Super Bowl XL
2006 edition of the Super Bowl
Super Bowl XL was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2005 season. The Steelers defeated the Seahawks by the score of 21–10. The game was played on February 5, 2006, at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It is the most recent Super Bowl to broadcast on ABC, who lost the rights to broadcast them in the next NFL television contract (though under the latest contract, the network is set to broadcast Super Bowl LXI alongside ESPN), and the first where all aspects of the game itself were aired in HD. This was the last of 10 straight Super Bowls to feature a team seeking its first win in the game.
With the win, the Steelers tied the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys with the then-record five Super Bowl victories (a record the Steelers themselves would break three years later). The Steelers' victory was their first Super Bowl victory since Super Bowl XIV. The Steelers, who finished the regular season with an 11–5 record, also became the fourth wild card team, the third in nine years, and the first ever number 6 seed in the NFL playoffs, to win a Super Bowl. The Seahawks, on the other hand, in their 30th season, were making their first ever Super Bowl appearance after posting an NFC-best 13–3 regular season record.
The Steelers capitalized on two big plays that were converted into touchdowns. The Steelers jumped to a 14–3 lead early in the third quarter with running back Willie Parker's Super Bowl record 75-yard touchdown run. Kelly Herndon's then-Super Bowl record 76-yard interception return set up a Seattle touchdown to cut the lead 14–10.
“Super Bowl XL” enters the record as 2006 edition of the Super Bowl. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Super, Bowl and edition can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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