if that was the case, he said it was going to cause some “real, real problems,” as a young guy about to enter free agency.
But Rodgers was able to hit Jennings for a big gain, and Green Bay continued to move the ball and bleed the clock with a 14-yard run by RB James Starks and a 21-yard completion to WR James Jones coming later in the drive to get Green Bay inside Pittsburgh’s 10-yard line. Roethlisberger failed to lead another game-winning two-minute drive, throwing three straight incompletions after opening the drive with two consecutive completions, and the Steelers lost their second Super Bowl.
They haven’t been back to the game since, so that Super Bowl and the memories of falling short are the most recent ones that stick in the minds of Steelers fans. Hopefully, that will change soon, but with Pittsburgh’s lack of playoff success lately, there hasn’t been much hope in recent years.
