Rodgers outduels Roethlisberger as Packers win Super Bowl

ARLINGTON, Texas - Stray shards of shiny confetti stuck to the Green Bay Packers' skin. Several of them carried their young children into the county-fair-booth interview stalls underneath Cowboys Stadium, after the onfield celebration died down. They looked like worn-out travelers at the end of a long journey, and they were.

All season long, the Packers survived. Key players went down, one after another, from the season opener on. They had to win their last two regular-season games to claw their way into the final NFC playoff berth, then they had to go into hostile postseason stadiums three times and win to get to Super Bowl XLV, where again, the crowd was not their friend.

There were times last night when they seemed very much in danger of becoming the first team in Super Bowl history to blow an 18-point lead, but again, the Packers survived, when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's fourth-and-5 pass eluded receiver Mike Wallace, with 49 seconds remaining. Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 25.

The night belonged to Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers, who completed 24 of 39 passes for 304 yards, three touchdowns, and a 111.5 passer rating in his first trip to the biggest stage. Rodgers had to take his team on his shoulders in the fourth quarter, and he did.

"Fun night," said Rodgers, who surely has shaken any vestige of the ghost of Brett Favre. His place in the top echelon of NFL quarterbacks is secure. "It is a dream come true. It's what I dreamt about as a little kid, watching Joe Montana and Steve Young, and we just won the Super Bowl."

Rodgers joined Montana and Young as the only quarterbacks with 300-plus yards and three touchdowns without an interception in a Super Bowl.

Rodgers said: "I told [general manager] Ted Thompson back in 2005 he wouldn't be sorry with this pick. I told him in '08 [when Rodgers became the starter] that I was going to repay their trust and get us this opportunity."

Packers coach Mike McCarthy said: "It's a great day for the Green Bay Packers, and the Vince Lombardi Trophy is finally going back home." McCarthy acknowledged putting the game on Rodgers' shoulders; the Packers tied the Greatest Show of Turf Rams for lowest rushing attempts by a winning SB team, with 13. "He delivered," McCarthy said.

Roethlisberger (25-for-40, 263 yards, two interceptions, two touchdowns, 81.0 rating) is either really good or really bad in the Super Bowl. Last night, he was both.

"I feel like I let an awful lot of people down," Roethlisberger said. "There are a lot of what ifs, a lot of throws I'd like to have back. I don't put the blame on anybody but myself. I feel like I let the city of Pittsburgh down, my teammates down."

Five years ago, Roethlisberger won SB XL despite compiling a 22.6 passer rating, the lowest ever by a winning quarterback. He was much better 3 years after that, notching a 93.2 as the Steelers won their sixth Lombardi Trophy, defeating the Arizona Cardinals.

Last night, as he vied to cram a seventh shiny trophy in owner Dan Rooney's case, Roethlisberger's rating was 16.7 after the first quarter, and he hadn't even thrown his second interception of the first half yet. His first was run back for a touchdown by Packers safety Nick Collins, Green Bay's second touchdown in 24 seconds, for a 14-0 Packers lead. This was an extremely good omen for Green Bay - the 10 teams with pick-sixes in Super Bowl history to that point were 10-0 (accounting for 13 interception touchdowns.)

"No, I didn't know that," Collins said afterward. He said he was just reading Roethlisberger's eyes all the way. "I got a break on it, wound up taking it to the house."

Wideout Greg Jennings noted that the double-digit early lead "kind of put their [top-ranked] defense on their heels."

The Packers, who came in with three Super Bowl titles, the most recent 15 years ago, went up 7-0 on a perfect 29-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Jordy Nelson, who earlier had whiffed on a long catch. On the Steelers' first play after the kickoff, Roethlisberger was hit by nose tackle Howard Green as he lofted a balloon that Collins tracked all the way, then took 37 yards down the Steelers' sideline to the end zone.

The Steelers got good field position from an excessive celebration penalty on Collins and managed a field goal that made it 14-3. But on Pittsburgh's next possession, second-and-11 from the Packers' 49, safety Jarrett Bush outwrestled Wallace for a pass over the middle and Rodgers was in business again. It took him four plays to fire a strike to Jennings in traffic over the middle, Troy Polamalu unloading on Jennings too late in the end zone. It was 21-3.

Roethlisberger, desperately needing a pre-halftime touchdown, went three times to a familiar target, Hines Ward, for 14 yards, then for 17, and finally, as Big Ben brushed away B.J. Raji's sack attempt, 8 yards for the touchdown.

Rodgers relinquished the field to the Black Eyed Peas having completed 11 of 16 passes for 137 yards, two TDs and a 134.6 passer rating. Nelson had four first-half catches for 63 yards. Roethlisberger was 13-for-21 for 143 yards, the one TD and the two picks, 58.3 rating.

That first TD got the Steelers rolling, though, got the towel-wavers in the stands yelling. It's unusual for either team to have a crowd advantage in a Super Bowl, but the Steelers sure did here, and as their comeback continued, it burgeoned.

A Green Bay team that entered the game with 16 players on injured reserve saw more key figures fall. Charles Woodson suffered a broken collarbone breaking up a pass on the late first-half Steelers TD drive. Fellow corner Sam Shields left for a while with a shoulder injury.

Woodson, finally a Super Bowl winner in his 13th NFL season, tried to address the team at halftime but was too emotional, McCarthy said.

After the game, holding Charles Jr. on his lap, his left arm in a sling, Woodson said the rest of the game was "very hard to watch - but not anymore."

Perhaps most critically for the Pack, receiver Donald Driver left with an ankle injury in the third quarter after being twisted around on a tackle, leaving Rodgers trying to hit not-ready-for-prime-time receivers. James Jones dropped a sure touchdown early in the third quarter, with a chance to restore an 18-point lead.

Then a phantom facemask call on the punt gave Pittsburgh the ball at midfield, and the Steelers pounded the ball on the Packers, who probably expected them to go after secondary subs. Five successive runs, the last an 8-yard touchdown by Rashard Mendenhall, and it was 21-17.

The Steelers were driving to go ahead after that, but a third-down sack by Packers linebacker Frank Zombo left Shaun Suisham with a 52-yard field goal attempt that Suisham pushed to the left. Zombo's sack might have been the play of the game, had it not been for the Packers' next huge defensive play, authored by Clay Matthews.

Nelson, Jones and little-used Brett Swain kept dropping passes. Green Bay's offense was stalled. But then Matthews showed why he might have been a better choice for defensive player of the year than Steelers safety Polamalu. Matthews blasted Mendenhall as the runner hit the line, the ball blooping through the air, where Desmond Bishop, Matthews' fellow linebacker, fell on it for Green Bay.

Nelson then dropped another big one, but on the very next snap, he cut across the field, made the catch and scampered 38 yards, to the Steelers' 2. After a sack, Rodgers hit Jennings for a TD from a five-wideout formation, making it 28-17. Nelson would finish with a career-high nine catches for 140 yards.

"That's what you've got to do," Nelson said, when asked about putting the drops behind him. He was targeted 15 times. "If you play this game long enough, you're going to drop the ball."

Rodgers was hit a lot, with the run abandoned and Pittsburgh teeing off on every snap. Usually, if you can make an opponent one-dimensional, you win, but the turnovers and Rodgers kept that from being the case for Pittsburgh.

"It's tough to put Aaron back there like that," Nelson said. "But [throwing downfield, often to the slot receiver] is where we thought we had a matchup."

McCarthy said: "We wanted to take our shots and make sure we emptied our bucket today - no regrets or excuses. Aaron did a great job of staying poised and staying consistent."

Of course, Pittsburgh came right back. Seven plays, 66 yards, Roethlisberger to Wallace for a 25-yard TD on what looked like a busted coverage. Then Pittsburgh ran a perfect misdirection play for the two-point conversion, Antwaan Randle El scoring on an end-around, and it was 28-25.

The Packers then used up five minutes and 27 seconds driving 70 yards, but they needed 75 to put the game away. When Rodgers couldn't hit Nelson in the corner of the end zone on third-and-goal from the 5, the Packers settled for a 23-yard field goal and a 31-25 lead, with 2:07 left.

But Roethlisberger had just one timeout and not enough magic left.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, asked about Roethlisberger's performance, said: "It was a losing one, just like mine."