Super Bowl XLIII
2009 edition of the Super Bowl
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2008 season. The Steelers defeated the Cardinals by the score of 27–23. The game was played on February 1, 2009, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
With this victory, the Steelers became the first team to win six Super Bowl championships. The win was also the Steelers' second Super Bowl victory in four years, after winning Super Bowl XL at the end of the 2005 season. The Cardinals entered the game seeking their first NFL title since 1947, the longest championship drought in the league. The club became an unexpected winner during the regular season, compiling a 9–7 record, and earning a spot in the playoffs with the aid of head coach Ken Whisenhunt, who was the Steelers' offensive coordinator in Super Bowl XL, and the re-emergence of quarterback Kurt Warner, who was the Super Bowl MVP in Super Bowl XXXIV with his former team, the St. Louis Rams.
The Steelers jumped to a 17–7 halftime lead, aided by linebacker James Harrison's Super Bowl–record 100-yard interception return for a touchdown. Trailing 20–7 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Cardinals scored 16 consecutive points, including a safety that led to wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald's 64-yard touchdown reception, to take their first lead of the game with 2:37 remaining.
The public source identifies “Super Bowl XLIII” as 2009 edition of the Super Bowl. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Super, Bowl and XLIII.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q853768. The Library of Congress control number is no2016005329. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2009, 2005 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Super Bowl XLIII” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.