Sandbox / Claystripe

RIP to Tom Brady's trope page...

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Tropes related to his works:

Tom Brady

• Achievements in Ignorance: In hindsight, he attributes a lot of his ability to stay cool under pressure in those first few Super Bowls to the fact that he'd played in his share of prestigious college bowl games, including a dramatic comeback win in the 2000 Orange Bowl, and saw the Super Bowls as merely a bigger version of that. It was only after 2004 that he started to realize how big of a gap there really was—not that it affected his ability to come through in the clutch.
• The Ageless: A key factor in Brady's success; at age 44 as of the 2021 season, he is the oldest person to win a game as a starting QB, and several of his teammates and opponents were in kindergarten when he won his first Super Bowl. While the quarterback position does not require the sheer athleticism of most other positions in football and other sports, allowing many other QBs to play well into their forties by focusing on their passing game, none have played at the MVP level that Brady has at that age. Brady's near-obsessive diet and exercise regimen have also kept him from appearing to age much at all (save for some flecks of gray in his hair).
• Always Someone Better: Brady is this to Ben Roethlisberger, who lost two AFC championship games to Brady's Patriots. He also counts against Peyton Manning, as while they have a roughly even win-loss record against each other in the playoffs, Brady has won seven Super Bowls (out of ten he made it to),
• Game-Breaking Injury: His knee injury in 2008, sustained early in the first game of the season, tore through his MCL and ACL and took him out of football for a year.
• He's Back!: In 2014, the Patriots' week 4 beat-down at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs prompted serious discussion as to whether Brady would be traded, benched long term in favor of Jimmy Garoppolo, or retire, thus ending the Dynasty. This was at a time when their third championship and even the 16-0 season were distant memories, and recent playoff disappointments made the Foxborough faithful unsure whether another deep playoff run would ever come. As it turns out, the loss was a launching pad for not just Brady, but the whole team. He would win three more Super Bowls as a Patriot, an NFL MVP award in 2017 at age 40, and as a Buccaneer, won a Lombardi, his seventh, in his first season on the team.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: His bond with tight end Rob Gronkowski is so strong that, when he went to the Buccaneers, he convinced Gronk to come out of retirement and join him there, by way of a trade. Notably, Gronk has caught more touchdown passes from Brady than any other player, and he was only in the league for the back half of Brady's career.
• Hot-Blooded: Brady gets incredibly fired up on the field, which manifests in a lot of screaming to hype himself and his teammates up.
• It's Personal: Being selected so late in the draft still bothers him. During interviews, when he is discussing that draft day and how it felt to sit with his family watching the TV and have round after round go by without being selected, his voice breaks, his eyes tear up, and it's difficult for him to talk about it. A huge motivator for him is the fact that every team he plays (except the Houston Texans, which didn't start play until his third season in 2002) is a team that passed on him multiple times and all six quarterbacks selected ahead of him never won a Super Bowl and are now out of the NFL^note  The only one with any kind of success was Chad Pennington, who showed flashes of being an elite quarterback, but was continuously bitten by the injury bug. Notably, he's the one who kept Brady and New England from winning the AFC East in 2002 and 2008. And he loves rubbing their noses in it.
• It Will Never Catch On: Every single team passed on Brady in the 2000 Draft at least once (except for the Houston Texans, established in 2002). The NFL eventually made a documentary about it, called The Brady 6 — and it's still dated; he had only won three of his seven championships at the time of its making.
  Steve Mariucci "He was right in our backyard and he probably always wanted to be a 49er, and that would have been great, and if we had drafted him, I'd probably still be coach of there."
  Brian Billick: "We all missed on Brady, including the Patriots because if they knew he was going to be so good, they wouldn't have waited until the 6th Round."
• Jack of All Trades: Brady's teams, especially recently, have been geared toward being staffed mostly by players who aren't the greatest at their position, but are capable at lots of different things, and can be shuffled around to compensate for other, injured players. Brought to a head when star Rob Gronkowski went down with a season-ending injury, and they still won the Super Bowl.
• Living Legend: His longevity means that many current NFL stars and fans grew up watching him play and may even be too young to remember the NFL without him. It's been suggested by fans and commentators that one of the myriad problems that plagued the Patriots in the final year of the dynasty was rookie players feeling intimidated by his reputation, and losing confidence as a result.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Much has been made of how the Patriots put up their first losing season since Brady's first year as a starter when he left for Tampa. The truth is a little more complicated than that—the team did put up a winning record when Brady was injured in 2008, and the Pats saw a number of other key pieces sit out the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Long-Runners: The first and only quarterback, as of 2020, to spend twenty years playing for one team. Elandon Roberts, the seventy-seventh and final Patriot to catch a touchdown pass from him, was only six years old when Brady joined the league.
• Miracle Rally: He's staged many over the course of his career, going all the way back to his college days in Michigan, but his most famous one without question came in Super Bowl LI, when he led the Patriots back from being down 28-3 in the third quarter to tying the game with just under a minute left in regulation, then won it all in overtime, 34-28.
• Nerves of Steel: Brady's defining attribute throughout his career. The man is simply unshakeable with the game on the line, and if you don't force his plays to go wrong, he'll just tear through the defense and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
• Old Hero, New Pals: He led the Patriots to win six Super Bowls where the first three teams and the second three teams had essentially no overlap between the two groups. Vince Wilfork was with him for XXXIX and XLIX, and Ben Watson of the XXXIX and XLII teams came out of retirement for the 2019 season. It happened again in 2020: after leaving the Patriots and Bill Belichick following the 2019 season, Brady proceeded to lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory in Super Bowl LV.
• Picked Last: Brady was not, in fact, drafted last in 2000, even among quarterbacks (five were taken after him in the sixth and seventh round). However, the media (and Brady himself) love to play up how every team in the NFL chose 198 other players before the Patriots finally settled on the man who would become the most successful football player ever. Many (again including Brady) likewise attribute this late selection as key to establishing Brady's work ethic and competitive drive.^note His draft pick status compared to long-time rival Peyton Manning (who went first overall two years prior) essentially makes him the equivalent of another late draft choice in baseball's Mike Piazza (a 62nd-rounder who was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 2016 alongside Ken Griffey Jr, #1 the draft before Piazza's).
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: He is aware of the Madden Curse, but he does not believe in it. When featured on the cover of the 2018 version, his MVP season in 2017 seemed to show no effects that plagued other QBs such as Culpepper, though his WR corps did suffer several injuries (most notably to Julian Edelman, who was sidelined for the entire year with a torn ACL), but he won MVP, and they still clinched the top seed in the AFC, but they ultimately fell short of the sixth Super Bowl, losing 41-33 to the Eagles. No one's sure whether him winning MVP means he defied it, or him losing the Super Bowl means he suffered from it. In the Super Bowl, he did pass for over 500 yards, but also had the Patriots' lone turnover of the game.
• Red Baron: He's sometimes referred to as just "TB12", after his jersey number. It's so prevalent that, when Brady went to the Buccaneers, Bucs' wide receiver Chris Godwin willingly changed jersey numbers so Brady could still wear #12.
• The Rival: The Manning brothers. Peyton was one of the few quarterbacks who could contest Brady's dominance of the AFC. Brady won more of their battles, though Peyton had winning record against him in the playoffs. Notably, Brady and Peyton Manning only played one season together in the AFC East—2001—and Brady's very first start in the NFL was a 44-13 rout of the Indianapolis Colts. Eli upset the Patriots twice in the Super Bowl, the first time against a then-undefeated Pats with what is widely considered to be one of the greatest plays in football history.
  • Also to Ben Roethlisberger, who along with Brady and Manning formed the trio of AFC Quarterbacks that appeared in all but one Super Bowl between the 2002 and the 2019 seasons. Unlike Manning, Big Ben never beat the Brady-led Patriots in a play-off game, losing AFC championship games in 2001, 2004, and 2016 , and secured three Super Bowl berths essentially by working at the margins of the Patriots dynasty, winning in 2005 when the Patriots lost the Divisional to Denver, winning in 2008 when the Patriots were without Brady and missed the playoffs, and losing in 2010, where they faced the upstart New York Jets in the conference championship.
  • Many saw him as a rival to NFC quarterbacks Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers as well, with all three quarterbacks defining The New '10s for their teams. Brees and Rodgers kept the reputation of being the best individual quarterbacks in the NFC, with Brees setting passing yardage and touchdown records that he and Brady constantly leapfrogged over for the next couple of years and Rodgers shining with his own exceptional accuracy. While we never had a Super Bowl matchup involving them, despite being a dream matchup to many fans, he faced both of them in the playoffs on the Buccaneers' run to Super Bowl LV, and although one game is hardly definitive, the Buccaneers' defense completely shut down Brees, and while Rodgers did end up giving Brady a tough fight, even outgunning him overall^note Rodgers competed 33 of 48 passes compared to Brady's 20 of 36, threw 346 yards to Brady's 280, and while both Brady and Rodgers threw three touchdowns, Rodgers threw only one interception, Brady lighting up the Packers defense did him in.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Brady has spent most of his career taking contracts that are well below his market value so his teams have extra money to spend on talented free agents that will help the them win championships.
• Sore Loser: If your team beats Tom Brady, don't expect him to congratulate you. After all three of his Super Bowl losses^note Super Bowl XLII, XLVI, and LII, he went to the Patriots' locker room without shaking any of the Giants' or Eagles' player's hands. He may decide to congratulate a Worthy Opponent during the regular season, but he also has been known to hold a grudge; he notably refused to shake hands with Nick Foles, leader of that Eagles victory, the next time he defeated them in a game. Though to be fair to Brady, he didn't get handshakes from Kurt Warner, Jake Delholmme, or Donovan McNabb after the Patriots defeated their respective teams in the Super Bowl. Also, Brady isn't the only person to not shake hands with the winning QB after the Super Bowl. Finally, Foles has stated at he couldn't reach Brady due to the mobbing press, and in an ESPN interview, felt that the alleged non-handshake wasn't a big deal.
• Wham Line:
  • Brady's announcement that he would be leaving the Patriots to play for another team was this trope to many Pats fans.
  • It was also one for Bucs fans because they believed that they now had a real shot at a playoff berth now that Brady is on their team,^note When Brady was announced to be joining Tampa, season ticket sales for the Bucs went up big time. which was ultimately proven right when the Bucs won the Super Bowl after Brady's first season with the team.
• Young Conqueror: It's easy to forget now, given that Brady's longevity has been the main narrative underpinning his success, but he also had one of the most illustrious career starts of any quarterback, winning three Super Bowls, ten consecutive playoff victories, a league record twenty-one consecutive regular season and playoff games, an undefeated season, a league MVP award, and a fourth Super Bowl appearance in his seventh year, all before age thirty; had his career ended then, he still would likely have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. His emergence also completely upended the emerging status quo in the league, where Peyton Manning had the AFC within his grasp and the St. Louis Rams were poised to be the NFL's next great dynasty.

...and to the Super Bowl's

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This Competition Provides Examples of:

Super Bowl A-L

• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Cowboys safety Cliff Harris infamously attempted this on Steelers kicker Roy Gerela in X after he missed a kick, mockingly thanking them for helping Dallas keep the lead. Fearsome Pittsburgh linebacker Jack Lambert responded by picking him up and throwing him to the ground; the refs judged not to penalize anyone for this, apparently determining this was the correct response.
• Always Female: Often the singers who have sung "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful" as a way to help balance out the Always Male aspects of the game itself (though there have been some exceptions like Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Garth Brooks, and Luke Bryan).
• Ascended Meme: In response to an online petition calling for the SpongeBob SquarePants song "Sweet Victory" to be played in Super Bowl LIII halftime show (as a tribute to SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg), the NFL included a short clip referencing the song. Downplayed in that the song itself wasn't performed.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Since Super Bowl XXX, the Lombardi Trophy is presented to the winning team onfield at the end of the game, with lots of (Lombardi Trophy-shaped) confetti.
• Batman Gambit: Bill Belichick has famously used Super Bowls to demonstrate his skill at this trope, generally with strong results. On the other hand, his instruction for his defense to cover top Giants receivers Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks so tightly that Eli Manning wouldn't be able to risk throwing to them in Super Bowl XLVI was one that backfired in rather spectacular fashion — that is, while Belichick had correctly predicted that his play call would "make them go to [#3 receiver] Manningham", he apparently underestimated how it would go for the Giants if they did.
  • The Seahawks attempted to pull one of these against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX, running the clock down in an attempt to force Belichick to call a timeout so that they could make adjustments to their own lineup without having to burn their final timeout. Unfortunately for the Seahawks, Belichick didn't bite and they were left scrambling.
• Battle in the Rain: Super Bowl XLI between the Colts and the Bears.
• Big Applesauce: As discussed in the intro, the Super Bowl has always been played in warm climates or in domes to mitigate risk of bad weather impacting the viewing experience. The only market large enough to avert that so far is New York City (okay, technically New Jersey) in 2014.
• Big Blackout:
  • Super Bowl XLVII (2013) was delayed for over half an hour when about half the stadium's lights went out. This was arguably the most memorable moment of the night.
  • This actually became a source of controversy in the lead-up to Super Bowl XLV (2011), because the area was experiencing rolling blackouts due to a storm that interrupted the power supply, but the stadium was unaffected. This was in part due to safety concerns and in part due to the stadium having a redundant power system drawing from multiple grids^note meaning they could get hit on one grid by the rolling blackouts but there would be no observable effect due to the alternate systems kicking in, but local residents saw it as the government having Skewed Priorities.
• Big Eater: Part of the tradition of Super Bowl Sunday is pigging out on a lot of junk food with your friends right in front of the TV.
• Big Game: For American Football, it's the big game. Even people who don't watch any other football games will watch this one, and the winning team claims the title of "World Champions" despite all the teams being based in the United States.
• Bladder of Steel: If your favorite team is one of those vying for the Vince Lombardi Trophy, AND you're interested in watching the commercials, your bathroom break opportunities will be limited. If you're a fan of the halftime performer, you're pretty much doomed.
  • This trope was spoofed in the Super Nintendo version of SimCity. One scenario in the game has you rebuild a city after a nuclear power plant has a meltdown. The cause of said meltdown? The championship football game had captivated 5 million citizens of the city, and they held it in so long that when halftime came, each and every last one of them flushed at the exact same time, forcing all the cooling water to drain from the tank of the reactor.
  • This has been somewhat alleviated with the rise of broadband Internet, as all the Super Bowl commercials are up on YouTube immediately following the game. Sometimes even before the game.
• Book Ends:
  • Inverted in that since 2004, the team that wins the Super Bowl then proceeds to host the Kickoff Game for the next season.
  • Similarly, as far as teams repeating goes, the 2014-15 season began and ended with the Seahawks, and the 2004-05 and 2017-18 seasons began and ended with the Patriots.^note For 2004-05, they won both games by three points, and for 2017-18, they lost both games to an opponent that scored over 40 points.
  • Tom Brady and Bill Belichick won their first Super Bowl together in Brady's second year as a Patriot, and they won their last Super Bowl together, against the same team, in Brady's second-to-last year as a Patriot.
• The Butler Did It: Lampshaded and parodied at length by the media after New England cornerback Malcolm Butler made a game-sealing interception in Super Bowl XLIX.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • The Buffalo Bills managed to reach four consecutive Super Bowls from 1989 to 1993, only to lose them all. The first of their defeats was lost by a missed field goal, which is today the only thing kicker Scott Norwood is remembered for, while the latter three were all pretty sizable blowouts. It led to the derisive acronym Boy I Love Losing Superbowls.
  • Before the Bills, the Minnesota Vikings were the biggest example of this, appearing in four Super Bowls in the 1970s and losing each one. They at least had the decency of losing them intermittently, though unlike the Bills none of them were particularly close. Fran Tarkenton, the Vikings' QB in the last three, held most of the NFL's QB records by his final appearance and yet had terrible games in each; the Viking offense didn't score a single point in the first half of any of their Super Bowls.
  • The Denver Broncos had also lost four Super Bowls in the '70s and '80s, all of them by blowouts, before they finally managed to get that elusive title, 8 years after they'd lost their 4th. Then in 2014 they got crushed again by the Seahawks. In fact, three of the five biggest Super Bowl blowouts were Denver losses ^note XXII, XXIV, and XLVIII. A major reason for the blowouts was the fact that the Broncos were facing well-balanced teams with strong offenses and defenses, whereas basically all Denver had was John Elway. Many sportswriters and NFL historians have pointed out that those Denver teams had no business being anywhere near the Super Bowl, and were only there because Elway carried those teams on his shoulders and used his enormous talents to get them to the Super Bowl, then was hobbled by defenses that simply threw everything they had at him and overwhelmed his line and his receivers, and a Denver defense that simply could not keep points off the board. It took Mike Shanahan coming in and actually building a team good enough that Elway didn't have to do it all himself for Denver to finally win two back to back Super Bowls - at a time when Elway was visibly past his prime. The same happened again with Peyton Manning, who got crushed in a Super Bowl where he and his offense were all Denver had but did much better (and won) when a past his prime Manning had a world class defense to help him.
  • Compounding it for the Bills, Vikings, and Broncos was the fact that, aside from the Bills in Super Bowl XXV, these teams completely came apart when they got to the Super Bowl and suffered horrendous, fandom-scarring defeats. Even more interesting, when the Vikings lost their 4th Super Bowl (32-14 in Super Bowl XI), the Broncos lost their 1st the following year (27-10 in Super Bowl XII). When the Broncos lost their 4th (55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV), the Bills lost their first in Super Bowl XXV, 20-19 in an absolute heartbreaker. Going by this pattern, the Chargers better watch out (they lost Super Bowl XXIX, a year after the Bills lost their 4th, though they haven't been back to the Big Game since).
  • For a long period of time, the entire American Football Conference qualified as butt monkeys, as AFC teams lost 13 straight Super Bowls between the 1983 and 1997 seasons.
  • The 2005 Seattle Seahawks. In the leadup to the game, the Seahawks were 13-3 in the regular season, with the best record in the NFC, and facing the 11-5 Pittsburgh Steelers, who despite their record had snuck into the playoffs at the #6 wild card slot. Despite having the regular season MVP in star running back Shaun Alexander, a top 5 quarterback in Matt Hasselbeck, and one of the top performing defenses in the league, the Steelers were favored by 4 to win. A majority of the media coverage was showered on the Steelers, specifically the story that long-time veteran Jerome Bettis would retire at the end of the current season. On top of that, the game (unluckily for the Seahawks) itself took place in Ford Field in Detroit, nearly 2,000 miles from the Seattle faithful and just a stone's throw away from Pittsburgh (not to mention the hometown of the aforementioned Jerome Bettis). In almost every measurable metric, Seattle outdid Pittsburgh, except for the score itself, which was heavily influenced by a number of highly questionable calls by the refs, especially in scoring situations. Polls taken after the game concluded that a large majority of fans thought officiating mistakes influenced the game's outcome, but overall outrage was surprisingly subdued, since it was the Steelers on top rather than the Seahawks. Though to this day, some detractors refer to the Steelers as the "Refsburgh Reflers".
  • The New England Patriots in their pre-Bledsoe years were this trope, and even then, ran into misfortune at times. Before the 1990s, they seldom made the playoffs and the one time they went all the way to the Super Bowl, they had the misfortune of facing Mike Ditka's formidable 1985 Chicago Bears. The game was a Curb-Stomp Battle ending in a 46-10 score. Their next Super Bowl berth placed them in the path of the Brett Favre-led Green Bay Packers, and again, the Pats were vanquished 35-21, though they put up a fight. They finally shook off this reputation when they defeated the 2001 Rams — the Greatest Show on Turf — in Super Bowl XXXVI, and followed up with back to back victories two years later. The surprise defeats of the undefeated 2007 team and the 2011 team to the New York Giants tarnished the team's image entering The New '10s — but then they won three Super Bowls in 5 years, shedding any lingering doubts of their strength. Their loss in Super Bowl LII to the Philadelphia Eagles was a hiccup in what was otherwise a dominant era of Patriots postseason play, with three consecutive berths, four in five years, and three wins. Because of the topsy-turvy nature of the Pats' postseason history, they simultaneously hold records for the most Super Bowl wins (tied with the Steelers at six) and the most losses (tied with the Broncos at five).
  • Really, any team that has yet to win the big game.
  • For that matter, the four teams that have yet to even play in it. The Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars at least have the excuse that they're still fairly young teams (founded in 2002 and 1995 respectively), and the Cleveland Browns, while the franchise technically predates the Super Bowl era, are in reality a relatively young team as well, dating back to just 1999^note the original Browns team is actually the predecessor of the current Baltimore Ravens; the current team officially owns the pre-1996 history of the franchise, but as far as actual development, the team is basically an expansion team founded in 1999, but the Detroit Lions have been around as a true continuous team since well before the Super Bowl era but still have yet to make a trip to the big game. Detroit is also infamous within this category because not only have they not made it to the Super Bowl, but they've barely been in the hunt for it, having exactly one playoff win in the entire Super Bowl era, and that came all the way back in 1991 (predating the existence of the Texans, Jaguars, and the current iteration of the Browns), which is the longest active streak without a playoff win in the NFL as of the 2021 postseason; even the other teams that have yet to play in a Super Bowl have enjoyed some degree of greater playoff success in that time.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Seattle coach Pete Carroll is publicly a 9/11 Truther, and accordingly both of his Super Bowl appearances saw others follow him to the site. One even succeeded in crashing MVP Malcolm Smith's press conference to seize the microphone.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind:
  • On the final play of Super Bowl XXXIV, Kevin Dyson of the Tennessee Titans was tackled from behind on the one yard line by the St. Louis Rams' Mike Jones, preventing a game-tying touchdown.
  • The infamous Leon Lett fumble after he had returned the ball nearly the entire length of the field, only to have it stripped by Don Beebe because he started showboating before securing the touchdown.
• Creator Breakdown: Shortly before Super Bowl XXXVII, star center Barret Robbins of the Oakland Raiders failed to take his depression medication, and in his confusion abandoned the team the day before the game to party in Tijuana—thinking the Raiders had already won. The episode revealed that he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, but not before his career, and the game, had been lost.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Many Super Bowl matches have ended up in big routs; as of 2021, only 20 of the 55 matchups have ended on a one-possession score (8 points or less), while 14 have had the victors win by over 20 points. Here is a list of some of the biggest blowouts in Super Bowl history.
  • The first two Super Bowls were one-sided bouts where the AFL's representatives were blown out by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers (35-10, 33-14), lending credence to the idea that the NFL was far superior to the AFL.
  • All four of the Vikings' Super Bowls have been losses by double digits: 23-7 against the Chiefs in IV, 24-7 against the Dolphins in VIII, 16-6 against the Steelers in IX, and 32-14 against the Raiders in XI.
  • After being narrowly defeated by the Colts in V, the Dallas Cowboys came back and defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-3, with the defense not allowing a single touchdown; it would be another 47 years before another defensive performance so dominated an opponent.
  • Not much has been able to even compare to the 49ers utterly annihilating the Broncos 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV. The Broncos didn't even score a touchdown until the second half, by which point the game had been all but decided.
  • In Super Bowl XXVII, the Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills 52-17. The game was not as close as the score makes it seem; would have been an even bigger blowout if the Cowboys' Leon Lett hadn't blown an easy touchdown by celebrating too early.
  • Super Bowl XXXVII, between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders, is considered one of the biggest curb stomp battles in NFL history, going 48-21. This one-sidedness was widely attributed to the coach of the Bucs having been the coach of the Raiders just the prior season and his replacement barely changing his playbook; some Raiders fans even went as far as to conspire that the new coach intentionally threw the game. This beatdown seems to have left long-term scars on the Raiders franchise; the once-great franchise has returned to the playoffs once in the nearly two decades since this loss.
  • In 2014 (XLVIII), a long stretch of close contests was broken, and the Broncos were again the team on the receiving end. Seattle scored a safety against Denver in only 12 seconds after the Broncos center mishandled the first snap and accidentally threw it over Peyton Manning's head, a new record for fastest score in the Super Bowl. The rest of the night was downhill from there, as it would be the end of the third quarter before the Broncos finally scored, down 36-0 at the time; they ended the night 43-8.
  • Subverted in LI. The Atlanta Falcons led 21-3 at the half, before extending that lead to 28-3 in the first few minutes of the 3rd quarter. The New England Patriots forced overtime (the first ever in Super Bowl history), overcoming the largest deficit in Super Bowl history, and went on to win the game. One can say that New England curbstomped Atlanta after the score was 28-3, since they scored 31 unanswered points from the end of the third quarter to the touchdown that ended the game.
  • Super Bowl LV was hyped up as a quarterback showdown between Tom Brady (Greatest of All Time) and Patrick Mahomes (Greatest of This Time). Instead, Brady's Buccaneers danced all over Mahomes' Chiefs in a 31-9 blowout - Mahomes' first double digit loss in his NFL career. He never found the end zone. Making it worse, the quarterbacks actually were well-matched enough for an interesting competition, but with virtually no offensive line help and his receivers not coming through (one receiver infamously dropped a perfectly-placed pass that would have been a touchdown), Mahomes never had a prayer against the star-studded Buccaneers team.
  • Ratings-wise, the Super Bowl trumps pretty much everything else on TV the night of the big game (and really, every other activity that isn't related). See also No-Hoper Repeat.
• Curse:
  • For decades, there was talk of a Super Bowl Loser's Curse, in that all the teams who had lost (which you would logically expect to still be good) missed the playoffs the following season. The losers "curse" was broken in the early 2000s and hasn't been very relevant since, as we now have:
  • The Super Bowl Winner's curse, in which the team that won the Super Bowl the previous year will either fail to qualify for the playoffs, or lose their first playoff game. The "curse" began in 2006 (when the defending Steelers went 8-8 and missed the playoffs) and ran for eight years, with the 2014 Seattle Seahawks breaking the streak.
  • A more mundane explanation is that Super Bowl teams, win or lose, are often raided for their talent (coaches and players) in the off season and that the Super Bowl teams are last in the draft pick order the following year, plus the fact that they have played more games than non-playoff teams potentially contributes to more injuries the following year. There's also a tendency for star players considering retirement to do so after a Super Bowl to go out on a high note (especially if it's their team that wins), meaning they won't be back to play another season. A good example of this is the 2013 Ravens, who, after winning the Super Bowl the previous year, parted way with 8 starters^note The reason for cutting so many players was to avoid the salary cap, as Quarterback Joe Flacco signed a 120 million dollar contract following the Super Bowl, including star linebacker Ray Lewis who had been with the team since the beginning. The 2013 Ravens then limped through the season before losing their last chance at a wild-card berth with a loss to the Bengals in the final regular season game.
  • Every team who has existed in Super Bowl history (including teams who changed names such as the Houston Oilers becoming the Tennessee Titans) has at least made it to a Super Bowl, except for four: The Detroit Lions (the only remaining NFC team), Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars and Texans can be excused somewhat since they are newer franchises, but the Lions and Browns are long-runners who have become infamous for never being able to make their way to the top. To add insult to injury for the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2001. Five years prior, the Ravens were known as the Cleveland Browns (the current incarnation of the Browns is an expansion team from 1999, although it owns the pre-relocation history of the original Browns). Much of the front office personnel with the Ravens at the time of their victory was with the team when they were the Browns.
  • There was another longstanding curse in the Super Bowl era: no team had ever had a true home game. The Super Bowl venue is decided on four years ahead of time, but it took until the 2020 season for a team to make it to the big game on their home turf. Prior to this, two teams had previously played in their home town, but in different stadiums (the LA Rams and the 49ers, who played at the Rose Bowl in XIV and Stanford at XIX, respectively). Super Bowl XLVIII was even the home to two teams (the Jets and the Giants), neither of which were even able to make the playoffs. Three teams, however, came close before the curse was broken.
    • The 2014 Arizona Cardinals were the best team in the NFL through the first three months of the season. However, a brutal rash of quarterback injuries destroyed their offense and they dropped from the #1 seed to the #5, ultimately losing in the first round to the Carolina Panthers, who finished their regular season with a losing record.
    • The 2016 Houston Texans took the #4 AFC seed in the playoffs, only to be defeated by the New England Patriots during the divisional round. To make things worse, the Patriots would win Super Bowl LI in the Texans' NRG Stadium by overcoming a 25-point deficit from the Atlanta Falcons and forcing the first overtime game in Super Bowl history.
    • The 2017 Minnesota Vikings came closer to pulling off the feat than any prior team. They surpassed all expectations by completely dominating the NFC North (albeit this was helped along by Aaron Rodgers missing much of the season with a fractured collarbone and the Packers completely imploding in his absence). Then in the playoffs, they pulled off a miraculous win over the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round to become the first Super Bowl host team to make it to the conference championship. With a chance to play in Super Bowl LII at their home venue, US Bank Stadium, on the line, the curse took its toll on Minnesota. Despite being heavily favored to win, the Vikings were crushed by the top-seeded Philadelphia Eagles, 38-7. To further salt Vikings fans' wounds, the Eagles then went on to win Super Bowl LII over the New England Patriots on the Vikings' turf.
    • The team to finally break the curse and earn a true home game in the Super Bowl was the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Led by veteran quarterback Tom Brady, who had joined them in the 2020 offseason, the Buccaneers went on a Cinderella run in the playoffs, with three straight road victories, including upsets over the second-seeded New Orleans Saints (who had beaten them twice in the regular season by a combined 72-26) and top-seeded Green Bay Packers, to punch tickets to Super Bowl LV at their home, Raymond James Stadium. To further sweeten the deal, they went on to upset the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs in a 31-9 blowout, giving Brady his league-leading seventh ring.
    • After 2020, however, the curse appeared to be well and truly broken, as the Los Angeles Rams would advance to (and win) Super Bowl LVI in their home stadium a year later. Ironically, however, in this case the Rams were technically the away team, since "home" and "away" classifications in the Super Bowl are pre-assigned based on conference and year (NFC teams are the designated home team in odd-numbered Super Bowls, AFC teams in even-numbered Super Bowls) rather than by location.
  • In recent times, no player who has won the league MVP has gone on to win the Super Bowl that season. Since Kurt Warner did both in 1999, 7 MVP winners have reached the Super Bowl, and all of them lost, often in particularly heartbreaking fashion. To wit:
    • Kurt Warner won a second MVP in 2001, only for his Rams, who were favored by 14 points, to lose on a last second field goal to the Patriots.
    • Rich Gannon won in 2002, only to throw 5 interceptions in the Super Bowl on the way to getting obliterated by the Buccaneers.
    • Shaun Alexander won in 2005, and the Seahawks lost to the Steelers despite Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger posting an abysmal 22.6 passer rating in what is regarded by many as one of the worst Super Bowls ever played.
    • Tom Brady won in 2007, only for the previously undefeated Patriots to lose to the Giants with minutes remaining, fueled in part by a miracle catch (with his helmet) by little-known Giants receiver David Tyree, after Eli Manning escaped seemingly all Patriots defenders to get the pass off in the first place.
    • Peyton Manning won in 2013, only for his record-setting Denver offense to get blown out by the Seahawks, who scored just 12 seconds into the game (with a particularly embarrassing safety caused by a miscommunication between Peyton and his Center) and put on one of the most lopsided victories in Super Bowl history.
    • Cam Newton won in 2015, only for the Panthers to allow 14 points on turnovers and never be competitive against a notably weak Denver offense. Newton himself was particularly poor, going 18/41 on passes with no touchdowns, an interception and a fumble and was sacked seven times.
    • Matt Ryan won in 2016, only for his Falcons to blow a 25-point lead and allow the Patriots to score 31 unanswered points, 19 of them in the fourth quarter, when no Super Bowl team had ever lost when leading by more than 10 previously. To add insult to injury, Ryan did not even get to touch the ball once in Overtime.
    • Tom Brady won it again in 2017, and the Patriots came close, but ultimately fell short to the Eagles in LII. Both quarterbacks played excellent games, with Brady throwing for a Super Bowl record 505 yards. However, he gave up a costly fumble at a critical time, and while that didn't make all the difference, it did allow Philly to widen the score and take even more time away, ultimately allowing them to secure the win.
    • Then there's the case of Aaron Rodgers, who appears to have been hit with an especially nasty case of this curse: as of 2020, Rodgers is the only player to win 3 or more MVP awards in the Super Bowl era (2011, 2014, 2020, and 2021) and not even reach the Super Bowl in any of those years, despite the Packers being a favorite to win the conference all four years. 2014 was probably the most egregious, as the Packers had a double-digit lead late in the NFC Championship and appeared to be minutes away from punching their ticket to Super Bowl XLIX, only to melt down in just about every possible way in the latter half of the fourth quarter and end up losing the game in overtime.
• Dark Horse Victory: Happens fairly often:
  • The New York Jets for Super Bowl III were 18-point underdogs to the Baltimore Colts at a time when their league (the AFL) was mocked as weaker compared to their NFL. Led by Joe Namath - who "guaranteed" victory before the game - the Jets went on to win 16-7, proving an AFL team could beat an NFL team. The images of Namath wagging his finger gesturing "We're Number One" as he left the field became iconic.
  • The 1980 Oakland Raiders were the first team to triumph in the Super Bowl by making the playoffs as a wildcard, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10 at Super Bowl XV.
  • The 2007 New York Giants had a wild card berth and faced off against a New England Patriots team that had gone undefeated all season and set multiple offensive records, only to eek out a narrow victory against the 12-point favorites.
  • The 2011 New York Giants followed up on their Super Bowl XLII victory by becoming the first team with less than 10 wins in the regular season (9-7) to win the Super Bowl.
  • The 2017 Eagles played up the "Underdogs" label for all it was worth during the postseason, wearing dog masks after each victory over favored opposition, despite being the #1 seed.^note  This was due to their starting QB Carson Wentz suffering a torn ACL in December, forcing the Eagles to start backup Nick Foles for the entirety of the playoffs. They ended up defeating the New England Patriots 41-33 in a nail-biter game that season.
  • The 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers entire playoff run. Prior to the 2020 season, the last time the Bucs made the postseason was in 2007, and they were ousted by the (eventual Super Bowl XLII champions) New York Giants in the Wild Card round. However, in the 2020 offseason, the Bucs acquired long-time Patriots QB Tom Brady in free agency. In the playoffs leading up to Super Bowl LV, Brady and the Bucs bested Drew Brees and the Saints in the Divisional round and Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in the NFC Championship. In Super Bowl LV, the Bucs faced the defending champion Chiefs, and the game was expected to be a battle of titans between Brady and Patrick Mahomes; however, the Bucs dominated the Chiefs from start to finish in a 31-9 rout.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Super Bowl XLII (42) saw the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots, who were 18-0 going into the game, having won all of their regular season games. Despite being billed as one of the greatest teams ever assembled, the Patriots lost a nail-biter, 17-14. The entire season is collectively known as "18-1."
• Determinator: As many players never even get close to making it to the Super Bowl in the first place, injured players do whatever it takes to play. Arguably the most famous instance of this is Los Angeles Rams defensive end Jack Youngblood, who went into the game and played every single down on a broken leg (along with the Pro Bowl the following week). Terrell Davis of the Broncos won the game's MVP honors despite being temporarily blinded due to heavy migraines at one point in the game.
• Disney Owns This Trope: As noted in many other places on this page, the NFL is quite aggressive about enforcing its trademarks on the name "Super Bowl" and other associated words and phrases, mostly so that they can get money by auctioning off exclusive rights to use them in advertising.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Since the NFL implemented the 16-game schedule in 1978, seven teams won at least 15 games in a single season^note The 1984 San Francisco 49ers, the 1985 Chicago Bears, the 1998 Minnesota Vikings, the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers, the 2007 New England Patriots (the only perfect season thus far), the 2011 Green Bay Packers, and the 2015 Carolina Panthers.. Of those seven, only four reached the Super Bowl and only the first two actually won it.^note The 1984 49ers and the 1985 Bears won Super Bowls XIX and XX, respectively. The 2007 Patriots and 2015 Panthers reached Super Bowls XLII and 50, respectively, but lost..
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: This legendary tweet from the official Atlanta Falcons Twitter account was posted at the start of the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI. Hilariously, a reply to that tweet encapsulated this trope:
  @BeLEAFingWithJB: "PLEASE HANG ON!!!! don't get relaxed/complacent this is Tom Brady an #Patriots they can strike quickly #SuperBowl #RiseUp."
• Down to the Last Play:
  • V came down to a field goal scored by a Baltimore Colts kicker that had already missed two kicks. Technically, the Cowboys had five seconds to respond with a last-ditch pass, but it was intercepted.
  • X came down to a Hail Mary pass from Roger Staubach that Steelers safety Glen Edwards intercepted in the end zone.
  • XXXIV notably came down to the final play itself coming down to the final yard.
  • Adam Vinatieri's signature move, really. He kicked game-winning field goals in XXXVI and XXXVIII.
  • XLIX was decided by Malcolm Butler's interception on the Patriots' one-yard line with seconds to play.
  • LI went to overtime. The NFL's overtime rules state that the first team to score a touchdown wins, even if it's on the first play (field goals can also end the game if made after the first possession). It took New England a little under four game-minutes to drive from their 25 yard line and score the game-winning touchdown.
  • LVI ended with the Bengals' rookie phenom WR Ja'Marr Chase wide open for a game-winning TD, but the Rams' defensive leaer Aaron Donald sacked Joe Burrow before he could throw the ball his way.
• Drench Celebration: The winning team's coach, almost without fail, will get the contents of the team's Gatorade cooler dumped on top of his head at the end of the game. It's so expected that it was a minor news story in the sports world when the Baltimore Ravens didn't do this after winning Super Bowl XLVII (it turned out that coach John Harbaugh asked his players not to, since John's brother Jim Harbaugh was the coach of the opposing team, so he wanted to avoid any hint of Unsportsmanlike Gloating).
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first four Super Bowls were inter-league games between the rival AFL and NFL. When the two merged, V was the first played by two conferences of the modern NFL.
    • The first two games were not officially called "Super Bowl"; They were the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game". The name "Super Bowl" was brought up by Lamar Hunt as a joke that "can obviously be improved upon", the media loved the name, and that was that. The very first Super Bowl was also not sold out and was carried on two of the then three networks simultaneously (with two different commentary and camera crews). It was also considered an total afterthought, with the Green Bay Packers delivering Curb-Stomp Battle beatdowns of the AFL entrant in both of the first two games. Only in Super Bowl III did the AFL establish itself as a credible rival to the NFL when the Jets beat the highly favored Colts after Joe Namath's infamous "guarantee".
    • The first six Super Bowls were not carried live in their market of origin as an extension of league blackout rules, where the home market and any secondary markets within a 75 mile radius were automatically blacked out of television coverage even if the local game was sold out. It wasn't changed until VII between Miami and Washington played in Los Angeles, and that was because NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle faced pressure from Richard Kleindienst, then Attorney General under the nation's most famous football fan: Richard Nixon, who threatened to have Congress review the league's anti-trust exemption. Rozelle then announced that if the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum sold out within 10 days before the game, the blackout would be lifted. Indeed, it was; allowing Los Angeles to watch the game - and the Dolphins to complete the only perfect season in league history - on local NBC station KNBC-TV 4. Starting in 1973, the NFL instituted a new blackout policy where the home and secondary markets would be blacked out only if the game did not sell out within 72 hours, which obviously was never an issue for the Super Bowl.
  • The Super Bowl halftime show is arguably the most culturally significant part of the modern Super Bowl, giving people who are not interested in pro football in the slightest a chance to watch a massive spectacle put on by some of the world's biggest music artists. Many are surprised to learn that first halftime show that somewhat fits that model was New Kids on the Block's performance in XXV in 1991. Prior to that, in the '60s and early '70s, the halftime show was usually just a standard marching band performance that was lucky to make it to TV (though the first Super Bowl did have a guy with a jet pack in the pre-game). The late '70s and '80s featured slightly bigger spectacles but were dominated by groups like Up With People or Disney who put on instantly dated performances (XXIII's show featuring an Elvis Impersonator singing/dancing magician is often cited as the most bizarre display America has ever been subject to). Even the New Kids were really just a featured part of a Disney show; Michael Jackson was the first true headliner in XXVII, and the show didn't make having a headliner an annual tradition until XXXV in 2001.
  • The Patriots played the first of their eleven Super Bowl match-ups in their classic red and white uniforms with the Pat Patriot logo; the Brady-Belichick dynasty played all of theirs in blue-and-silver with the Flying Elvis logo.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Like all sports, there are players/coaches/teams that have won the Super Bowl, but only after suffering great setback in the process.
  • The 1971 Miami Dolphins earned their first Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl VI, only to be demolished 24-3 by the Dallas Cowboys. The next year, they pulled off the only perfect season in NFL history, returning to Super Bowl VII, where they won 14-7 against the Washington Redskins.
  • The NY Giants upset of the Pats in XLII came following a time when many New York fans and media questioned the wisdom of keeping coach Tom Coughlin and QB Eli Manning. Particularly with Manning, many said he'd never succeed like his brother has.
  • QB John Elway suffered some of the most demoralizing defeats in the SB. He won two in a row in his final two seasons, just as it seemed his opportunity to win had passed.
  • Coach Tony Dungy was fired from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, just as the team won the SB with players he helped draft and develop. He then went to Indianapolis, where they had great regular success and usually were defeated by the Pats. In 2006, they finally won it all, and Dungy got the ring that had eluded him. His QB Peyton Manning was dogged by assumptions that while he was a great QB, he'd didn't have it in him to win a championship, with the added sting of being compared to Tom Brady. The doubts vanished (or at least, greatly diminished) with the Colts win.
  • Many teams got their championship following years of mediocrity or, in the case of the New Orleans Saints, being so bad their fans were embarrassed to watch.
    • The New England Patriots, prior to their dynasty, were one such team. Remember the "Patsies", anyone?
    • The Baltimore Colts never quite erased their famous defeat in Super Bowl III, but their last-second victory two years later counts as this.
    • The Seattle Seahawks had long held a reputation as the picture of mediocrity in a terrible division, losing Super Bowl XL to the Steelers in a questionably-officiated game and making the playoffs with a losing record in 2010. In XLVIII, they finally crushed the Denver Broncos in one of the most lopsided Super Bowls of all time (only to lose the next one in heart-wrenching fashion, but at least they have the one).
    • The 2017/18 Philadelphia Eagles, having gone decades without a title (their most recent title being before the Super Bowl even existed), were able to secure the #1 seed in the NFC, but lost their breakout star quarterback, Carson Wentz, to injury late in the season. Because of this, they were considered underdogs throughout the postseason, but continued to win under the leadership of backup quarterback Nick Foles and ultimately were able to claim their first title by defeating New England 41-33 in a nail-biter, avenging the franchise's Super Bowl XXXIX loss to them in the process.
  • Similar to both Manning brothers, Steve Young of the 49ers finally escaped the shadow of predecessor Joe Montana and the choke artist label in spectacular style in Super Bowl XXIX, lighting up the San Diego Chargers for a record six touchdowns, even managing to pitch in as the game's leading rusher in the process.
  • Similar to Young, Aaron Rodgers finally escaped the shadow of predecessor Brett Favre in Super Bowl XLV, winning a hard-fought battle against the Steelers in his third year as a starter. The Packers themselves also managed to overcome a season filled with injuries; they won after losing a Super Bowl-record 16 players on their injured reserve list, including their primary running back Ryan Grant and star tight end Jermichael Finley, plus losing two of their veteran players, wide receiver Donald Driver and cornerback and team captain Charles Woodson, to injury in the first half.
  • The New England Patriots in LI were down as much as 28-3 in the third quarter, before rallying back to force the first ever Super Bowl overtime (overcoming the largest deficit in Super Bowl history in the process), and winning it with a touchdown.
  • Andy Reid had developed a reputation as a head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs for choking in big games. In Super Bowl LIV, he finally won his first Super Bowl with the Chiefs, giving Kansas City their first Super Bowl in fifty years in the process.
    • The Rams' Matthew Stafford spent the first 12 years of his career with the perennial losers of the Detroit Lions, racking up tons of individual accolades but failing to take the franchise to their first Super Bowl, not even winning a playoff game. After being traded to the Rams in 2021, he immediately reached and won a ring.
• Failsafe Failure: Hilariously, in 2013 immediately after Beyoncé's halftime performance, the stadium's power went out due to the misfire of a failsafe designed to prevent exactly that.
• Flawless Victory: The 1972 Miami Dolphins are, to date, the only team with an entirely perfect season, finishing 14-0 in the regular season, winning their playoff matchups, and winning Super Bowl VII. The only teams who almost matched it are the 2007 New England Patriots, who went 18-0 in the regular season and the playoffs before losing to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, and the 1984 San Francisco 49ers and 1985 Chicago Bears, both of whom went 15-1 in the regular season before winning Super Bowl XIX and XX respectively. (Ironically, the teams they defeated? The Dolphins and the Patriots.)
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Super Bowl LII was decided in the Philadelphia Eagles' favor late in the fourth quarter when Brandon Graham crashed through the Patriot's O-line and stripped the ball from Tom Brady's hands. It was the first and only turnover of the game.
• Full-Circle Revolution: At Super Bowl XXXVI, the New England Patriots were the underdogs defeating the St. Louis Rams and their "Greatest Show on Turf". The Patriots have since become a playoff perennial, earning eight more Super Bowl appearances (winning five of them) which, along with some other controversies (e.g. "Spygate") have led some to humorously dubbing them "The Evil Empire".
• History Repeats: Some examples:
  • Rams wide receiver Ricky Proehl caught a touchdown with less than two minutes left in Super Bowl XXXVI to tie the game against the New England Patriots. Tom Brady then drives his team into field goal position where Adam Vinatieri kicks the game winning field goal. Two years later Proehl (now a member of the Carolina Panthers) catches a game tying touchdown with less than two minute to play in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Again Tom Brady drives the Patriots into field goal position where Adam Vinatieri kicks the game winning field goal.
  • Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre won his first (and ultimately only) Super Bowl (XXXI) in the 1996 season, which was also the last season that his predecessor Don Majkowski played before retiring. Fourteen years later, Aaron Rodgers won his first (and to date only) Super Bowl (XLV) in the 2010 season, which was Favre's last season in the NFL before he retired (for good, that is).
  • Two of the Giants' Super Bowl runs (XLII and XLVI). After late season slumps, the Giants barely make it into the playoffs (5th seed 10-6 vs. eking out a Division win at 9-7). First round they beat up an NFC South team (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons), then they defeat the NFC's top seed in the divisional round (Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers). They win the championship round game in overtime against a 2 seed due in large part to a blunder by the other team (Brett Favre throwing an OT interception for the Packers, Kyle Williams muffing a punt for the San Francisco 49ers), and advance to the Super Bowl to play the Patriots, the number 1 seed in their conference. Both times, the drives where the Giants got the game winning points thanks to an epically athletic catch by a wide receiver in at a crucial 3rd down juncture (David Tyree's helmet catch, Mario Manningham's tiptoeing along the sidelines catch). Both times the Giants score but leave time on the clock for Tom Brady to lead a comeback. Both times, Brady and the Patriots fail. Also, both times the Patriots had faced the Giants and the rest of the NFC East in the regular season, so the Super Bowl was a rematch of that game, making for a pretty rare circumstance. Both times the visiting team won.
  • In 2015, a bird-themed team defeated the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game, only to lose in dramatic fashion to the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl (Seattle Seahawks). In 2017, another bird-themed team defeats the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, only to lose in dramatic fashion to the Patriots (Atlanta Falcons). Played with in 2018: A bird-themed team (Philadelphia Eagles) defeats the NFC North winner (Minnesota Vikings) in the NFC Championship Game and faces the Patriots in the Super Bowl. However, this time, the bird-themed team won.
  • Super Bowl LII:
    • The New England Patriots win two Super Bowls in three years, both times winning the game by one possession.^note And to add to that, both the first games, XXXVI and XLIX, were against an NFC West team (the St. Louis Rams and Seattle Seahawks respectively). Then the second games, XXXVIII and LI, not only were they both against NFC South teams (the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons respectively), but they were played in Reliant/NRG Stadium in Houston. Additionally, the Super Bowl between the two previous appearances, XXXVII and 50, pitted an AFC West team (the Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos, respectively) against an NFC South team (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers, respectively), though the NFC team won the first time and the AFC team won the second time. They then proceed to make it back to the Super Bowl for a third time the very next year, where they face the Philadelphia Eagles. Unlike before, the Eagles won.
    • The Eagles entered the playoffs with a 13-3 record and beat the same two teams in the NFC playoffs to get to the Super Bowl that they did previously, only in reverse order (the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons).^note Additionally, the Falcons beat the Rams to reach the game where they would lose against the Eagles. Interestingly, the 2004/05 loss was literally the Rams' final playoff appearance until the Falcons bested them again in 2017/18.
    • Ten years after the infamous 18-1, New England again find themselves in the Super Bowl, playing an underdog NFC East team that surpassed expectations by even making it to this point. The NFC East underdog won again.
    • Super Bowl XLVI ended with Brady throwing a Hail Mary into the end zone that got deflected by Giants defenders, and it came incomplete and short of Gronkowski. Here, same deal. The announcers even lampshade this:
      "This is similar to what happened in the Giants and Patriots' second Super Bowl, when Gronkowski was in the end zone, the ball was up for grabs... It was that last bounce of the ball, one of the Eagles deflected it back up into the air, and it looked like the Patriots had a shot, but they just couldn't get anybody to the ball."
  • The Seattle Seahawks' first two Super Bowl runs (XL and XLVIII), they entered the playoffs with a 13-3 record and the top seed in the NFC, defeating both wildcard teams (#6 Washington Redskins/New Orleans Saints in the divisional round, and #5 Carolina Panthers/San Francisco 49ers in the conference championship) to play the Super Bowl at a stadium in a cold weather setting (Ford Field in Detroit, MI, and MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands, NJ). Thankfully, the second time, they won their first-ever Super Bowl.
  • The two Super Bowls in the Detroit Lions' home stadiums, XVI at the Pontiac Silverdome and XL at Ford Field, pitted an NFC West team (San Francisco 49ers/Seattle Seahawks) against an AFC Central/North team (Cincinnati Bengals/Pittsburgh Steelers). However, the NFC team won the first one and the AFC team won the second.
  • In the Atlanta Falcons' runs to XXXIII and LI, they defeated an NFC West team in the divisional round (San Francisco 49ers/Seattle Seahawks) and an NFC Central/North team in the conference championship (Minnesota Vikings/Green Bay Packers), before losing to a team that won with 34 points (the Denver Broncos winning 34-19 at XXXIII, the New England Patriots winning 34-28 in overtime at LI).
  • In XXXIV, the winning coach was someone whose only previous Super Bowl appearance was over a decade earlier in a loss with the Philadelphia Eagles (Dick Vermeil in Super Bowl XV). Twenty years later in Super Bowl LIV, the winning coach was someone whose only previous Super Bowl appearance was a loss with the Eagles over a decade earlier (Andy Reid in Super Bowl XXXIX).
  • Three years after serving as the Falcons' offensive coordinator during the "28-3" fiasco in Super Bowl LI and receiving most of the blame for the loss, Kyle Shanahan, now head coach for the 49ers, watches his team once again blow a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIV. Even better, both the Falcons and 49ers defeated the Packers in the NFC Championship.
  • There were some striking similarities between the San Francisco 49ers teams from Super Bowls XXIX and LIV: a 13-3 record, #1 seed in the NFC, NFC West winners, an anniversary season for the NFL (75th season and 100th season, respectively), a Shanahan as a coach, playing in Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, facing an AFC West team (San Diego Chargers/Kansas City Chiefs) that pulled off 2 comeback wins in order to reach that point. However, unlike Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers lost.
  • Two Super Bowl winners' trips to the promised land were owed in part to them getting head to head tiebreakers on New England thanks to late season collapses on the Patriots' part.
    • 2015 / 50: The Patriots go 10-0 before losing to the Broncos in Week 12. Denver then gets unexpected help from three teams New England were heavily favored against - the Eagles, Jets and Dolphins, the very latter in Week 17 in a 1 PM game - denying the Patriots the 1 seed in favor of the Broncos.^note Both teams were 10-2 after Week 13. New England then rattled off two wins against AFC South teams while Denver dropped two against the Steelers and Raiders, but the reverse held true for the final two weeks. The Patriots would go on to lose the AFC title game in Denver.
    • 2019 / LIV: The Patriots go 8-0 before losing to the Ravens. Right after that, the Chiefs lose in Nashville to the Titans in dramatic fashion and sit at 6-4. Three weeks later, New England takes a surprise loss in Houston to the Texans before Kansas City takes the AFC title game rematch. Both teams win their next two games, leaving a win in a 1 PM showdown against the Dolphins in Foxborough as 17-point favorites as the only thing standing between the Patriots and a first round bye. Miami proceeds to stun the Patriots and give the Chiefs tiebreaker to deny New England a first round bye for the first time since 2009-10.^note To show just how much of a collapse this was, after Week 8 prior to losing in Baltimore, New England had over an estimated 92% chance to get the 1 seed. Baltimore claimed it in Week 16 after having a 2.4% chance in Week 8 before beating New England, who still had a massive chance to get the bye and failed. They were then upset at home by the aforementioned Titans team.
  • Super Bowl LV:
    • As with Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003, the Buccaneers visited the NFC Championship Game in a cold weather stadium against a team majorly favored to win (Eagles/Packers) but came out on top both times.
    • Then comparing it with Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005, both games included a Tom Brady led team (Patriots/Buccaneers) facing off against an Andy Reid coached team (Eagles/Chiefs) in a Florida venue, except in opposite conferences both years. Brady emerged victorious both times.
    • And compared to XXXVI in 2002, both games saw a Tom Brady led team with an 11-5 record (Patriots/Buccaneers) pull off an upset against a 14-2 Missouri team (Rams/Chiefs). Even more coincidentally, the wins were his first with each respective franchise, and both came with his team as the designated "home" team against an opponent that finished with an 8-0 road record and had already beaten him at home in the regular season.
    • And just like XLIX, a Tom Brady-led team (Patriots/Buccaneers) beat the defending champions (Seahawks/Chiefs).
    • There are also some comparisons with Super Bowl XVIII: In both cases, the Native American-themed defending champions make it back to the Super Bowl (Redskins/Chiefs), only to get blown out by a pirate-themed team (Raiders/Buccaneers). Also, on both occasions, both teams had previously met during the regular season with the defending champion getting a narrow victory only to wind up losing in the Super Bowl.
    • Comparisons have also been made to Super Bowl XXXII: both involved a team led by a veteran star quarterback (John Elway's Broncos/Tom Brady's Buccaneers) defeating the reigning Super Bowl Champion (Packers/Chiefs) led by a young rising star QB (Brett Favre/Patrick Mahomes). The comparison is limited to the framing, however, as there wasn't much similarity between the actual game action; the former was a closely-fought game that came almost down to the wire, nothing like the blowout that was LII.
• Hope Spot: Some teams have managed to mount a comeback from a big hole, but they all fell short. In fact, for a long time, the largest deficit to be overcome for a win in Super Bowl history was a mere 10 points... until LI, where Tom Brady and the Patriots came back from a 25-point deficit (28-3) to win (28-34).
  • Even more of a stomach punch: there have been three teams that did come back from deficits of more than 10 points to at least erase the lead, only to lose in the end:
    • In XXXIV, the Tennessee Titans rebounded from a 16-0 deficit to tie the game at 16. The opposing St. Louis Rams scored a late touchdown to take a 23-16 lead, but after a drive for the ages, the Titans looked set to score a touchdown of their own to bring it back to a tie, only to fall literally inches short.
    • The Rams found themselves on the other side of this two years later in Super Bowl XXXVI, coming back from an 11-point deficit to tie the New England Patriots at 17 late in the fourth quarter only to lose on a last-second field goal.
    • The Cardinals had it even worse in XLIII. They came back from 13 points down to take the lead late in the fourth quarter and only had to keep the Steelers from scoring, or at least hold them to a field goal (which would tie the game and send them into overtime, but wouldn't cost them the game outright). The Steelers drove it all the way down the field for a touchdown and the Cardinals ended up losing by 4.
  • In XLVII, the San Francisco 49ers got hit with two Hope Spots in a row:
    • Things looked grim when they fell to a 28-6 deficit after the Baltimore Ravens returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown, only for the game — and Baltimore's momentum — to be interrupted by a power outage, allowing San Francisco to rally in the aftermath. After closing the gap to 5, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick marched the team down the field to set up first and goal at the Ravens' 7, only for the drive to end in a two-yard run followed by three incompletions^note one of which may have been a missed pass interference call, forcing a turnover on downs.
    • Following the first miss, the Ravens got the ball back, but there was too much time left for them to kneel out the clock, so they had to keep playing. The 49ers forced the Ravens to go three-and-out, but rather than punt, the Ravens chose to intentionally give up a safety to burn more time off the clock and so that they could kick off from the 40 instead of punting from their own end zone, so the 49ers got the ball with only four seconds to go. Even then, the 49ers still had one last chance to score on the kick return or take a touchback and try a desperation play from the 20, but the Ravens kicked the ball short of the end zone, precluding a touchback, and the returner was tackled at midfield as time expired.
  • In XLVI, the Patriots, trailing 21-17, got the ball back from the New York Giants with just under a minute to go thanks to some trickery by the defense, giving Tom Brady a chance to mount a game-winning drive. However, the drive went wrong for the Patriots pretty much from the start, with multiple incompletions and a six-yard sack preventing them from moving the ball efficiently, and they found themselves on their own 49-yard line with only four seconds to go, leaving them with no choice but to put the outcome of the game on a 51-yard Hail Mary. For one last moment, it looked like they might pull it off as Brady was able to put the ball right in the middle of the end zone, but the pass was broken up by the Giants and fell incomplete.
  • In XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks also got hit with two:
    • The first came as they were down by four points in the fourth quarter. They made it all the way to the opposing Patriots' 1-yard line thanks to a crazy miracle catch by Jermaine Kearse, and then got intercepted.
    • The second came in the immediate aftermath of the first. The Patriots could not run out the clock as they were too close to their own goal line. Thus, there was still a chance for the Seahawks to score a 2-point safety and start a new drive with possession of the ball, and only a 2-point deficit that could be overcome with a mere field goal, greatly shortening the distance they had to go. And then they got a 5-yard penalty called against them, followed by one of their players instigating a brawl and getting ejected in addition to another 15 yards, giving Patriots' QB Tom Brady the space needed to take a knee and end the game.
  • Similarly, Atlanta Falcons receiver Julio Jones made a huge sideline catch in Super Bowl LI. The ref even commented that the catch would "go down in Super Bowl history"... or it would have had that allowed the Falcons to get in that winning score.
  • In the trailing minutes of LII, the Eagles scored a touchdown to retake the lead, but failed their two-point conversion, leaving them up only 38-33 with 2:21 left, at least two clock stoppages, and the Patriots getting the ball back. Most of America promptly groaned (or, in the Boston area, and some in the Dallas area, cheered), knowing that the Patriots had more than enough time to make one last comeback drive. And then, several plays later, Eagles pass rusher Brandon Graham crashed through the line for the first sack by either team, and punched out the ball to be recovered by the Eagles. Three runs and a field goal later, and New England was reduced to a desperation Hail Mary, which, just like in XLVI, fell incomplete as time expired.
• Iconic Item: Hall of Famer Joe Namath performed the coin toss in XLVIII while wearing a mink coat, which he was infamous for wearing on the sidelines during his playing days.
• Indy Ploy: A huge part of what makes the Helmet Catch legendary is that it was the ultimate improvisation. On paper, the description "battered and desperate QB scrambles away from five defenders, narrowly avoiding a crushing sack on a game-changing 3rd down, and throws a 50/50 pass over the head of a known-to-be-inconsistent wide receiver while he's covered by an elite safety" sounds completely insane and doomed to fail, but Eli somehow made it work.
• Irony:
  • The power outage during XLVII was caused by the activation of a power relay when it wasn't supposed to. The purpose of the relay? To activate and relay power from another source in the event of a power outage.
  • Eli Manning won a Super Bowl in his brother Peyton's home stadium (XLVI in Lucas Oil Stadium), but Peyton lost a Super Bowl in Eli's home stadium ( XLVIII in MetLife Stadium).
• I Surrender, Suckers:
  • In XLVI, the Patriots deliberately parted to allow the Giants to score, in order to give their offense more time to come back. The Giants' Ahmad Bradshaw realized just too late what was going on, and had an Oh, Crap! moment when he tried to stop on the 1 yard line. His momentum caused him to tumble into the end zone onto his ass for a touchdown. As it happens, sneaky football isn't always winning football: Bradshaw's TD proved to be the game-winning points when the Patriots offense couldn't deliver.
  • In XXXII (which saw John Elway win his first Super Bowl); the Green Bay Packers tried a similar gambit in allowing eventual MVP Terrell Davis to run for his third touchdown with 1:45 left and two timeouts (head coach Mike Holmgren later said he thought it was first and goal instead of 2nd and goal, which contributed to his sense that the touchdown was inevitable). Green Bay got the ball back in an attempt to at least tie the game with a touchdown, only for the last pass of the game to be broken up with seconds remaining to preserve a Denver win.
  • In XLVII, the Baltimore Ravens were at 4th down and 7 yards to go, deep in their own territory with 12 seconds remaining and only a 5-point lead. If the San Francisco 49ers scored a touchdown, the Ravens would lose the game. Instead of a straight punt out of their own end zone, Sam Koch, the punter, held the ball and ran sideways out of the end zone, scoring a safety, giving 2 points to the 49ers. This allowed the Ravens to punt (or "free kick") from their own 20-yard line with only 4 seconds left in the game. On the ensuring runback, the 49ers receiver was tackled after game time expired, winning the game for the Ravens.
  • The New England Patriots appeared to take a knee at the end of the 4th quarter in Super Bowl LI to send it to overtime, but it was a ruse to try and get a final trick play in. It failed, and the game proceeded to overtime all the same.^note A faked QB Kneel has been considered the same as a real one since 2011 anyway, to ward off paranoid defensive linesmen from diving on every single victory formation
• Legitimate Businessmens Social Club: As the Super Bowl was being held in New Jersey, during the pre-game Rob Riggle visits a Legitimate Businessman's Pregame Party, complete with several actors from The Sopranos. They, of course, demand that Bruce Springsteen play the halftime show, do the coin toss, and even replace Joe Buck in the booth. When Rob Riggle jokes about the problems getting to the stadium, they respond "Hey, nobody heard nothing about people having trouble crossing the bridge, capiche?"^note In early 2014, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was mired in a scandal surrounding lane closures on the George Washington Bridge to punish political opponents with traffic jams.

Super Bowl M-Z

• Meaningful Echo: During the Super Bowl XXXII trophy presentation, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen dedicated the win to longtime franchise quarterback John Elway, "This one's for John!" Eighteen years later, Elway, now the team's GM, dedicated their win in Super Bowl 50 to Bowlen, who had stepped down from football operations due to Alzheimer's: "This one's for Pat!"
• Mind Screw: Several ads qualify. Super Bowl ads are known for being weird as well as entertaining.
• Miracle Rally:
  • Super Bowl XLII is the truest example (a last-minute touchdown when nothing else would do), though several games have ended with a climactic rally. The Titans' charge to the one-yard line as time expired in Super Bowl XXXIV is also a subversion.
  • Super Bowl LI featured the largest deficit overcome in history (25 points, in the 3rd quarter even), with the Patriots completing the comeback complete with a miracle catch.
• Ms. Fanservice: The NFL cheerleaders as well as some of the commercials (like GoDaddy.com, for example). Slightly averted in Super Bowl XLV which was the first one without cheerleaders for both teams.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Halftime show can sometimes veer into this territory.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: There have been countless instances of a team or player doing something incredible only for their team to still fall short of victory. Some notable examples:
  • In XXV, Bills kicker Scott Norwood missed a game-winning field attempt wide right, ensuring a Giants victory. Even worse for the Bills, this was their first of four straight Super Bowl losses and the only one they kept reasonably close.
  • In XXXIV, the Titans fell one yard short of the end zone on the final play of the game. A score with an extra point would have tied the game, sending a Super Bowl to overtime for the first time in history, while going for two could have won it outright.
  • In XLII, the undefeated Patriots with the (at the time) #1 offense in league history took on the Giants as they attempted to become only the second team in league history to accomplish the "perfect season". However, the Giants pass rush shut down the Patriots vaunted offense, holding them to just 14 points on their way to a defeat.
  • In the final minutes of XLIX, down by four, Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse hauled in a wild, bobbling catch at the Patriot five yard line. If the Seahawks punch it in, the Kearse catch will go down in Super Bowl lore with the likes of the David Tyree "helmet catch". What followed was one of the most discussed and debated scenarios in football lore. On one hand, the Seahawks had in the back field one of the greatest power running backs in Marshawn "Beast Mode" Lynch, and there was only one yard to go. Surely he could punch it in, right? Well, not so fast. Lynch was statistically poor at the goal line, punching in only one carry from within the 5-yard line, on five such tries, and the Patriots had their goal-line run defense on the field. Meanwhile, the Seahawks had their passing offense on the field, potentially creating a blocking mismatch if they tried a run. Another option was to pass, running a play that the 'Hawks had completed more than sixty times, consecutively, without an interception. On the play, Patriot cornerbacks Malcolm Butler and Brandon Browner (the latter a former Seahawk) both made the correct read: Browner jammed Jermaine Kearse at the goal line, forcing Ricardo Lockette to cut inward rather than around, where Butler overtook him to intercept the pass. Ballgame — Patriots win 28 - 24. Kearse's amazing bobbling catch went down as one of the greatest forgotten plays of the Super Bowl, overshadowed by what came directly after.
• No Communities Were Harmed: For varying reasons, many Super Bowl hosts use a region name rather than that of a host city. Super Bowl XLV was listed as "North Texas" since the actual host city of Arlington is right between Dallas and Fort Worth, and those two communities have been forever civic rivals, with Arlington beginning to edge in as the big "third" city, so "North Texas" was used to prevent any slight. Same with Miami for Super Bowl XLIV and XLVII; the stadium is actually in suburban Miami Gardens, and Miami has a similar rivalry with Fort Lauderdale to the north, so "South Florida" is used there to make everyone happy. For Super Bowl XLVIII, "New York/New Jersey" was used as the game was played in New Jersey's Meadowlands, 10 or so miles' drive from the Manhattan end of the Lincoln Tunnel. This was the first Super Bowl to be hosted by two states.
• No-Hoper Repeat: Basically everything else on TV that night. It usually is an old rerun of a prime time show or a movie.
• Numbered Sequels: Always in Roman numerals, except for Super Bowl 50. Finding a specific bowl in history can be confusing because not only do you have to translate the Roman numerals, but the bowl is played the calendar year after the season (Fall 2011 games led to a Super Bowl in February of 2012). If you're confused, add the number 1965 (the year before the first Super Bowl) to the number of the Super Bowl. Super Bowl I was played in 1966, Super Bowl II was played in 1967, Super Bowl III was played in 1968, XIX was played in 1984, XXVII was played in 1992, and so on.
  • There were a few jokes for Super Bowl XXX (30) in 1995, wondering if kids would be able to watch. Oddly enough, 13 Super Bowls later for XLIII (43), some Arizona Comcast subscribers got exactly that for 30 seconds. Note that Arizona was in the Super Bowl that year, and had just scored, ensuring the highest possible number of watchers. (It was eventually determined that an ex-employee had, for reasons unknown, hacked the system and deliberately broadcast the explicit video.)
  • The league decided to market the 50th Super Bowl with the Arabic numeral "50" instead of the Roman "L" because its graphic designers decided that using the Roman numeral with the now-standardized logo wasn't aesthetically pleasing enough, not to mention the connotations of the letter L with "Loss" or "Loser". Roman numerals returned for Super Bowl LI^note Which likely pleased the millions using the very common Chinese surname "Li".
• Oh, No... Not Again!: This trope was inclement torture to the Patriots and their fans due to their last three Super Bowl appearances involving a spectacular catch in the final minute (although they won the last one anyway thanks to Malcolm Butler's goal-line interception). Even Patriots WR Julian Edelman pointed it out in the 49th installment of America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions. Hilarious in Hindsight, as Edelman himself in LI went on to get a miracle grab in the middle of a Patriots comeback that helped send it to overtime and then on to a win.
• One-Hit Wonder:
  • The Jets (III) and Saints (XLIV) have only made it to one Super Bowl, but both emerged victorious.
  • Cowboys receiver Percy Howard was an undrafted bench player who hadn't even played football in college; his sole catch in his entire NFL career was for a touchdown in X. He was targeted again for a game-winner in the last seconds of the game, but it bounced off his helmet, and he never appeared in a game again.
  • Washington RB Timmy Smith had played in six games before Super Bowl XXII and was only in the line up because of an injury to George Rogers; he ran for a still-standing SB record 204 yards and two touchdowns. Smith never came close to those numbers before or since and was out of football within two seasons.
• Paparazzi: The Super Bowl is such an over-the-top event that it draws media from virtually the entire world as well as many non-sports reporters from within the US, many of whom know absolutely nothing about what they came to cover. "Media Day", when players are required to sit for questions, can be spectacularly hilarious as a result.
• Periphery Demographic: Lots of people who aren't football fans still make a point of watching the Super Bowl for the halftime entertainment, and/or the commercials. Outside the US the game is often enjoyed for being an excuse to have a party at a Sunday night and as a celebration of American culture and cuisine - expats will particularly enjoy a taste of home even if they are otherwise no NFL enthusiasts.
• Precision F-Strike: One will inevitably be picked up by the microphones by a member of the winning team.
  • Humorously, after Super Bowl XLVII, the normally reserved and quiet Joe Flacco was seen proclaiming that the situation was "FUCKING AWESOME!", angering many parent groups.
  • The count was 12 in LI, which is currently the most caught on the mic so far in the Super Bowl.
• Punny Name:
  • The week of the Super Bowl is used by an American organization to bring awareness to and fight poverty and hunger using the name "The Souper Bowl of Caring". The organization is popular enough they have partnered with several NFL teams.
  • Stephen Colbert did a similar thing in his NFL coverage due to (alleged) trademark reasons calling it the "Superb Owl" [sic!] - In truth, the NFL has been known to be paranoid about its trademarked terms. (In fact, because of the way US trademark law works, the NFL is practically forced to be paranoid about enforcing its trademarks.)
• Put Me In, Coach!:
  • The unquestioned king of this trope was Max McGee, WR for the Packers in Super Bowl I. So convinced was he that his services would not be required that he spent the night before the game getting blind drunk. When the starter was injured, he came in with a borrowed helmet and a hangover and scored the first TD in Super Bowl history. Subverted in Super Bowl XLVI, when backup Patriots WR Tiquan Underwood was cut from the team hours before the game. That said, the Patriots lost.
  • Three times a quarterback has started the Super Bowl after starting fewer than a quarter of his team's regular season games: Doug Williams in Super Bowl XXII (2 starts, though he also came off the bench to lead the team to wins on 3 occasions during the regular season and there were also a bunch of games that year played with replacement players due to a strike), Jeff Hostetler in Super Bowl XXV (also two starts, due to Giants starter Phil Simms suffering an injury late in the season), and Nick Foles in Super Bowl LII (three starts, also replacing an injured starter (Carson Wentz)). All three won.
  • Then, of course, you've got the miracle play in Super Bowl XLII, made by David Tyree of the New York Giants, who spent the majority of his Giants career up to that point riding the pine or relegated to special teams duty, gets a shot to catch a deep heave from his embattled quarterback and makes it count.
  • Percy Harvin was already a superstar but had missed nearly all of the previous two seasons with an assortment of injuries. In Super Bowl XLVIII, finally healthy, he set up Seattle with two long runs and then scored on the opening kickoff of the second half.
  • A double example in Super Bowl XLIX. With New England largely blanketing Seattle wide receivers Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin, Seattle's passing game largely ran through Chris Matthews, an undrafted veteran of the CFL who had been working as a Foot Locker security guard the previous year.^note Bonus: He also picked up the onside kick which helped propel Seattle to the Super Bowl in the first place. Later one upped by New England, when undrafted rookie Malcolm Butler picked off Russell Wilson in the final seconds to seal the game.
  • See One-Hit Wonder above for further examples.
• Rousing Speech: Many of these, either by coaches or players, have been caught on sideline cameras.
  • In XLII, after the Patriots took a 14-10 lead near the end of the fourth quarter, Giants DE Michael Strahan walked up and down the sidelines telling his team to hold on because they were still in it, saying, "One touchdown and we are world champions! Believe it and it will happen!" It did, in fact, happen, with the Giants defeating the 18-0 Patriots in one of the most incredible upsets of all time.
  • In XLV, Packers linebackers coach Kevin Greene famously told linebacker Clay Matthews, who had taken over defensive play calling after Charles Woodson was injured, that nobody was making the big plays since Woodson went out and "it is time". On the very next play, Matthews forced a fumble to shift the momentum of the game back to Green Bay.
• Second Place Is for Losers: No one really remembers the loser of the game, other than their fans. Former coach-turned-broadcaster John Madden once opined that the biggest gap in sports is that between the winning and losing team in the Super Bowl.
  • Championship t-shirts are printed ahead of time for both teams. Players on the winning team are handed their shirts on the field at the end of the game, and the rest go up for sale. Losing team t-shirts are shipped off to foreign countries as donations to clothing programs, with in-country sale expressly forbidden.
  • It's arguably worse to be the exceptions that aren't forgotten, as those are the ones that stick because they have built up levels of infamy over time. Some teams, such as the Butt-Monkey examples listed above, have never been able to recover from their losses in the eyes of the general fandom, often having jokes made at their expense of how you have a greater chance of having... pretty much ANYTHING you can imagine happening than those teams have of winning the championship.
    • The Denver Broncos managed to partially redeem themselves by finally scoring a win and giving the Green Bay Packers their first (and to date, only) Super Bowl loss, but losing 55-10 to the 49ers at Super Bowl XXIV still remains one of the greatest embarrassments in NFL history.
    • The New England Patriots' loss to the New York Giants in XLII was their only defeat in an otherwise perfect season, to the point that even though the Patriots have since won several further Super Bowls and beaten the Giants in a regular season matchup, the Giants are still He Who Must Not Be Named to many Pats fans. The fact that they also lost the "rematch" Super Bowl to the Giants four years later (XLVI) doesn't help matters.
    • The Seattle Seahawks will always be remembered for not running the ball on the 1-yard line in Super Bowl XLIX, leading to an interception by the Patriots to win the game.
    • The Atlanta Falcons will always be remembered for blowing the biggest lead in Super Bowl history in Super Bowl LI. Before that, they lost their first appearance to the Denver Broncos in XXXIII.
    • The Patriots in LII. Even though quarterback Tom Brady became the first quarterback in league history to throw for 500 passing yards in a Super Bowl, New England still lost to a Philadelphia Eagles team that was a hard underdog throughout the entire postseason (including at home against the sixth-seeded Falcons).
    • The Cincinnati Bengals played the 49ers to the end in XXIII, a rematch of XVI, but lost to the Niners after leading 16-13 with three minutes left after surrendering the go-ahead touchdown pass by Joe Montana.
    • The Tennessee Titans in XXXIV. After going down 16-0 to the St Louis Rams, they rallied all the way back to tie the game, only to surrender the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. On their last drive, they marched all the way to the Rams' red zone, but on their last play, they came up one yard short of the game-tying touchdown, resulting in the Rams winning 23-16.
    • The Cinderella Carolina Panthers lost Super Bowl XXXVIII in heartbreaking fashion to the Patriots on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri, after putting up a spirited fight. They had gone just 1-15 two years prior, and were carried by no-name quarterback Jake Delhomme and wide receiver Steve Smith Sr.
    • The 9-7 Arizona Cardinals, who had won just one playoff game in the last sixty years (1998), came within one minute of winning their first title since 1947, tearing through the playoffs and going all the way to Super Bowl XLIII, only to lose to the Steelers in the final seconds on a miracle catch by Santonio Holmes.
    • The Buffalo Bills are, to date, the only team to appear at 4 consecutive Super Bowls (XXV through XXVIII), only to lose every single one. Rather than being remembered as the team that dominated the AFC through 4 straight postseasons, they're remembered as chokers, spawning an initialism, Boy, I Love Losing Superbowls.
    • The San Diego Chargers in XXIX. After years of coming up short, they reached the Super Bowl thanks to two comeback wins against the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs, only to be blown out 49-26 by the San Francisco 49ers.
    • The Los Angeles Rams in LIII. Led by Sean McVay, who at 33 years old was the league's youngest head coach, the team put up a whopping 527 points in the regular season, and an extra 56 points between their two playoff games against the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. That made him the youngest coach to reach the Super Bowl, the team's first in 17 years, facing the team that defeated them last time at XXXVI, the New England Patriots. Despite sloppy play by both teams, the Patriots once again defeated them 13-3, tying the lowest losing score with the Miami Dolphins at Super Bowl VI. It didn't help that the Rams were guilty of an overlooked pass-interference call during the NFC Championship Game against the Saints, which made many people, especially Saints fans, feel that they didn't deserve to be there.
• Serious Business: As if football in America wasn't serious business enough.
• Sibling Rivalry:
  • The media around XLVII liked to focus on the fact that the opposing coaches were brothers; Jim Harbaugh with the 49ers and John Harbaugh with the Ravens.
  • Averted by Peyton and Eli Manning, who never faced one another at a Super Bowl, despite playing for opposing conferences. (While the fans may lament never getting this matchup, however, the Manning brothers themselves are probably glad it happened that way, as they have stated that they hated playing against each other.)
  • Also averted with Sterling and Shannon Sharpe, who would likely have faced off in XXXII (Sterling played his entire career for the Green Bay Packers, the team that Shannon and the Broncos faced in that game) if not for an injury that forced Sterling to retire in 1995, three years before the matchup.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: All over the board here with the commercials. Expect some of the water cooler talk to be about certain commercials - some people are fans of the funny ones, other people are more deeply moved by ones that tug the heartstrings.
• Smurfette Principle: The Super Bowl LVI lineup of performers fit the classical depiction of this trope. Mary J. Blige was the only headlining woman. The rest of the performers consisted of Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, a surprise appearance by 50 Cent.
• Sore Loser: If your team beats Tom Brady and the Patriots, don't expect him to congratulate you. After all three of their losses^note XLII, XLVI, and LII, he went to the locker room without shaking the hands of any of the Giants or Eagles players.
• Super Bowl Special: Trope Namer. The commercials cost upwards of four million US dollars just for a thirty-second ad spot, so companies usually put in a ton of effort to make their commercials entertaining and/or memorable.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Trope Namer. Janet Jackson's infamous "Nipplegate" scandal happened during the 2004 game's halftime show.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In Super Bowl LIII, a game dominated by Stone Wall defensive play, the New England Patriots scored the game's only touchdown by repeatedly running the same play — Hoss Y Juke — until they were in the red zone. It turned out to be the Rams defense's Achilles' Heel, as the play calls for the offense to send out five receivers, giving the quarterback an abundance of targets to throw to and making it difficult to defend against the slot receiver, opening up receivers further downfield.
• Who Needs Overtime?:
  • It took half a century before a Super Bowl game ever went into overtime. It finally happened in Super Bowl LI in 2017, as the New England Patriots mounted an incredible fourth-quarter comeback to tie the Atlanta Falcons and force the game into OT, which New England went on to win.
  • The closest a Super Bowl came to OT prior to this was Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, when the Patriots survived a furious late rally from the St. Louis Rams, but received the ball with only a short time remaining. With the announcers openly suggesting they should settle for the tie and overtime, they drove for a game-winning field goal as time expired.
  • Also, Super Bowl XXXIV two years prior, with the Tennessee Titans' drive for a tying touchdown + extra point coming up the smallest of margins short with Tennessee's Kevin Dyson being tackled at the 1-yard line as time expired.
  • Super Bowl LII came rather close, too. Trailing the Philadelphia Eagles 41-33, the Patriots would have needed a touchdown and the 2-point conversion to send it into overtime, and several plays later, the final play came down to a Hail Mary that fell incomplete as time expired.
• Writing Around Trademarks:
  • Since the term "Super Bowl" is trademarked by the NFL, many businesses that have promotions or sales for it refer to the Super Bowl as "the Big Game," or a variation thereof. Even ESPN, an American sports network, has had to do this before, which makes all their coverage sound rather unnatural. Strictly speaking, none of this is necessary, since American trademark law isn't entirely stupid, but nobody wants a visit from the NFL's Army of Lawyers.
  • At one point, the NFL even took steps to prevent this by attempting to add "Big Game" to their list of trademarks. They were stopped short when it was pointed out that "The Big Game" has been the official name for the annual grudge match between the California (Berkeley) and Stanford college football teams for over a century.^note Except for a few years before World War I, when both Cal and Stanford dropped American football in favor of rugby union, and "The Big Game" described their annual rugby contest.
• Xanatos Gambit: Some advertisers have done this for commercials that push the bounds of acceptability. If the spot airs — great! If it doesn't air, they can stick it up on YouTube for a fraction of the cost and advertise it as a banned commercial, increasing public interest.

...And Peyton Manning

Peyton Manning

—

Tropes related to his works:

• Adam Westing: Fond of this in his various media appearances and endorsements, either Flanderizing or subverting his Nice Guy persona. Since he's gone from playing NFL games to professionally analyzing them on various networks and his own podcast, he (or actors parodying him) also started making guest appearances on shows commenting anything other than football games in flawless football lingo.
• Always Someone Better: Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, but while his stats are better, his overall record, especially in the playoffs, is overshadowed by Tom Brady, who has won seven of ten Super Bowls (and counting), while Manning only won two of four. Even more so by Manning's Broncos being totally blown out by the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII, and then the Patriots defeating the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. Then after Manning won Super Bowl 50 in a relatively lackluster performance, the Patriots won Super Bowl LI in an incredible Miracle Rally against the Atlanta Falcons. Interestingly in their head-to-head records, Manning has the edge in the playoffs, winning 3 of their 5 meetings (his two losses to Brady in the playoffs both came in Foxborough while his wins were one in Indianapolis and two in Denver), though his overall record against them is much worse, only going 3-9 in regular season games against Brady and the Patriots.
  • Peyton himself is this trope to his brother Eli, who himself is regarded as a great quarterback among the likes of Drew Brees, his brother Peyton, and Ben Roethlisberger and Phillip Rivers (his draft classmates in the 2004 draft), due to leading an underdog New York Giants squad to upset victories over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots twice—one of them being the famous 18-1 game Super Bowl XLII—but gets shafted due to his comparatively ordinary regular season stats. In fact, before Super Bowl 50, Eli could always claim to having won two Super Bowls and Super Bowl MVPs, but with the Broncos' victory in Super Bowl 50, Eli and Peyton now have two Super Bowls...and Peyton holds the records.
• Celebrity Endorsement: The football equivalent of Michael Jordan when it comes to endorsements. After he became an endorser for Papa John's Pizza in 2012, Manning would own several Papa John's restaurants in Colorado. He still regularly films new commercials for Nationwide insurance, and also had lucrative deals with DirecTV, Gatorade, and MasterCard, to name but a few.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: His persona in commercials is best described as a Golden Retriever puppy trapped in human form: happy, excited, and enthusiastic to the point of annoyance.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Subverted. After Manning left the Colts to join the Denver Broncos, the two teams eventually met at a Colts home game. Rather than being booed, Manning was given a standing ovation by Colts fans, including showing a video package which ended with a graphic reading "THANKS PEYTON." The Colts later erected a statue of Manning outside their stadium soon after his retirement.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Manning's Colts teams were mostly geared around providing good receivers for him to throw to and blockers to keep the defense away from him. The Colts were high scorers but tended to fizzle in the playoffs, proving the old adage of "Offense wins games, but defense wins championships". Even the Colts' Super Bowl championship in 2006 was at least partly a result of their defense stepping up at the right time (they played unusually well in the wild-card and divisional rounds, as well as the Super Bowl, and the play that sealed the Colts victory against the Patriots in the conference championship was an interception of a Tom Brady pass with seconds to go). The Broncos were also more offense-oriented when he first arrived, but after their embarrassing 43-8 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII, the team was reworked to be better on defense, and they won two years later against the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50.
• Every Year They Fizzle Out: The Trope Namer, after Peyton's SNL skit that lampshaded Manning's infamous tendency of this trope before his first Super Bowl win. While his regular season accomplishments are legendary, Manning has a mediocre playoff record (14-13, including nine one-and-dones, the most for a starting quarterback), mainly from the trope codifying in the first half of his career while Tom Brady racked up titles in New England. His two Super Bowl wins have erased most of this stigma by this point.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Manning set the 16-game single-season record for passing yards in the 2013 season. His last pass of the year, which put him over by a single yard, went sideways to a receiver on the boundary. Under NFL rules, if it went backwards, it wouldn't count as a "pass" and therefore Drew Brees would retain the record. NFL fans have spent significant amounts of time reviewing this otherwise routine play and arguing over this point.
• The Rival: To the New England Patriots in general and Tom Brady specifically. He continued to tease both of them for their various scandals well after his retirement.
• Self-Deprecation: He won Super Bowl 50 with the Broncos, but he was visibly hindered by injuries and helped by a historically-good defense. He's made many public jokes about being "carried" to that title.
• The Band Minus the Face: Oddly enough, the Tennessee Volunteers won the national championship the year after he went pro, behind a far less heralded and less successful quarterback.^note Tee Martin, who managed a fifth-round pick in 2000 - as one of the six quarterbacks selected before Brady (sixth-round, number 199 overall) - and a few years in the NFL.
• Vetinari Job Security: This happened to the Colts in 2011, as Manning's backups, Kerry Collins (who came out of retirement), Curtis Painter, and Dan Orlovsky, struggled to replicate Manning's offense, and combined with a very difficult schedule (the AFC South played the AFC North and NFC South that year), the Colts finished 2-14, leading to jokes and discussions that Peyton was the 2011 NFL MVP without playing a game. (Ironically, the only quarterback of the three who won any games was Orlovsky... previously best known for being the quarterback of a Detroit Lions team that went winless for the whole season.)
  "Fellas, if #18 goes down, we're fucked. And we don't practice fucked." — Tom Moore, Colts offensive coordinator, on why Manning's backups don't receive snaps during practice
  • Subverted in the 2015 season, in which the defensive-oriented Broncos finished 5-2 while Manning sat out while recovering from his foot injury. The Broncos would go on to win Super Bowl 50, despite Manning's offense being awful that night (his offense gained the fewest yards for a Super Bowl champion).
• What Could Have Been: As noted in The Rival above, he and Tom Brady fought to be the best QB in the AFC for years. However, their teams (the Patriots and Colts) were split up in the 2002 NFL realignment, meaning they could have spent most of their careers fighting for the same division title. Brady and the Patriots only played one season against the Colts as divisional opponents, going 2-0. For a lot of years, the Pats looked like Peyton's kryptonite — in his first seven years in Indy, he only won two games of eleven meetings, dating back to when Drew Bledsoe was playing, and when Brady took over, the Pats beat the Colts four times in the regular season and twice (in humiliating fashion) in the playoffs. It's speculated that having an extra game (and a guaranteed home game) would have made the initial matchup look more even.

instead.