Remembering Miami: Anthony McFarland, Super Bowl XLI

This is part nine in FanHouse's nine-part series examining memorable moments and players from past Super Bowl games played in Miami.


SUPER BOWL XLI
Date: Feb. 4, 2007
Site: Dolphins Stadium
Score: Colts 29, Bears 17 (MVP: Peyton Manning)

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had lost their first four games of the 2006 season. Clearly, they were a team going nowhere and looking to cut its losses. The Indianapolis Colts were in quite the opposite situation and looking to fortify some weaknesses.

It was "Let's Make A Deal" at the NFL trade deadline.

"Nobody ever wants something drastic to happen," recalled Anthony "Booger" McFarland. "I was a little surprised, but I can't really say I was happy or sad. it took about 10 or 15 minutes to regroup when I realized, just like that, I'd gone from 1-4 to 5-0."

The Colts, hoping to shore up a shabby run defense, traded a second-round draft pick to the Bucs for McFarland, a defensive tackle and former first-round draft choice whose progress in Tampa was hindered by nagging injuries. For McFarland, the 2002 season was his most frustrating. Alongside Warren Sapp on one of the most feared defenses in NFL history, McFarland fought through a foot sprain and forearm fracture to regain his form heading into the home stretch of the season.

Then he fractured his foot at Detroit in Week 15.

McFarland, placed on injured reserve, wore street clothes and watched from the sidelines as Tampa Bay demolished all three postseason opponents, including the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII for the franchise's lone world championship.

"That was hard, but it was also very rewarding and gratifying from a standpoint that I knew I was a part of what we accomplished that year, even though I wasn't on the field that night," McFarland said. "I contributed to us getting to that point."

Fast forward four years.

McFarland was brought to Indy at the urging Tony Dungy, who was head coach of the Bucs when the team drafted him 15th overall out of LSU in 1999. The Colts were playing the same one-gap front and Tampa-two coverage scheme made famous by the Bucs, so the transition was pretty natural.

Especially when it came to winning.

"I was brought in to add some size and have a bigger athlete up there," McFarland recalled. "The biggest thing, when you have a quarterback like Peyton Manning, you just have to get him the ball as much as possible. The whole idea -- and the Colts are still built that way today -- is slow down the running game, try to get a two-score lead and make [opponents] throw the football."

The '06 Colts ended that season with the worst run defense in the NFL, but made a magical transition once the playoffs came around (and mighty mite strong safety Bob Sanders returned from injury). After surrendering 173 rushing yards per game in the regular-season games, the Colts clamped down on Kansas City, Baltimore and New England in the playoffs, limiting those three clubs to 73.3 on the ground per game, capturing the AFC title and punching a ticket to face the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.

McFarland was healthy and in the middle of it all.

He even had Indy's only sack of the Super Bowl, an 11-yard drag-down of Rex Grossman off a play-action fake that forced a punt and helped lead to a Colts field goal in the third quarter. Indianapolis went on to win 29-17.

Fast forward eight months. McFarland blew out a knee in a 2007 preseason game. He retired the following offseason.

The Super Bowl, as it turned out, was the last game of his eight-year NFL career.

Two teams, two Super Bowl rings.

"It's sort of funny," said McFarland, who lives in Tampa and enjoys the nearly $40 million he made as a pro. "I look back on the book that was written in my career and think about it; who would have known that four years later things would have gotten so crazy in Tampa and that they decided to go in a different direction?"

And who would have thought it could work out so well?

"Like they say," McFarland reasoned. "Someone else's trash is someone else's treasure."

The Colts, hoping to shore up a shabby run defense, traded a second-round draft pick to the Bucs for McFarland, a defensive tackle and former first-round draft choice whose progress in Tampa was hindered by nagging injuries. For McFarland, the 2002 season was his most frustrating. Alongside Warren Sapp on one of the most feared defenses in NFL history, McFarland fought through a foot sprain and forearm fracture to regain his form heading into the home stretch of the season.

Then he fractured his foot at Detroit in Week 15.

McFarland, placed on injured reserve, wore street clothes and watched from the sidelines as Tampa Bay demolished all three postseason opponents, including the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII for the franchise's lone world championship.

"That was hard, but it was also very rewarding and gratifying from a standpoint that I knew I was a part of what we accomplished that year, even though I wasn't on the field that night," McFarland said. "I contributed to us getting to that point."

Fast forward four years.

McFarland was brought to Indy at the urging Tony Dungy, who was head coach of the Bucs when the team drafted him 15th overall out of LSU in 1999. The Colts were playing the same one-gap front and Tampa-two coverage scheme made famous by the Bucs, so the transition was pretty natural.

Especially when it came to winning.

"I was brought in to add some size and have a bigger athlete up there," McFarland recalled. "The biggest thing, when you have a quarterback like Peyton Manning, you just have to get him the ball as much as possible. The whole idea -- and the Colts are still built that way today -- is slow down the running game, try to get a two-score lead and make [opponents] throw the football."

The '06 Colts ended that season with the worst run defense in the NFL, but made a magical transition once the playoffs came around (and mighty mite strong safety Bob Sanders returned from injury). After surrendering 173 rushing yards per game in the regular-season games, the Colts clamped down on Kansas City, Baltimore and New England in the playoffs, limiting those three clubs to 73.3 on the ground per game, capturing the AFC title and punching a ticket to face the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.

McFarland was healthy and in the middle of it all.

He even had Indy's only sack of the Super Bowl, an 11-yard drag-down of Rex Grossman off a play-action fake that forced a punt and helped lead to a Colts field goal in the third quarter. Indianapolis went on to win 29-17.

Fast forward eight months. McFarland blew out a knee in a 2007 preseason game. He retired the following offseason.

The Super Bowl, as it turned out, was the last game of his eight-year NFL career.

Two teams, two Super Bowl rings.

"It's sort of funny," said McFarland, who lives in Tampa and enjoys the nearly $40 million he made as a pro. "I look back on the book that was written in my career and think about it; who would have known that four years later things would have gotten so crazy in Tampa and that they decided to go in a different direction?"

And who would have thought it could work out so well?

"Like they say," McFarland reasoned. "Someone else's trash is someone else's treasure."