Super Bowl XLIII was a magical moment for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It included some all-time great playoff moments, including Santonio Holmes’ game-winning touchdown and James Harrison’s unbelievable pick-six. However, where there’s a winner, there’s also a loser. Unfortunately, that was the Arizona Cardinals in that game. Former Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley was part of the Cardinals’ staff that year, serving in the same role. Recently, he explained how losing that game was the lowest moment of his coaching career.
“That Super Bowl,” Haley answered Monday on the podcast This is Football. “Those pains will never go away. In this league, any game, let alone the biggest game in the world, you feel like you have the game won, and you don’t win it. The experience was phenomenal, but those scars are deep, and they just don’t go away.
“Especially when you have a guy like Kurt Warner that every time you talk to him, he wants to talk to you about it, and we play the blame game back and forth. It has to be that one. There’s a lot of games that you obviously would love to have back, but that one just because of the magnitude.”
Haley coached in the NFL from 1997 to 2018, so he’s got a ton of experience. He experienced several ups and downs, including being fired from a head coaching job. Therefore, it speaks volumes that losing the Super Bowl was the worst moment in his career.
Haley wasn’t with the Cardinals for long, serving as their offensive coordinator for only 2007 and 2008. However, he helped them reach their first Super Bowl, a massive accomplishment. It’s unfortunate that he can’t look back on that season more fondly because of how poorly it ended.
After that Super Bowl, Haley would go on to spend a few seasons as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. However, once he lost that job, he joined the winning side of that Super Bowl. From 2012 to 2017, Haley was the Steelers’ offensive coordinator, and while there were some frustrations with him at the time, in hindsight, he was actually quite successful.
During Haley’s tenure with the Steelers, the team experienced some of its best offensive play in franchise history. Part of that is thanks to the talent they had, but Haley did a solid job deploying those players. Haley also looks much better when you compare him to what the Steelers have had at offensive coordinator since parting ways with him.
Unfortunately, Haley never got back to the Super Bowl, coming close a few times with the Steelers. However, that shouldn’t take away from how successful he was. He helped revitalize Kurt Warner’s career and extend the career of Ben Roethlisberger. Nothing will likely ever make up for losing the Super Bowl, though.
