Reaching a Super Bowl is an incredible accomplishment. It's what every player is trying to do at least once in his career.
But what if that trip ends with a gut-wrenching loss? So many players who have lost the Super Bowl over the years got there just the once -- so close to the dream, knowing the odds say it wouldn't happen again. For Bertrand Berry, it stuck with him, the heartbreak of that day.
Berry was on the Cardinals' trip to Tampa last weekend. With an entire day Saturday open, the Cardinals' former defensive end decided he needed to try and find some closure to a loss that has continued to eat at him for a decade. He decided to go to Raymond James Stadium to see if he could find some of that closure, and our own Tim DeLaney asked if he could tag along and chronicle it in a video.
"A lot of people have asked me about the game and does it still bother me," Berry said. "Yeah, it does bother me."
It wasn't lost on Berry that the Cardinals stayed at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay -- the same hotel the team stayed at for the week of the Super Bowl back in January of 2009.
I happened to have breakfast with Berry Saturday morning. He said he still hasn't re-watched the Super Bowl. The physical pain of the loss faded in the days after, but the mental scars lingered. I know not every player is like that, but some are. When Larry Fitzgerald sobbed in his locker after the 2015 NFC Championship game loss, it wasn't only because of the season being over, it was because Fitz knew a rare chance had passed him by -- and because Fitz knew he already nearly had a ring in Tampa.
The video is a cool glimpse into the mind of a player, one that was in the middle of the greatest moments -- and the hardest moments -- in franchise history.