The weekly series "I Scored a Touchdown" spotlights the stories of players who reached the end zone on the Super Bowl stage, offering powerful features that will appear across ESPN shows and platforms. ESPN will showcase 61 players ahead of Super Bowl LXI, ESPN's first Super Bowl production, with a new player unveiled mostly on a weekly basis until Feb. 14, 2027. Former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward and his TD in Super Bowl XL is featured on May 24. Here is more to his story from ESPN's Brooke Pryor:
Antwaan Randle El's eyes lit up when he heard the playcall, and then the Steelers wide receiver felt a brief flit of butterflies.
Though it worked earlier in the season against the Cleveland Browns, the play was unsuccessful several times during practice in the week leading up to Super Bowl XL at Detroit's Ford Field on Feb. 5, 2006. Even offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt was apprehensive about it, and he asked head coach Bill Cowher if they should run the play.
But after Willie Parker's 75-yard touchdown run earlier in the game primed the Seattle Seahawks safeties to bite down, Cowher believed it was the right play for the moment, the play that would seal the organization's fifth Vince Lombardi Trophy.
ESPN's 'I Scored A Touchdown'
Ahead of Super Bowl LXI on ESPN/ABC on Feb. 14, 2027, we're spotlighting the stories of players who reached the end zone on the Super Bowl stage: • Giants' David Tyree in SB XLII • Eagles' A.J. Brown in SB LIX • Steelers' Santonio Holmes in SB XLIII • Dolphins' Larry Csonka in SB VIII • Broncos' Demaryius Thomas in SB XLVIII MORE: 'I Scored a Touchdown' series
"Hey, there's no practice or game tomorrow," Cowher told Whisenhunt at the time, an exchange Randle El said he learned about later. "This is it."
And it was.
After a tap of encouragement from mentor and fellow wide receiver Hines Ward to calm Randle El, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger pitched the ball left to Parker. Parker handed the ball off to Randle El on the reverse, and sprinting to his right, Randle El then delivered a perfect spiral 43 yards downfield to Ward, who slipped behind cornerback Marcus Trufant and was open in large part thanks to a block by Roethlisberger.
"I was excited that it got called," Randle El, who is now a wide receivers coach for the Chicago Bears, told ESPN recently. "I was like, man, I was trying not to jump offsides, false start or nothing like that. I was just trying to make sure, 'Hey, let the play happen.' And it went real smooth, and he hauled it in."