12 Things: Favorite SB moments

Chris Reis.

Hard to believe that in less than a year most of us have already forgotten his name. Do you remember?

A year ago Reis was one of the unlikely heroes of the New Orleans Saints' miraculous run to a world championship after he successfully recovered the surprise onside kick to start the second half of Super Bowl XLIV.

This is part of the game's magic: every year, right before our eyes, anonymous players are plucked from obscurity and instantly turned into worldwide celebs thanks to the power and reach of the Super Bowl. And as you'll see with my list below -- another greatest hits collection, similar to last week's trip down memory lane with the Pittsburgh Steelers -- lots of my 12 favorite SB moments contain forgotten heroes, like Reis.

After the game in Miami I caught up to a still-wired Reis who described in detail how he had to fight off several members of the Indianapolis Colts, the refs and even his own teammates at the bottom of that pile-up for what seemed like half an hour.

"It's dark down there, and guys are yelling and screaming and everyone's going crazy," he said. "I got my hands on it and then it slipped down between my legs, but I got it back and got two hands on it and then the bodies just piled on. Everything went dark. Guys are peeling back my fingers and jabbing at me and screaming. At one point my own teammate couldn't see anything but he could feel the ball and he started trying to rip it out of my hands and I just screamed: 'It's me, man, I got it! I got it!' At that point it was a street fight, but there was no way I was letting go. No way."

To read the rest of David Fleming's 12 best moments from covering the Super Bowl, you must be an ESPN Insider.

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ESPN The Magazine

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• Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine FlemFile columnist for ESPN.com.
• Has written more than 30 cover stories for SI and ESPN.
• Author of "Noah's Rainbow" (a father's memoir) and "Breaker Boys" (stolen 1925 NFL title).