Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl XLIII Preview

When the 14-4 Pittsburgh Steelers take the field in Tampa vs. the 12-7 Arizona Cardinals, history will be on the line. The Steelers will have a chance to be the NFL's first six-time Super Bowl Champion.

And standing in their way is a team that no one five weeks ago thought would escape the first round of the playoffs. But escape they have and then some. After outlasting the Falcons in a 30-24 win over Atlanta in the Wild Card Game, they crushed the Panthers in Charlotte and held off the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game.

On the other side of the ball, the Steelers took care of business the old fashioned way. After finishing with the No. 2 seed in the AFC, they were afforded a bye over Wild Card Weekend. They then went onto beat up the Chargers in the divisional round and the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game to advance.

There are many story lines surrounding this football game—will Kurt Warner win another championship; can anyone stop WR Larry Fitzgerald, who has already surpassed WR Jerry Rice's all-time receiving mark for a single post season; can Roethlisberger atone for his dismal showing in Super Bowl XL; will Whisenhunt's familiarity with Roethlisberger provide an edge; will Pittsburgh win its sixth, and so on...

Here's how we see the Super Bowl playing out.

When the Cardinals have the ball, they must jump out to an early lead. Falling behind to the Steelers will be a losing proposition. Pittsburgh's doesn't boast the NFL's No. 1 defense for  just putting on the uniform; they get after you, led be DE/LB James Harrison and Co.

So look for Arizona to come out utilizing the short to medium range passing game in order to find a rhythm. And they'll do this by having Warner use three-to-five step drops and the shotgun formation early on. It's the best way to neutralize Pittbsburgh's blitz and pressure packages.

And if they begin to find success in the short (passing) game to Fitzgerald, Boldin and Breaston, it will open up a few opportunities to take shots down the field - either on play action or through trickery as they did on the long first half TD vs. the Eagles. And with 6'3" Larry Fitzgerald on the outside, that's nearly always a  favorable match-up for the Cardinals. Fitzgerald has shown an uncanny ability to control his body as he jumps into the air to pull the ball down.

But they better strike when the iron is hot because the Steelers use their safeties excellently; S Ryan Clark is more attuned at providing help on the deep ball while S Polamalu mans everything that's short to mid range.

And by finding a rhythm through the air, it'll allow them to mix in RB Edgerrin James, and run the football just enough to keep them from being one dimensional.

When the Steelers have the football, we see them following a similar blue print: passing to set-up the run. It's not imperative for the Steelers to jump out to the lead because they have the balance on offense to come back , and their top rated defense will always keep them in the game, but they want to find a rhythm in the passing game early so they can then pound the rock late in the game.

So look for Roethlisberger to focus on WRs Ward and Holmes on the outside, Miller on the short passes in the middle and RB's Parker and Moore on screen passes. And the reason this formula will have success is because Arizona always brings up S Adrian Wilson in the early going to stop the run.

The Cardinals simply don't have the beef/or size in their front seven to challenge teams straight up so they need to employ different packages that utilize safeties and sometimes corners to help out against the run.  And they do this so they can put teams in predictable third and long passing situations which their opportunistic defense can take advantage of.

So it'll be important for Pittsburgh to take some shots down the field on 1st and 2nd down to WR Washington because that'll be their best opportunity to catch the Cardinals when they're vulnerable to the big play.

Pittsburgh's ability to have success moving the ball early on will set-up their strategy for the rest of the game. If they're sitting with a lead by the time the 3rd quarter rolls around, look for a heavy dose of Parker and Moore as the Steelers will look to grind out the clock and wear down the Cardinals defense.

Arizona can not match Pittsburgh's physicality and it will show in the third and fourth quarters. That's when the more physical team takes over a game—both mentally as well as physically.

When the clock hits 0:00 in Super Bowl XLIII and the 2008 season officially comes to an end, look for the Steelers to pull off the 24-14 or 27-17 victory.

There are just too many scenarios that must go wrong for the Cardinals to have their Cinderella season end on a high note. And hoping to catch the Steelers top ranked defense on a bad day is like trying to time the bottom of the stock market - extremely unlikely.

So the Steelers will move to 15-4 and give Mike Tomlin his first Super Bowl win in only his second year as head coach, while the Cardinals, the team from nowhere, have had a great season which far exceeded everyone's—including their own—expectations. And now they can firmly go back to being a second or third place team in the NFC West in 2009.