One glance at the final score of Super Bowl XL, and most would assume the Pittsburgh Steelers handily defeated the Seattle Seahawks, but that was far from the case in their 21-10 win. It was a one-score game until the final 10 minutes. An altered outcome of just a play or two could have changed the course of Steelers history forever. That\u2019s why this little-known story recently shared by Pro Hall of Fame guard Alan Faneca is so fascinating.<\/p>\n
Imagine reaching the biggest moment of your career only to be told you might have to do a job you\u2019ve barely practiced. That\u2019s the predicament Faneca suddenly found himself in late in the third quarter of the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur backup center goes down, he\u2019s on kickoff return and he hurts his knee. He\u2019s outta the game. Our starting center, he\u2019s had a bad knee he\u2019s been kind of keeping together for the whole season. He\u2019s starting to ache a little bit,\u201d Faneca said in an interview with WAFB Louisiana\u2019s Jacques Doucet<\/a>. \u201cSo Russ Grimm, he tells me \u2018Jeff [Hartings]\u2019s hurting. Go down there and get some snaps with Ben [Roethlisberger].\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m not going down there. I\u2019m not taking snaps with Ben.\u2019 So this goes back and forth until he finally says a few choice words\u2026I told [Ben] the situation, he gets up, throws his hands up, and he\u2019s like \u2018Nuh uh, I\u2019m not doing this.\u2019 I was literally one false slip from my first snaps being in the third quarter of the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n Backup C Chukky Okobi got injured midway through the third quarter on the kick return-unit. His role was to be the wedge buster, but he (somehow) managed to get injured on a touchback. Hartings\u2019 ailing knee almost forced Faneca to move from left guard to center, which would have thrown a wrench in the entire offense for the rest of a tight Super Bowl contest.<\/p>\n Had Faneca shifted further inside, Trai Essex\u2014a rookie tackle at the time\u2014may have been thrust into action with the starting offense on football\u2019s biggest stage against one of the best defensive lines in football that season.<\/p>\n The game was still just 14-10, meaning there was little margin for error. A complete overhaul of Pittsburgh\u2019s offensive line at that stage of the Super Bowl could have changed everything. Center is one of the hardest positions to play in football. Just look at Maurkice Pouncey\u2019s 2020 playoff disaster<\/a> as an example of what one bad snap can do to the outcome of a game.<\/p>\n Determined to achieve his life\u2019s biggest goal, Faneca had a pep talk with Jeff Hartings and his injured knee.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Look Jeff, snap the ball. I\u2019m gonna take care of everything else.\u2019 Thankfully, I didn\u2019t have to,\u201d Faneca said.<\/p>\n Hartings held up, Faneca stayed at guard, and the rest is Steelers history. It was one forgotten moment that nearly changed everything.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One glance at the final score of Super Bowl XL, and most would assume the Pittsburgh Steelers handily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[316213,58456,314962,349,317686,99,3795],"class_list":["post-738752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-alan-faneca","tag-ben-roethlisberger","tag-jeff-hartings","tag-nfl","tag-russ-grimm","tag-sports","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}