Larry Fitzgerald is considered one of the best wide receivers of all time, and is expected to be a first ballot NFL Hall of Famer. But in his 17 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals, he made it to the Super Bowl just once. In 2009, the Cardinals were the underdogs against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They were behind Pittsburgh most of the game until the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. That’s when Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner connected with Fitzgerald, who avoided two safeties to make a 64-yard touchdown. With 2:37 left in the game, Fitzgerald thought the Cardinals were on their way to victory. Then came the play that still haunts Fitzgerald: Ben Roethlisberger hits Santonio Holmes for the final touchdown ending the game with a Steelers win. You can still hear the pain in Fitzgerald’s voice more than ten years later.
“Uhhh man, it's just like pure heartbreak,” Fitzgerald told In the Moment’s David Greene. “It's a feeling of despair [and] hurt that’s really hard to even express.”
Fitzgerald last played in 2020. He says he’s now focused on supporting his community as executive chair of the Arizona Super Bowl Host committee. He’s also a minority owner of the Phoenix Suns and in 2005 launched The Larry Fitzgerald Foundation in honor of his mother, who passed away as a result of breast cancer in 2003.
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