By Bob Markus

"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."--Vince Lombardi.

"When that one great scorer comes to mark against your name, he'll ask not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."--Grantland Rice.

The concept of "moral victory," so antithetical to Lombardi, the great football coach, so philosophical bedrock to Rice, the legendary sports writer, merits a long second look in the wake of Sunday's epic Super Bowl thriller. Surely destroyed by the Arizona Cardinals' dead game but ultimately doomed performance was that other old bromide--"Nobody remembers who finished second."

This time,they'll remember, all right. In fact, I suspect that, in years to come, the Cardinals will be remembered more for their magnificence in defeat than the Pittsburgh Steelers will be glorified for their resilience in victory.

This was, unquestionably, the greatest Super Bowl ever. Of course, it didn't have much to beat. The great majority of past Super Bowls have been, in a word, boring. I covered 10 of them for the Chicago Tribune, including nine in a row--numbers IV-XII--and only one of them, Pittsburgh's 21-17 win over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X was even moderately exciting. That includes Baltimore's 16-13 win over the Cowboys in Super Bowl V, which, athough decided on a last minute field goal by Jim O'Brien, was a sloppy, mistake-filled game for the first 59 minutes.

In Super Bowls past there have been many more routs than pivotal moments. A full 20 of the first 42 were decided by more than a two touchdown margin. How many memorable moments can you recall from Super Bowls past? I'll give you Scott Norwood's missed field goal on the final play of Super Bowl XXV, which let the New York Giants off the hook in a 20-19 victory over Norwood's Buffalo Bills. I'll give you Super Bowl XXXIV, when St. Louis Rams linebacker Mike Jones tackled Tennessee receiver Kevin Dyson a yard short of the goal line on the final play of the Rams' 23-16 victory. I'll give you Super Bowl XXXVI when Adam Vinatieri kicked a 48-yard field goal on the final play to lift the New England Patriots to a 20-17 upset over the Rams. And, of course, there was last year's dramatic 17-14 shocker for the Giants, denying the Patriots' bid to become the first NFL team to go 19-0 in a season.

None of these can match Sunday's game for magical moments. The pivotal play was the last one of the first half, when the Cardinals, perched on the Steelers' 2-yard line, seemed certain to tie the score with a field goal or go ahead with a touchdown. Instead, they went into the halftime break down by 10 points when linebacker James Harrison turned their world upside down with his 100-yard interception return.

When The Steelers upped their lead to 20-7 entering the final quarter, there was little reason to think the Cardinals had much of a chance. No team had ever come back from that big a fourth quarter deficit to win a Super Bowl. And in 10 postseason games, the Steelers had never lost even an 11-point cushion in the final quarter. But these Cardinals, who entered the game with the worst record of any Super Bowl team, were far from finished.

First, quarterback Kurt Warner, who had earlier been honored with the Walter Payton trophy for outstanding contributions to his community, added a few more outstanding contributions to his football team. He collaborated with wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald on a pair of touchdown passes that had the Cardinals in front for the first time all day. But not for long. With just over 2 minutes to play it was Ben Roethlisberger's turn. The 26-year-old quarterback, like Warner, had a Super Bowl scalp hanging from his belt. But unlike Warner, who was MVP of his Super Bowl triumph, Roethlisberger had not played well in his first grab at the big prize, reaching it only on the backs of his teammates. Now he would show how far he had come in the three years since that game.

The young gunslinger not only directed the Steelers to the go-ahead touchdown, a 6-yard toss to Santonio Holmes in the far right corner of the end zone, but he left Warner only 35 seconds to attempt to retaliate. It now began to remind me of the famous Doug Flutie-Bernie Kosar duel when both were in college, Flutie at Boston College and Kosar at Miami. Almost everyone remembers that Flutie won that game, 47-45, on the famous "Hail Mary" pass into the end zone on the final play. But I remember it, too, for an earlier Flutie scoring drive when the cameras focused on Kosar, standing on the sidelines. The Miami quarterback gave a nod of his head, as if to say, "Nicely done," then trotted onto the field and led the Hurricanes back into the lead. I thought that this game, too, would be decided by who had the ball last.

In all the pregame buildup, it was widely surmised that Warner's legacy was on the line. A victory for the Arizona qurterback would make him a two-time Super Bowl winner and the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl with two teams. Instead it is Roethlisberger who has two Super Bowl crowns. But it is too early to start a Hall of Fame campaign for Roethlisberger, who still has miles to go before he sleeps to dream of such things. It is not too early to insist that Warner, despite Sunday's loss, has already done enough to qualify. Sunday's was his third Super Bowl and he has the three highest passing yards games in Super Bowl history. He won one Super Bowl with the Rams with a 73-yard tie-breaking scoring pass to Isaac Bruce, lost another on Vinatieri's final play kick, and came within 35 seconds of winning another on Sunday--just 35 seconds separating him from being a possible three-time winner. Warner, with his background of being a grocery store stock boy-cum-European Football League player-cum-NFL star, has always been a great story. His Walter Payton award demonstrates he is a great person. And his play on Sunday underscores the fact he is a great player, one who deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.