There are moments in every NFL career that never fade, and for former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith Sr., one play still stands above the rest. Smith retired from the NFL in 2017 after a 16-year career filled with record-setting performances. Now, despite building a Hall of Fame-worthy résumé, Smith recently revisited one wide-open score from Super Bowl XXXVIII that continues to mean everything to him. 

“I am Steve Smith Sr, wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, and I scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl,” Smith said recently in a clip from ESPN’s ‘I Scored a Touchdown’ series. “There is a lot of Jimmy and Joes walking around, wishing they woulda, coulda – the opportunity that I’ve had is a childhood dream. All the elements come together. You have to have the corner and the defense in the right situation. The wide receiver, the offensive line, and the quarterback have to be all on the same accord, and we were.”

“One of the toughest catches that you can have in the NFL,” he went on to say. “It isn’t going to cost the medal; it isn’t a catch in a critical first down. When you know you’re wide open, the ball is perfect, and the only thing that can screw it up is you. I still have the football. It just means that’s an experience I can never forget, and no one can take it from me either.”

Back in the 2003 season, Steve Smith Sr. helped lead the Panthers to their first-ever Super Bowl appearance after an 11-5 campaign. But across the field stood the New England Patriots, led by quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, chasing their second Super Bowl ring in three years after wrapping up a 14-2 season. But even as Super Bowl XXXVIII turned out to be a defensive battle with neither team scoring in the first quarter or the third quarter, Smith still found a way to haul in a difficult touchdown.

The game remained a scoreless defensive battle for nearly 27 minutes before Tom Brady and the Patriots finally broke the deadlock with a touchdown late in the second quarter, putting the pressure on Carolina to respond.

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Down 7-0, the Panthers responded immediately as they marched 95 yards in eight plays, powered by 20-plus-yard receptions from receivers Muhsin Muhammad and Ricky Proehl. Then, with just over a minute remaining in the first half of the game, quarterback Jake Delhomme spotted Steve Smith Sr. slipping past the Patriots’ coverage and delivered a perfect pass for a 39-yard touchdown.

It looked routine, but as Smith explained, it required perfect timing and execution across the entire offense. The physical mechanics, psychological pressure, and high-speed environment of the NFL make such plays, where a receiver gets wide open, deceptively challenging. With no defender in sight, the ball spiraling toward him, and millions watching, if Smith dropped the ball, he would’ve had to replay that mistake forever. 

But Smith embraced that pressure and secured the catch, and he wasn’t the only receiver to have that kind of experience under the spotlight in the NFL. Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Santonio Holmes also delivered one of the most difficult catches in NFL history while playing against the Arizona Cardinals during Super Bowl XLIII. With 35 seconds remaining in that game, Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger fired a pass into tight coverage towards Holmes. 

Even while being pushed out of bounds by the Cardinals’ safety Aaron Francisco, Holmes somehow controlled the ball and tapped both of his toes in the end zone to score a 6-yard touchdown. That toe-tap touchdown became one of the most memorable scores in the NFL, and it also gave the Steelers a 27-23 win over the Cardinals to lift their sixth Lombardi Trophy. 

Meanwhile, despite finishing his football career as one of the best NFL receivers with 1,031 receptions, 14,731 receiving yards, and 81 touchdowns, his one TD in Super Bowl XXXVIII was like a childhood dream come true for Steve Smith.

What impact did Steve Smith Sr.’s touchdown have on Super Bowl XXXVIII?

In the broader picture, Steve Smith Sr.’s touchdown in the second quarter of Super Bowl XXXVIII didn’t decide the game – but it changed the energy. That score helped inspire Carolina’s offense and set the tone for their fourth-quarter push.

In the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXXVIII, it was Carolina’s running back DeShaun Foster who first broke free to score a 33-yard touchdown. Then, on third down from Carolina’s 15-yard line, Jake Delhomme connected with Muhsin Muhammad for an 85-yard touchdown, which became the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history at the time. Finally, with just over a minute left in the game, Ricky Proehl caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from Delhomme to tie the game at 29-29.

At that point, the game appeared to be heading for overtime. But then, with just four seconds on the clock, Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri drilled a 41-yard field goal to secure a 32-29 victory for his team. The Panthers fell short, but the back-and-forth contest captivated nearly 90 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl at that time. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King had even labeled Super Bowl XXXVIII as the “Best Super Bowl of all time.”

Steve Smith Sr. wrapped up that game with four receptions for 80 yards and one touchdown. Yet the stats hardly capture what that game meant for the Panthers’ receiver. Though the Panthers ultimately fell short, Smith’s perfectly executed, wide-open touchdown became a personal victory, and he still has the game ball from that childhood dream.