The Chemistry of Winners - Part 2 | yankee7's Blog

11:17 AM ET 02.02 |

Having just watched one of the best Super Bowls ever, I can only be reminded of my belief that there are certain athletes who are simply winners. James Harrison, who was cut four times in his relatively short career, but who was named the NFL Player of the Year even before his historic, record-setting touchdown run last night, is a winner. Kurt Warner, who bagged groceries before being signed to play arena football and then was cut by the Rams, but who has won one Super Bowl, and been a QB in three of the greatest Super Bowls ever, is a winner. And by virtue of the fact that the Steelers and the Cardinals nearly played to a first-ever OT Super Bowl, and neither team quit when each had ample reason to, proves that there are planty of winners on both teams. Both fought and defeated the odds makers to even get the game, and I didn't witness a single moment where anyone gave up until the final gun. Even with 35 seconds left Kurt Warner and the Cardinals kept the game in doubt, and no one would've been shocked if they had pulled it out, proof that even in defeat they're winners.

And in the end, it was the players not the coaches who made the difference, as it should be. Maybe because both coaches were relatively new to the job and haven't yet fully bought into the notion that they're what makes the difference, that it's all about them and their obessive-compulsive control that is responsible for winning. This game proved otherwise. Coaches can dream and scheme all they want, but in the end it comes to players making plays, oftentimes in spite of what the coaches want. Do you think Mike Tomlin really drew up all those plays where Rothlesberger ran around, dodging tacklers, buying time until he could make a play? And the Cardinals were clearly at their best when they ran the no-huddle offense and gave the coaches almost no chance to provide input by not being able to send in "sure fire plays" with a substitution. True, Dick Lebeau's call to have Harrison drop back instead of blitz was a great call, but it was Harrison who turned that into one of the greatest plays of all time.

Again, it gets down to which team has the greatest number of winners. The team with the most usually wins, regardless of who their coach or manager is. So I repeat: let the players play...may the best players win.