YMMV / Super Bowl

• Awesome Music: The Lombardi Trophy Presentation Music. It's a perfect piece for the victor of the Super Bowl.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Among football fans, Super Bowl XXXVIII is often considered to be one of the greatest Super Bowls ever, a thrilling match-up that came down to a field goal. Among non-fans, it will always be remembered as "the game where Janet Jackson flashed her nipple."
• Broken Base:
  • Was the Patriots' victory in Super Bowl LI a result of them using their skills to pull off a true Miracle Rally and achieve the greatest comeback in the game's history? Or was it more of a result of the Falcons grabbing the Idiot Ball in the second half and making many questionable decisions that allowed New England to catch up to them? Or, alternatively, were Atlanta's defence just too exhausted by the fourth quarter to keep Brady at bay?^note By the time of NE's first touchdown deep into the third quarter, the defence had been on the field for almost a full two quarters, and by the end, they'd been on the field for 40 minutes.
    • Hindsight will probably point to the second, given the Falcons' growing reputation as "Chokelanta" in the years since, with an actual 28-3 lead being among MANY that Atlanta threw away in 2020 alone. However, another school of thought is that it's the other way around — that the Shocking Defeat Legacy of this Super Bowl rattled the team so hard that they can't seem to get rid of the yips of having "28-3" in their heads every time they have a lead (even in the many games where they've choked since then, there were moments where they regained the lead in more games than not). The argument in favor of this version is that Brady had to play essentially flawless football to come anywhere within reach of a tie, let alone a win, setting records for passing efficiency and yards, and even then the Patriots still needed a few bounces (not least of which was the overtime coin toss) to go their way; if Brady hadn't been able to pull off a literally unprecedented performance, this would have been a commanding Atlanta win.
  • Was Super Bowl LIII an old school defensive showdown between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, or were both teams alternating the Idiot Ball, with the Patriots merely making fewer mistakes than the Rams? This really depends on how much you value defensive football: seeing a 3-3 game well into the fourth quarter is a major culture shock for young fans used to prolific scoring, but is old hat for older fans from an earlier era. What can be said is that Bill Belichick devised a game plan that kept the NFC's highest scoring offense out of the red zone for the entirety of the game, and Tom Brady, despite playing an altogether middling win on offense compared to his electric performance in his previous three appearances, still built a convincing win past a defense headlined by the reigning Defensive Player of the Year.
  • Was the key play that cost the Seattle Seahawks a victory in Super Bowl XLIX arguably the worst play call in history, or did they make a reasonable decision and just get blindsided by the Patriots' defense? More than five years removed from the moment, it's still a contentious debate. See Common Knowledge for more on this.
  • In Super Bowl LVIII, did Kyle Shanahan blow the game for the 49ers by choosing to take the ball first when the game went into overtime? As this was the first Super Bowl to go into overtime under the new "both teams are guaranteed a possession" rules, everyone has a different opinion on whether his decision made sense for the situation, or if he defaulted to it because that was the best call under the old rules and lost the game because he failed to account for it.^note Muddying the waters further, the opposing Kansas City Chiefs had planned for the possibility of overtime, and their strategy was to give the 49ers the ball if they won the toss.
    • One camp says Shanahan's choice was a good one and his strategic reasoning was sound^note  the Niners defense had just come off of a long drive and he wanted to give them a chance to rest, along with ensuring that they'd get the ball back at the start of sudden death if the Chiefs only managed to tie the game, but it just didn't pan out because the Chiefs played better.
    • Another view is that it was a dumb call because it meant that Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, arguably the best QB and Head Coach in the league, would get the ball with the knowledge of exactly how many points they needed to score, the ability to play through all four downs ^note  the game ends if they turn the ball over, so they have no reason to punt and the ability to win the game outright without giving the Niners the ball back ^note Even if the Niners scored a touchdown, KC could still have won the game if they scored a touchdown and made a successful two-point conversion; interviews after the game confirmed that this was the Chiefs' plan had the Niners scored a touchdown.
    • A third group thinks that the initial decision was valid, but Shanahan shot himself in the foot by not being aggressive enough and settling for a field goal instead of going for the touchdown, allowing the Chiefs the opportunity to win the game with a touchdown, which is what ended up happening.
• Common Knowledge: The legendary Malcolm Butler interception is rightfully called one of the greatest defensive plays in Super Bowl history, indeed in the entirety of football history. However, it is also qualified by the assertion that the offensive play call was one of the most incompetent and foolhardy ones ever made in the Super Bowl. While that is a valid opinion, several statements and assumptions made by people in arguing that point are unsupported by data or decontextualize the play from the situation in the game. More than five years separated, these have sort of entered the football zeitgeist's understanding of the game. For example:
  • "Marshawn Lynch was a dominant goal line running back." This is not supported by contemporary data. In 2014, the league average success rate of running plays from the 1-yard line was 57% — 61 of 105 such plays. Lynch's personal hit rate was 20%, 1 for 5, while the Seahawks as a whole only scored in 2 for 6 – 33%. That sixth rush was by Russell Wilson, successful in his only attempt. The rushing game at the goal line ran through Beast Mode and it wasn't great. This also wasn't just a down year. From 2012 to 2014, Lynch scored on 5 of 12 rushes, 41%, compared to the league average of 57.8%. He represented 17 of 23 such rushes by the Seahawks as a whole, which had a similar scoring percentage to him. Had the player in question been an unknown running back with a comparable record on goal line runs, no one would question Seattle's decision to rely on Russell Wilson and the passing game rather than said running back, but because of Lynch's reputation as a dominant running back (which he was in general, but not for this particular type of situation), many people were (and remain) convinced that handing the ball off to Lynch would have been a virtually guaranteed touchdown.
  • "The passing play was riskier than the run." Technically true in that a turnover would be less likely on the run, but it wasn't nearly as big a risk as people think it was (and it's not like there was no chance of a turnover on a run; goal-line fumbles in big moments have happened before). While the Seahawks' goal line passing was anemic — 1 for 2 in 2014 and 3 for 8 in 2012-2014 — none of the failures were interceptions. Moreover, the pass play they ran in XLIX had been previously completed 109 times consecutively, at various points in the red zone, without an interception. Additionally, the risk that did exist is potentially outweighed by the fact that the play also had a better chance of working; the Patriots were more vulnerable to the goal line pass than the goal line rush, giving up scores on 3 of 4 passes at the 1-yard line and 11 of 18 runs. Now, factor in the fact that Seattle's ground game ran through a powerback who was low percentage at the goal line, and you can build a case for the pass (since at the end of the day, trying a run and failing is no better than throwing an interception).
  • "The situation favored the run." Well, not really; the immediate situation actually favored the pass. Seattle had its passing offense on the field, matched against a Patriots goal line heavy run defense. Running the ball would have created a blocking mismatch (worth noting this was entirely intentional on the part of the Patriots, who deliberately set their defense to make a run nearly impossible in order to force Seattle to pass). Now, it can be argued that the positional mismatch didn’t really matter and that repeatedly hammering Beast Mode would have gotten them the yard they needed (although see previous points about Lynch's actual efficacy in such situations), but the "repeatedly" part was going to be difficult because they were also short of time, and run plays tend to eat up the most clock. What's more, they had only one timeout, because after Kearse was pushed out of bounds following his amazing catch (which only stops the game clock and not the play clock), the Seahawks couldn't get up to the new line of scrimmage fast enough to avoid a delay of game, and therefore had to use one of their two remaining time-outs just to avoid a penalty; with only one timeout left, Seattle then had to be circumspect about using it because they had to weigh the immediate situation against the possible scenarios in which not having any timeouts later on could hurt them (including the consideration that if they did score, they would then have to hold off the Patriots from responding).
    At this point, the Seahawks attempted a Batman Gambit^note this is the one link in the chain that probably can be considered a mistake regardless of the rest: they ran a run play that got them to the 1-yard line, only stopped because Dont'a Hightower bench-pressed a Seattle defender off of him and made a leaping tackle to sweep Lynch off his feet. As he was downed on the field, the clock continued to run and Seattle had to make their personnel substitutions in real time. At this point, the Seahawks attempted the substitution for their goal line running plays, but in a confusing moment, several groups of players entered and left the playing field. Unable to cleanly execute the substitution in the remaining play clock time without risking a delay-of-game or a "12 men on the field" penalty, the Seahawks went with the personnel on the field. As a last ditch effort, Pete Carroll deliberately let the clock run down, hoping to bait Patriots head coach Bill Belichick into using one of his two remaining time-outs to stop the clock, which in turn would give the Seahawks time to swap out players for goal line running personnel without having to burn a timeout of their own. When Belichick didn't react as expected, they were stuck in a dilemma of their own making: they could use their time out, but then that would show their hand and Belichick would know it was a run, and without a timeout left, they might only get one shot at it, as the time it would take to disengage from the scrum, mark the spot, and get back up to the line of scrimmage could have run the clock out before they had a chance to try again. They could call the run anyway, but the chance of success would be minimal and a failure would have likely left them no choice but to burn their last timeout, so they'd in essence be most likely throwing away a down and burning a timeout right when they couldn't afford to lose either. They could spike the ball to stop the clock and make the personnel switch, but that would also let Belichick know what they were planning and cost them a down. The pass seemed like the obvious remedy — an incompletion stops the clock, the risk of anything worse than an incompletion was statistically minimal, the specific play they called up had a very high success rate, it would take advantage of a defensive mismatch in personnel, and it did not rely on Lynch suddenly becoming good at goal-line running.
  • “The throw was bad/the interception was easy.” A matter of opinion, but unsupported by the game itself. This one is especially tough to break down because our understanding of the process is so deeply tied to the outcome, but that doesn't mean it was a thoughtless throw; in reality, the interception required a number of pieces to fall into place exactly right.^note Additionally, even if it was a bad throw, that's a separate issue from the question of whether the play call was bad — pretty much any play call has a risk of backfiring if the play is poorly executed, so unless the coach has reason to expect that the execution will be poor (which was not the case for Seattle here), a failure doesn't necessarily mean the underlying call was bad — but the two are often lumped together as if the former was an inevitable result of the latter.
    1. Firstly, the actual pass was right on the mark and delivered into a window that was not, as far as he could tell, covered by any Patriots defender. If there's anything to criticize, it's that he didn't angle the throw downward to the receiver's waist, which made the ball hang in the air just a little longer than might have been ideal.
    2. In addition, defending this play was a feature of Patriots practices leading up to the Super Bowl because Patriots football guru Ernie Adams noticed that they liked to use it a lot – but in each instance, Butler failed to defend it because the receiver would gain outside leverage over him.
    3. During the Super Bowl, it was not just Butler, but also Brandon Browner, a former Seahawk, making the correct read that blew it up. Butler’s man was actually Jermaine Kearse, but diagnosing the play at the line, Browner told Butler to defend the inside of the goal line against Ricardo Lockette while Browner, in turn, jammed Kearse at the goal line. This did two things: first, it deprived Wilson of his second read, so the pass would go to Lockette or be thrown away, and secondly, it boxed Lockette into running an interior route because if he moved outside, Wilson would have to throw directly over Browner’s head, which actually is a red-flag throw that even the most accurate quarterback would be unlikely to risk, and Lockette would know that (and if Lockette had run the outside route anyway for some reason, then either the Patriots would have had an easy interception or, more likely, Wilson would have thrown it away rather than take the risk).
    4. Even after Lockette, as expected, ran inside, Butler's timing had to be perfect: if he was even the slightest bit early, it would have given Wilson a chance to spot the coverage and not make that throw, and if he'd been even the slightest bit late, Lockette would have had enough of a window to catch the ball before Butler could get to it (and once it was in his hands, there was virtually no chance that they'd be able to stop him before he could break the plane of the endzone). In other words, if Butler had mis-timed his move by as little as half a second, there would have been no interception.

  In short, the fact that this defensive stand resulted in an interception required precise timing and communication on the part of the Patriots, two cornerbacks independently making the correct read, and Butler finally coming through on a play that had repeatedly stymied him in training. The worst thing that can probably be said about Seattle's call is that they had been out-guessed by New England, who had well-disguised that they were actually quite ready to defend against an inside pass - but even that was no guarantee the play would be stopped, much less stopped via an outright turnover, and even an incomplete pass still would have left Seattle with 2 more plays to gain 1 yard.

• Ensemble Dark Horse: From the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX, the left backup dancer from Katy Perry's performance, nicknamed Left Shark by fans, ended up gaining a cult following, because both his silly shark costume and bad dancing made him come across as Adorkable to many.
• Harsher in Hindsight: O. J. Simpson's coin toss at Super Bowl XXVII and his stint as a sideline reporter at Super Bowl XXVIII (just four-and-a-half months before the Nicole Brown-Ron Goldman murders).
• Just Here for Godzilla: The main event is the game, obviously, but this game attracts a peripheral crowd only there for:
  • The commercials, which are often some of the most entertaining of the year. Companies spend a pretty penny just buying the slots — they often pour it on for the commercial, too. Even non-football fans talk about the commercials at the water cooler the next day.
  • The halftime show, which usually features a big name in music doing a few of their top hits.
  • For Super Bowl LVIII, Taylor Swift brought in the Swifties due to her relationship with Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce. There were a lot of cuts to her in her booth during the game.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Some of the losing teams have put up pretty epic performances in their own right, but no one remembers them because it wasn't enough to win. On the winning side, many winning teams also have multiple players who had a case for being Super Bowl MVP, but since There Can Be Only One, some of those players will by definition be left out.
  • Super Bowl XXXI: Packers QB Brett Favre and DE Reggie White both had the game of their lives, set Super Bowl records (Favre for the longest touchdown pass, White for the most sacks by a single player), and would likely have battled it out for Super Bowl MVP if not for the heroics of special teams returner Desmond Howard, who clinched the award over both of them with his 99-yard kick return touchdown at a key moment.
  • Super Bowl XLII: Plaxico Burress scored the game-winning touchdown with less than a minute to go, but said touchdown has largely become a footnote to Burress' teammate David Tyree's incredible helmet catch to set up said touchdown.
  • Super Bowl XLIX: Seahawks wide receiver Jermaine Kearse made an incredible juggling catch on his back after Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler tipped the ball, bringing Seattle to New England's five-yard line. It looked to be the defining moment of the game... until Butler's game-saving goal-line interception happened two plays later.
  • Super Bowl LI: Patriots running back James White had his finest hour on the game's biggest stage. He was the Patriots' leading receiver with 14 receptions for 110 yards and one TD, while rushing for 29 yards on six carries for two TDs, as well as scoring a two-point conversion. His second rushing touchdown was also the very first overtime TD in Super Bowl history. In any other game, with any other team, his accomplishments would make him a lock, but he was playing on the same team as Tom Brady, who had an equally glorious night, especially in the fourth quarter. Brady himself actually acknowledged this to some degree, and gave White the honors of being the star of a Disney World parade despite the former winning Super Bowl MVP.
  • Super Bowl LIII: No member of the Patriots defense received serious consideration for MVP, despite stifling the Los Angeles Rams' top-scoring offense and holding them to just a single field goal. This might have been because the Patriots D emerged as a true Badass Crew — how do you pick just one player from this unit that seemed to work seamlessly together like a well-oiled machine? Julian Edelman, meanwhile, was the linchpin for the entire Pats offense and was outgaining the combined yardage of the Rams receiving corps for a significant portion of the game. Still, there were standouts who could have made a strong case for MVP. One was Jason McCourty, who made a mad dash from outside the numbers to seal up a bust in coverage and break up a deep pass from Jared Goff to Brandin Cooks that would have otherwise been a guaranteed touchdown. The second was Stephon Gilmore, whose late-game interception iced the game in New England's favor.
  • Super Bowl LVI: Both Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald delivered MVP-worthy performances on the big stage, and each was key in a critical moment that determined the game's outcome (Kupp caught the game-winning touchdown, Donald made a fourth-down stop on the subsequent Bengals drive to seal the Rams' lead). Kupp ended up edging out Donald for the honor, but whichever of them had won, there would have been an argument that the other deserved it equally as much.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • Super Bowl XXXVIII had the New England Patriots winning their second-ever title and the Carolina Panthers making their first-ever Super Bowl appearance, but it's more well-known for the Wardrobe Malfunction in the Halftime show with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.
  • Super Bowl LIII's halftime show was infamous for multiple reasons. Jay-Z, Cardi B, and Rihanna reportedly declined to headline the show in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who accused the NFL of blacklisting him over his kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality. This led to the artists that did perform being compared to strikebreakers and a petition for headline act Maroon 5 to drop out of the show. Then there was the outrage that ensued from SpongeBob SquarePants fans when "Sicko Mode" by Travis Scott was played instead of "Sweet Victory" from the fan-favorite episode "Band Geeks" as a tribute to the show's recently deceased creator Stephen Hillenburg, thanks to them implying that the latter was going to be played by showing an animation of Squidward introducing the show beforehand. These seem to be the only things anyone remembers about not just the halftime show, but that entire Super Bowl.
  • Super Bowl XL is primarily remembered for its awful officiating (with every questionable call favoring the Steelers), much more than for anything that the actual players did.
• Periphery Demographic: The largest ones ever, as many, many people watch only for the commercials and a smaller, yet significant group watch for the halftime show. At Super Bowl LVIII in particular, a lot of Taylor Swift's fans tuned in due to the fact that she was dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
• Pop Culture Holiday: For the wrong reasons, March 28th for Falcons' fans, following the 25-point lead squandered during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: The #lastman contest is a game played by some people trying to push back at the ubiquity of the Super Bowl. The goal is to go the longest without learning either the winner or the final score of the game (referred to as "the knowledge"). Considering the mammoth role it plays in American culture, it can be extremely difficult to even use the internet for days or weeks afterward while playing and players have resorted to "safe" Twitter lists and websites.
• Shocking Moments: In a game that was already highly shocking beforehand, what happened in the last two minutes of play in Super Bowl XLIX was nothing short of insane. Then the same team that won XLIX topped that two years later in LI with their comeback from 25 points winning in overtime, with Julian Edelman making an unbelievable diving catch that rivals David Tyree's helmet catch (which ruined the Pats back in Super Bowl XLII).
• Signature Scene: A number of them, but the signature scene for the Super Bowl overall has to be Super Bowl III with winning quarterback Joe Namath with his raised index finger after having backed up his guaranteed victory. Expect many a Super Bowl intro or video showing this moment.
• Squick: Bengals nose tackle Tim Krumrie's broken leg in XXIII.
• Tough Act to Follow: The reason why there are only a few teams that make back-to-back Super Bowl appearances, especially with the salary cap and free agency in effect. Only 14 teams have played as the defending champion, and only eight of them won. The last team to win back to back Super Bowls was the Patriots in 2004 and 2005. The most recent team to make back to back appearances is the Kansas City Chiefs in 2023 (won against the Philadelphia Eagles) and 2024. A number of teams have gone twice in three years; the Pats won Super Bowls in 2015 and 2017. The last team to win three Super Bowls in four years was the Pats (2002, 2004 and 2005), and they also won three Super Bowls in five years (2015, 2017, 2019) and appeared in four in the same timespan (2015 to 2019, missing 2016). The Mahomes-era Chiefs are currently on a similar run, also with four appearances in five years (2020 to 2024, missing 2022) and three wins in those five years (2020, 2023, 2024). There's a reason why the "dynasty" label is so rarely used.
  • It is arguably hard to repeat a championship in any sport due to uncontrollable factors like injuries and luck. But the NFL makes it harder through a detailed parity system of a hard salary cap — making it difficult to keep every great player you have, especially when forty to fifty guys all think "I just helped win the Super Bowl, so I deserve more money now" — and a rookie draft that favors losing teams who then draft the better incoming talent. Throw in a free agency system where other teams pilfer your roster, and a coaching carousel where the best assistant coordinators get head coaching jobs elsewhere, and you have a recipe for few back-to-back championships.
  • It's widely agreed that part of the reason that Justin Timberlake's halftime show was viewed so negatively was that his extremely safe and simple show had to follow the complete spectacle that was Lady Gaga's show the previous year, which, among other things, began with her performing on the roof of the stadium, following by rappelling onto the stage.
  • The "Brady Effect" is this trope in action. Tom Brady's personal accomplishments, and the collective record of the Dynasty-era New England Patriots, are so gaudy that it leaves contemporary quarterbacks and teams looking lackluster. For example, the Patriots in The New '10s had a decent shot at going to eight consecutive Super Bowl games, they appeared in five (including three consecutive), and won four. The only other teams to appear in more than one across that decade were the Seahawks and the 49ers, and only the Seahawks went in with essentially the same core roster. There were also no down years. The Patriots had an average regular season record across the decade hovering around 12-4, putting them in the playoffs every year as a division winner, with the most prominent disappointment being 2019, where a 12-4 Patriots team lost in the Wild Card round. The other premier teams all had ups and downs. Maybe it was a team that worked its way to a Super Bowl appearance steadily, maybe it was a perennially playoff team that fizzled out, the point being that quarterbacks and teams that make only one Super Bowl in a decade, in the career of a franchise quarterback, aren't necessarily bad because of it. It's simply that hard to make it there, that hard to win, and win or lose, even harder to sustain success to make it back.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Super Bowl XLVIII, between the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks, was one of the most hyped Super Bowls of all time, but went down in history as one of the very worst. The matchup between Seattle's legendary Legion of Boom defense and the best offense of all time ended in a 43-8 massacre in favor of Seattle. The next year, XLIX saw the Seahawks take on the New England Patriots, and it was lauded as an instant classic, consistently ranking in most lists' top 3 Super Bowls even today. In fact, it's not uncommon to see ranking lists of the Super Bowls place XLVIII as the absolute worst Super Bowl ever played and XLIX as the very best, creating a maximalist example of this trope.
  • As far as the halftime show goes, LIV's performance by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez received immense acclaim after the back-to-back disappointments of the Justin Timberlake and Maroon 5 shows, with Shakira's performance proving to be a highlight of not just the show, but possibly her entire career.
  • The following year's performance with The Weeknd also helped keep fans positive, as they found his energy and cinematic performance stunning despite him having to perform during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

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