Hines Ward
Hines Ward
Hines Edward Ward, Jr.is a retired American football wide receiver, businessman, and television personality. He is the current NBC studio analyst who played 14 seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League. He played college football at the University of Georgia. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected him in the third round of the 1998 NFL Draft, and he became the team's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yardage and touchdown receptions. Ward was voted MVP of Super Bowl XL, and...
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth8 March 1976
CitySeoul, South Korea
We thought we could take some shots in the air. We're an experienced team and we took our chances.
We're here without him. We never made it to this point with him. So, I don't think that we miss him. That was a big question mark coming into this year: What could we do in the passing game? Well, consequently, our passing game is the reason why we're here in the Super Bowl. So, I can't sit there and say that we miss him.
We're happy to be going to the Super Bowl, but we want to win. We plan to go there and win the whole thing.
Every time coach puts on the highlight tape, Casey is a force to be reckoned with.
Stepping up and making that play, that was kind of Lynn Swann-like, I guess. You watch all the highlight tapes and ESPN Classic and you see him making spectacular catches. That's what I tried to do yesterday - just make every catch I could get my hands on.
Only in football, as I say, you can get (from) that all-time high to that all-time low back to that all-time high.
Making the Super Bowl, you are going to have more media requests. For him, it can be overwhelming. It's even overwhelming for me to look at all (the media) here wanting to ask me questions.
Everyone thinks he's tough. He is, but he's a players' coach.
It was a big touchdown for us. It really sealed the thing for us.
He's touched every player in that locker room in some form, some way, some how.
He had a small window to get it there and he got it in that window.
Carolina played a lot of Cover 2. When teams play Cover 2, you have to be able to run the ball. We didn't do that. And, we have to stay away from negative (yardage) plays.
I guess it was the big game with Chicago. At the time, Chicago was the No. 1 defense, being compared to the '85 Bears.
It was probably more gratifying going through it this way. Nothing was ever given to us. We earned it.