TAMPA, Fla. – Larry Fitzgerald is the star of Super Bowl XLIII. The stud. The marquee attraction. The lethal weapon.
He is Hair Jordan.
“I’m going to have to have my best game of the year to help this team win, and that’s just kind of my mindset,” Fitzgerald said.
A monster game from Fitzgerald would leave Steeler Nation weeping in its Terrible Towels.
He is in a league of his own, raising his game and rising into a rarefied stratosphere that maybe only Michael Jordan has breathed. Now Fitzgerald reaches to the heavens to catch a world championship and takes our breath away as he does.
“I definitely aspire to be great,” Fitzgerald said. “I feel that if you aren’t trying to be the best, then I don’t understand what your motivation is in this game as a player.”
He has emerged as the best receiver in the game, the humble anti-T.O., and Sunday becomes showtime for Fitzgerald, the perfect stage on which to be great.
“It’s an opportunity to win a Super Bowl, so I just don’t want to be that guy at the end of the day who is pointed at as the guy who didn’t get his job done,” Fitzgerald said. “I pride myself in not letting that happen.”
He is driven in a Jerry Rice way, and cannot explain why his game has taken off the way it has – 419 yards and five TDs in the playoffs.
“I just know the ball has been coming my way and I’ve been trying to make every play I possibly can,” Fitzgerald said. “My team has been counting on me, and I just want to be reliable for those guys, and when my number is called, I just want to go out there and make a play for them.”
He is not your everyday “just give me the damn ball” wideout.
“I’ll take a pass anytime I can get one, but I know that for this team to work, it’s got to be balanced,” Fitzgerald said.
But Kurt Warner is counting on Fitzgerald to impose his will on Super Sunday night.
“I want to be a dominant player in this game, but as I watch myself on tape, there are things I still need to really improve on to be that consistently dominant player that you see in guys like LaDainian Tomlinson and Peyton Manning, and other guys like that around the NFL who are able to dominate from year in and year out,” Fitzgerald said.
The Steelers are armed with a gameplan designed to cover Superman’s cape with kryptonite.
“Always being around him . . . it’s almost a sense trying to be a mosquito,” cornerback Bryant McFadden said.
Because he is 6-foot-2, Ike Taylor will be the man most responsible for slowing the 6-foot-3 Fitzgerald, who catches the ball at its apex better than anyone.
“Coaches talk about that a lot, but a lot of people don’t do it, but that’s what he does best,” Taylor said.
What’s Taylor’s vertical?
“41.”
These guys are gonna be getting up there this week.
“Gonna try to. Gonna try to climb that ladder,” Taylor said. “I know his ladder, with his height advantage, he’s got a good ladder. So I gotta see if I can climb the ladder with him.”
What’s the best technique to use against him?
“It just depends on what position you’re in,” Taylor said. “If you feel like you’re in position to jump with him and maybe get an interception, go get it . . . If you feel like you’re in a position that you’re with him, but you can’t, bat it down. But if you feel like you’re in a position where he’s gotcha, you might just want to wait ’til you can try to rake the ball out.”
DeShea Townsend talked the importance of going up and attacking the ball.
“Even though Steve Smith is short, you always see him jumping over guys, high-pointing the ball . . . Fitzgerald, he reminds me the same, just taller,” Taylor said.
Look for the cavalry – Troy Polamalu – to ride to the rescue.
“That’s our Hair Jordan,” McFadden said, and laughed.
Polamalu compares Fitzgerald with Randy Moss.
“Who’s able just to outjump guys,” he said. “It’s not just outjumping them though, it’s catching balls at different angles as well.”
Taylor describe the mentality of the Steelers secondary as a “pack of hyenas.”
And they pride themselves on being the top pass defense.
“Oh, we got swag. We definitely got swag,” Taylor said.
None more than Hair Jordan.