I had the Cardinals. Not on a bet. In my chest. Super Bowl XLIII, February 2009, and with two and a half minutes left Kurt Warner found Larry Fitzgerald on a slant and Fitzgerald did not stop running for sixty-four yards. Arizona led the Steelers 23-16. The oldest franchise in the league, founded before there was a league worth the name, was about to win the only title it has ever chased. I stood up in my living room. I am not even from Arizona.

The one trip, and how close it was

It is the only Super Bowl they have ever reached. One shot in over a hundred years of football. And they had it. Then Ben Roethlisberger went to work, a long drive down the right sideline, and with thirty-five seconds left Santonio Holmes went up in the back corner of the end zone and got two toes down on the grass. Toes. Pittsburgh 27-23. The play before that, James Harrison had run an interception back a hundred yards on the final snap of the first half, the longest play in Super Bowl history. Two freak plays, and the title went the other way.

Why I still feel it

I know the math of a missed kick better than anyone. Arizona knows the math of two toes. A franchise this old deserved better than thirty-five seconds. Cardinals fans, you got closer than most teams ever do. That is not nothing. It is just not the ring, and I understand the difference too well to pretend otherwise.