Recap / Super Bowl I to XXV

Super Bowl Recaps
I-XXV | XXVI-50 | LI-LXXV

Super Bowls I to V

I — January 15, 1967 / Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California / Green Bay Packers def. Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10

MVP: Bart Starr, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker, Frank Gifford) / NBC (Curt Gowdy, Paul Christman)
National Anthem: University of Arizona Band, University of Michigan Band, and Anaheim High School Drill Team
Coin Toss: Norm Schachter, referee
Halftime: University of Arizona and University of Michigan Bands

• The one that started it all. Ranked the #53 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary, mainly for its historic significance. The Packers were the #13 Greatest Team and the Chiefs #85. Max McGee's twisting one-handed catch was the #50 Greatest Play. Ranked the 22nd best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• First, a little background for the Super Bowl:
  • The NFL was founded in 1920 as a loose collection of 14 teams, all but two of which dissolved within the decade, replaced by new ones that endured for much longer. The league developed a playoff game to settle a tied standing for league championship in 1932; after its success, they introduced a formal Championship game the following year in which the best team of each division (and, eventually, conference) faced off for the title. (There are plenty of great stories from these games, but we won't cover them here.) Frankly, the NFL was not very popular for many decades; Baseball was by far the most popular sport in America, and even those who loved football generally preferred the college game. That all began to change after the 1958 Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, still widely referred to as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", a close and exciting match broadcast to a national audience that featured the first sudden-death overtime in NFL history. The game greatly enhanced the league's national appeal, leading to expanded television deals.
  • Even as the NFL's coffers were rapidly filling, the owners were still hesitant to expand beyond 12 teams. Seeing an opportunity to cash in on the pro football craze, eight owner groups known as the "Foolish Club" formed their own league to challenge the 40-year old NFL. They were the fourth "American Football League" to attempt to step in on the NFL's market hold, but they were the only one to have any success, managing to compete with the NFL in drafting top talent and encouraging the NFL to expand in order to catch up. Believing the arms race to be unsustainable, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle negotiated the terms of a merger in 1966 that would bring all of the AFL teams into the NFL proper by 1970. Until then, the league's agreed to have one common draft and also to have both leagues' champions face off in one "World Championship" game to end each season.
• A fitting match-up for the first NFL-AFL clash:
  • The Packers were the most decorated team in the NFL, having joined the league in its second year back in 1921 and won nine championships prior to this season. Three of them had come in the past five years thanks to the coaching of the legendary Vince Lombardi and a team full of seasoned veterans and future Hall of Famers, including the season's MVP, QB Bart Starr. The Packers went 12-2 in the regular season, posted the league's best defense, and defeated the Dallas Cowboys in a thrilling NFL Championship that went Down to the Last Play; most saw the Super Bowl as a guaranteed afterthought win after this accomplishment.
  • The Chiefs were owned by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, were coached by future Hall of Famer Hank Stram, had previously won an AFL Championship in 1962 as the Dallas Texans, went 11-2-1 in the 1966 regular season, posted their league's best offense, and beat the two-time defending AFL champion Buffalo Bills for the title. However, Chiefs' QB Len Dawson, the #5 overall pick in the 1957 NFL Draft and a former AFL MVP, was viewed as an NFL washout. Betting odds placed the Packers as 14-point favorites, with most analysts thinking that no AFL team was truly competitive with the NFL's roster of talent.
• Televised by both CBS and NBC, with each network using its own production and announcers (the networks had held exclusive rights to the NFL and AFL, respectively, during the regular season). Every subsequent Super Bowl has been exclusive to one network.
  • Despite this, TV footage of the game no longer exists (apart from short clips that got used in other formats), as both networks wiped their tapes in order to save money and reuse them. However, NFL Films, the league's in-house production company, did film the game using its own equipment; that footage still exists, and the company used a surviving radio broadcast to put together a solid assembly cut for those who want to view it.
  • Some other Early-Installment Weirdness on the broadcasting side: Sportscasting legend Frank Gifford appeared in the booth for CBS but would not return there (at least in the Super Bowl) for nearly two decades (he and Jack Whitaker, also only in the booth for this game, were relegated to sideline reporter gigs). Conversely, Pat Summerall, who eventually set the record for most Super Bowl announcing roles, was only a sideline reporter here. NBC color commentator Paul Christman made his sole Super Bowl booth appearance here.
• The only Super Bowl that was not a sellout: the game had not been awarded to Los Angeles until less than two months prior to kickoff, many fans still viewed the event as essentially an exhibition match, and the Coliseum is a massive structure that often struggles to fill seats. Additionally, the broadcasts were actually blacked out of the L.A. market, much to the dismay of NFL executives, though this would have occurred even if the game had sold out under the league's backward blackout rules.^note The first six Super Bowls were played under rules that blacked out all local games, even if the game sold out, ensuring none of them were aired locally. This was one reason why the next five Super Bowls were all played in the smaller markets of Miami and New Orleans. Despite this, the two broadcasts together brought in over 50 million viewers, proving the interest in the game that would continue to grow for years to come.
• As the halftime show did not become a main feature for many years, the most memorable non-game element of the first Super Bowl were two guys wearing jetpacks who flew around in the pre-show. (Expect any Super Bowl retrospective to marvel at this and ask why we don't all have these over half a century later.)
• The Chiefs almost proved the doubters wrong; the first half was much closer than most had expected. Dawson's Chiefs matched the Packers' first touchdown and responded to the second with a field goal before halftime. Starr threw only his fourth interception of the season, and the Packers only had a 14-10 lead at the half. Adjustments at halftime and a 50-yard interception return from Packers safety Willie Wood in the third quarter turned the tide, however, and the Packers put up three TDs for 21 unanswered points in the second half on the way to a decisive victory.
• Though Bart Starr was awarded game MVP for a typically effective showing, Packers WR Max McGee put in a legendary performance. Expecting to ride the bench, he broke the team's curfew policy and spent the entire night before the game partying and drinking. However, starting wideout Boyd Dowler left the game with a separated shoulder, pressing McGee into duty. McGee, hungover and on no sleep, caught seven passes on ten targets, including an impressive twisting one-handed catch and a long gain of 37 yards, for 138 total yards and two touchdowns, including the first ever scored in a Super Bowl game. This was far and away the most prolific performance of the game on offense. A Drunken Master indeed.
• The Super Bowl slump did not apply in the game's first year; both teams got one more shot in (and won) the Big Game over the next three seasons.

II — January 14, 1968 / Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida / Green Bay Packers def. Oakland Raiders, 33-14

MVP: Bart Starr, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Ray Scott, Pat Summerall, Jack Kemp)
National Anthem: Grambling State University Band
Coin Toss: Jack Vest, referee
Halftime: Grambling State University Band

• First Super Bowl to be preceded by a playoff tournament. Super Bowl I had only been preceded by the respective league championships fought between the highest seeded teams in each conference/division. This remained the set-up in the AFL until 1969, but the NFL added a conference championship round for this season. Like the previous year, Lombardi's Packers entered the clear favorites, this time by 13.5. NFL Films named the Packers the #56 and the Raiders the #78 Greatest Teams of the league's first 100 years. Ranked the 43rd best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
  • Even though the Raiders led both leagues in scoring and put up a much better record (13-1 to the Pack's 9-4-1) on their way to their first AFL Championship, where they had obliterated the Houston Oilers 40-7, the NFL was still expected to dominate the AFL once again.
  • Even after losing several of their central players following the previous season^note most notably Hall of Fame running backs Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, who were taken by the Saints in the expansion draft caused their offense to regress, the Packers defense was still one of the strongest in the NFL. After struggling through the regular season, the Packers trounced the Rams before proceeding to one of the most legendary games in NFL history, the "Ice Bowl" NFL Championship against the Dallas Cowboys. This game, which was played in some of the worst conditions ever seen in an NFL game and went Down to the Last Play, was seen as the ultimate accomplishment for Lombardi's team; few anticipated the next game would be anything more than an afterthought than the preceding Super Bowl, and indeed most histories of the '60s Packers treat the Super Bowl as a glorified epilogue.
• First Super Bowl played in Miami's Orange Bowl, which became the most commonly used venue in the game's early days.
• Buffalo Bills QB (and future U.S. Congressman/HUD Secretary) Jack Kemp joined Pat Summerall and Ray Scott in the broadcast booth while still an active player. With just one network airing the game, total ratings went down from the previous year, with just shy of 40 million viewers in the least watched Super Bowl ever. The complete broadcast of this game also does not exist, with the tapes having been wiped, making this the only Super Bowl with no network footage known to exist.
• The halftime show remained a standard band performance; once again, the most memorable non-game element of the event was in the pre-game, when the league rolled out two giant paper-mache players to face off on the 50-yard line. This event was also the first Super Bowl to feature a flyover from the U.S. Air Force.
• Though the final score was slightly closer than the last bout, the Packers once again wiped the floor with the AFL's rep. This game was truthfully even more one-sided. The Raiders held the Packers to just a field goal in the first quarter but slid to 13-0 after surrendering another field goal and a 62-yard touchdown pass from Starr in the second. They only came within one score of the Packers for a few minutes in the second quarter after a TD pass from Daryle Lamonica, after which the Packers put up 20 unanswered points (two field goals and two TDs, including a 60-yard pick-six from future Hall of Fame corner Herb Adderley). Lamonica only scored the Raiders' second TD in the last two minutes of the game, long after the Packers had essentially clinched their win. The Packers put up zero turnovers through the whole game, a fitting retirement present to their perfection-obsessed coach.
• The Packers' four field goals, posted by Don Chandler, remain a Super Bowl record (only tied once, in XVI).
• The Packers' victory made them the first of a few teams to win back-to-back Super Bowls. However, since the Packers also won the 1965 Championship, this win technically made them the only NFL team to secure a world title "threepeat". Likewise, Bart Starr became the first of two players to win back-to-back Super Bowl MVPs, despite sitting on the bench through most of the fourth quarter after a thumb injury.
• This was the final game that Vince Lombardi coached for the Packers prior to retiring. He remained the general manager in 1968, then left to become the head coach at Washington for 1969 before losing his battle with stomach cancer shortly before the 1970 season began; the Super Bowl championship trophy was subsequently renamed after him. Several other Packer legends of the '60s dynasty also retired after "winning one for the old man", as most of the team had played in Green Bay since before the AFL had even been founded. At an average age of 27.5 years old, this was the oldest team to win a Super Bowl for several decades and is still one of the oldest.^note Without the beauty/health/fitness standards of the modern, heavily televised NFL, many of the Packers of this team look to be even older to contemporary audiences, with many of the star players sporting worn faces and sharply receding hairlines under their helmets. This victory thus marked a real End of an Age; it took 25 years for the Packers to return to championship contention.
• The Raiders, on the other hand, remained one of the strongest teams in the league for the next two decades. However, despite playing in eight of the next ten AFL/AFC Championships, they didn't actually reach the Super Bowl again for nearly another decade. Their humiliating loss here particularly incensed the AFL's commissioner, Al Davis, who had been the Raiders head coach prior to their then-current HC, John Rauch, and was also a part-owner of the team.

III — January 12, 1969 / Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida / New York Jets def. Baltimore Colts, 16-7

MVP: Joe Namath, QB
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, Kyle Rote, Al DeRogatis)
National Anthem: Washington National Symphony Orchestra
Coin Toss: (n/a)
Halftime: Florida A&M University Band (now Marching 100)

• Ranked the #6 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary and the second highest-ranked Super Bowl on that list. The Jets were the #24 and the Colts the #44 Greatest Teams. Ranked the 11th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Jets QB Joe Namath's famous "guarantee" of a Jets win over the 18-point-favorite Colts immediately became NFL lore, but it truly can't be overstated just how favored the Colts were entering the game.
  • The Colts had the best record in the NFL in the last two seasons^note They only missed the 1967 playoffs due to a bizarre tiebreaker scenario with the L.A. Rams, who also went 11-1-2; their .917 win record is still the best ever for a team that missed the playoffs. and won Coach of the Year and MVP in both. The COTY awards both went to the legendary Don Shula, still early in his career. The MVPs, on the other hand, were two different quarterbacks. The '67 MVP, the great Johnny Unitas, was benched early in the '68 season after a Game-Breaking Injury to his esteemed "Golden Arm". Remarkably, 12-year journeyman Earl Morrall stepped in and put up the best season of his career while leading the team to an improved 13-1 record, performing so well he kept the starting job after Unitas recovered. The Colts utterly dogwalked the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship, shutting them out 34-0 at home. Almost every sports writer assumed that this Super Bowl would be even more anticlimactic than the last two, considering the Packers had fought much closer contests in their penultimate bouts with the Cowboys.
  • The Jets were no slouches in their own league, going 11-3 on their way to their first AFL Championship appearance with Namath winning AFL MVP. Despite his prolific passing ability, many in the media dismissed Namath as an image-obsessed celebrity, particularly after his perceived boast of a "guaranteed" win. Even those who respected Namath's individual talent thought little of his team, which was a mix of young guns and older NFL rejects who only narrowly bested the Raiders in the AFL Championship. Jets' coach Weeb Ewbank was Shula's predecessor as the Colts' head coach and a decade prior had, ironically, led a Colts team captained by Unitas to a victory against a New York team in the 1958 Championship, still widely recognized as "The Greatest Game Ever Played". However, outside of his two Championship seasons in Baltimore, Ewbank's Colts never saw the sustained degree of dominance that Shula's had with many of the same pieces, another knock against the Jets. With the AFL already seen as having a lower bar of competition, few thought their performance could match up to any NFL team, let alone one as historically strong as the Colts.
• Only time the Super Bowl was played in the same stadium in consecutive seasons.
• NBC marketed the NFL-AFL World Championship as the "Super Bowl" for the first time to an audience of around 41.6 million; the 36% Nielsen rating remains the lowest of any Super Bowl. Unlike the first two, however, the unanticipated outcome ensured the full broadcast of this Super Bowl was preserved.
  • What was not preserved was the pre-show, which featured recently-returned Apollo 8 astronauts leading the pledge of allegiance (a short-lived tradition dropped after NASA stopped sending people to the moon), people dressed as footballs, and performers dressed as Colts and Jets players Jumping Out of a Cake.
• While any Jets win would have been one of the biggest upsets ever, what made the game truly shocking is just how decisive their victory was. Despite generally matching the Jets in yards, the Colts offense just couldn't manage to score at all until the final quarter, at which point the game was nearly decided. Baltimore's formidable defense kept Namath from scoring a touchdown pass, but they had clearly underestimated the Jets' capabilities and allowed 16 points (a rushing TD in the second quarter and three field goals in the second half).^note The Colts' scheme was actually more common in the AFL than in the NFL, so the Jets were well-prepared for it. Additionally, the defense focused early on the Jets' future Hall of Fame receiver Don Maynard, who they did not know had pulled a hamstring and was only seeing play as a decoy. Colts kicker Lou Michaels^note whose brother Walt was an assistant coach for the Jets missed both of his field goal attempts (his counterpart on the Jets missed two as well).
  • The biggest responsibility for the loss, however, laid on Morrall, whose Cinderella season came to a crushing end as he completed barely a third of his passes (6/17) and threw three costly interceptions, all near or in the end zone after the offense made big gains to get him in position. The most devastating one came right before the half, as Morrall missed a wide open receiver in the end zone off of a flea flicker play, allegedly because his uniform blended in with that of the marching band standing in the sideline tunnel preparing for halftime. Shula put in Unitas in the fourth quarter, only for him to also threw an end zone INT.
• Namath injured his thumb in the third quarter and didn't even attempt a pass in the fourth. Though a still-hurting Johnny U did manage a fourth quarter TD drive, even he couldn't get a pass into the end zone; this was the first Super Bowl without a touchdown pass, and Namath remains the only quarterback MVP to not throw one.^note Many argue that Jets RB Matt Snell, who rushed for 121 yards and New York's only TD, should have been awarded it instead. Many defenders had a great game in shutting down the Colts' offense, but none of them seemed to be an obvious selection over any of the others since they all played about equally well.
• The shot of Namath walking off the field, index finger aloft in a "#1" gesture, remains one of the most iconic images in football history and marked a real turning point for the Super Bowl and the NFL in general. While the AFL merger's terms had already been finalized, this victory established that the new AFL teams could actually compete in a merged league, quieting worries among fans and executives that the expansion was going to result in lots of boring and predictable games/seasons.
• Ewbank's win marked the first time a team's former head coach beat them in the Super Bowl.
• "Namath's Guarantee" remains the undisputed pinnacle of success for the Jets organization to this day; over half a century after their first title win, they have yet to even appear in another Super Bowl and have put up one of the NFL's worst franchise records.
• The Colts soon bounced back and won a Super Bowl two years later, with Morrall getting to play hero and help salvage the win. They did so without Shula, who departed the Colts after 1969; he and Morrall saw even greater success with the Miami Dolphins not long after.
• This is the only Super Bowl ever played whose matchup could not currently occur as a Super Bowl again, as the realignment shortly afterward placed the Jets and Colts in the same conference. They have faced off thrice in the playoffs since (all after the Colts moved to Indianapolis), including a meeting in the 2009 AFC Championship; that remains the only postseason match in which the Colts emerged victorious over the Jets.

IV — January 11, 1970 / Tulane Stadium, New Orleans, Louisiana / Kansas City Chiefs def. Minnesota Vikings, 23-7

MVP: Len Dawson, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Jack Buck, Pat Summerall)
National Anthem: Doc Severinsen and Pat O'Brien
Coin Toss: John McDonough, referee
Halftime: "Tribute to Mardi Gras" by Southern University Band

• Ranked the 32nd best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Final game before completion of AFL-NFL merger. Interestingly, the AFL's rep faced off against an NFL team that was younger than the AFL, just one reason the game carried a lot of historic and symbolic resonance. The Vikings were originally meant to be a charter AFL franchise, but the owners jumped ship to the NFL when they were offered a franchise a few months before the inaugural AFL season; they agreed to wait another year to play while the schedules got sorted.^note This was a much more sensible and secure investment for the team from a business standpoint, as there was no real guarantee that the AFL wouldn't fold like numerous NFL challengers before it. It was also a pretty clear threat from the NFL towards the AFL, demonstrating their greater financial power and suggesting that the NFL did not believe the league's other teams would succeed in their markets. Thus, the Vikings meeting AFL founder Lamar Hunt's own team in the Super Bowl right before every AFL team joined the NFL was a fitting culmination of the AFL's decade-long story, showing that these new teams could compete and even dominate against the old guard.
• Despite the Jets' upset victory the year prior and the NFL's representative not having any claim to being a "more storied" franchise, the Vikings were still 13-point favorites entering the game. Some sports writers were adamant that III was just a fluke and that any NFL team was better prepared by their superior competition. Decades later, for the league's 100th Anniversary, the Chiefs were named the #27 Greatest Team and the Vikings #83.
  • The 12-2 Vikings had the best record, offense, and defense in the NFL under head coach Bud Grant. Their exciting rushing QB, Joe Kapp, led the team to a number of wins with his head-first playstyle. Even more importantly, their dominant defensive unit, nicknamed "The Purple People Eaters", posted two shutouts in the regular season and helped to sustain the team through their postseason battles against the Rams and Browns, making them the victors of the final NFL Championship game.
  • The Chiefs head coach Hank Stram and star QB Len Dawson had seemingly proven to their anti-AFL detractors that they didn't have "it" in a decisive loss to the Packers three years prior. The Chiefs struggled somewhat through the season, particularly after Dawson missed multiple games due to injury and rookie Mike Livingston filled in. Thankfully, their defense (which featured even more future Hall of Famers than the Purple People Eaters) carried them to an 11-3 record while Dawson recovered. They came second in their division and were technically the first "Wild Card" participant (and winner) in a Super Bowl, though that term wasn't yet in use by the AFL for their playoff system. They managed to narrowly best the division champion Jets and Raiders in the first and only full-fledged AFL playoffs, winning the final AFL Championship, but few expected they'd perform well against the dominant Vikings.
• Another reason for skepticism about the Chiefs going in: five days before the game, Dawson's name was attached to a federal gambling investigation, and it was questionable whether he'd be allowed to play. That quickly turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, but it put him under substantial stress (Dawson, who also lost his father to a heart attack earlier in the season and was still struggling with injuries, later stated he got almost no sleep in the week before the game).
• The CBS TV broadcast went out to an audience of around 44.3 million. Their recording was wiped, but since the Vikings were rather popular in Canada due to a number of their stars and staff (including their coach and starting QB) being CFL veterans, the CBC carried the broadcast and archived a recording.
  • Play-by-play duties went to Jack Buck in his sole appearance as the TV announcer. The broadcasting legend later set the record as the most frequent play-by-play man for the Super Bowl on CBS Radio, hosting a whopping 17 games; his son, Joe, has announced six for FOX before moving to ESPN in 2022.
  • The most famous media from the game was not from the live broadcast but from NFL Films, which mic'd up the famously verbal Stram and managed to catch several gems of his enthusiastic coaching, including his order to "Keep matriculating the ball down the field", which quickly entered the football lexicon.
• The pre-game festivities just kept getting weirder: This time a Viking attempted to take an anachronistic hot air balloon ride from center field, only for the wet and windy climate to send his aircraft hurtling into the stands. No one was hurt in this blatant bit of cosmic foreshadowing.
  • The national anthem was pretty bizarre, too: Pat O'Brien, a character actor who played famed Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne decades prior, delivered "The Star Spangled Banner" in Spoken Word while Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen accompanied him on trumpet.
• The first score went to the Chiefs' future Hall of Fame kicker Jan Stenerud, who nailed a 48-yard field goal (not a cinch even today, but an especially impressive accomplishment at the time), the longest in a Super Bowl for the next 24 years. Stenerud was a pioneer of European "soccer-style" kicking, and his success in this game helped to cement it as the preferred style in the NFL into the present day.
• The game was expected to be a major defensive battle, as both teams led their respective leagues in fewest points allowed. The Chiefs' unit proved to be the better squad in this game, continuing their domination by completely shutting down the Vikings run game to just 67 yards, recovering two fumbles in the second quarter, and allowing no points in the first half, leaving the halftime score 16-0 after Stenerud landed two more field goals and the offense executed a "65 Toss Power Trap" run play for a touchdown. (The run was named the #74 Greatest Play in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary, less for being a genuinely impressive play than for how memorable Stram's recorded delight was.)
• The halftime show featured the band celebrating in advance of the upcoming Mardi Gras festivities in the game's host city, down to bringing out a cannon to recreate the Battle of New Orleans.
• The Vikings showed signs of life in the second half and scored a rushing TD. The Chiefs immediately responded with a touchdown of their own in a six-play drive that ended in a 46-yard reception from Otis Taylor, who broke two tackles heading to the end zone. No team scored in the fourth quarter, a Super Bowl first. The Chiefs defense forced three interceptions from Kapp and backup Gary Cuozzo while the offense ran out the clock, making them the only defense in the Super Bowl era to not allow a double-digit score through the entire postseason.
• Dawson was awarded MVP seemingly more in recognition of his leadership and stoicism in the face of personal trials than his performance; he threw for only 142 yards and one TD and committed the Chiefs' sole turnover with a second quarter interception.^note For the second straight year, a quarterback wins MVP for reasonably good but hardly spectacular play while the defense plays an elite game and nobody gets recognized because so many defenders played well that none of them stood out. This will become a recurring trend.
• Kansas City's win put the AFL at 2-2 in Super Bowls, proving that the Jets' win wasn't a fluke and ending the AFL's run with a victory from its founder's team. Unfortunately, the team continued the trend started in Super Bowl II of the victors entering massive slumps: the Chiefs put up two playoff appearances and zero playoff wins over the next two decades and did not return to the Super Bowl until their victory in LIV exactly 50 years later.
• The '69 Vikings are often considered one of the best teams to not win a Super Bowl, and the loss seemed to have a devastating ripple effect (some would say a Curse) on the entire organization. While they remained regular contenders with Coach Grant and the Purple People Eaters, returning to the Big Game three more times in the next decade, IV turned out to be the first of four crushing defeats; while the team technically were the final NFL league champions prior to appearing in this game, they have still yet to end a season on a world championship title win despite generally performing very well in the regular season.
  • Also unfortunately, due to a contract dispute, Joe Kapp never played another game for the Purple and Gold; his difficulties in getting signed to another team despite his otherwise successful season was one of many reasons Kapp sued the NFL, an act that had long-term ramifications for the league's policies on player agency.

V — January 17, 1971 / Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida / Baltimore Colts def. Dallas Cowboys, 16-13

MVP: Chuck Howley, LB (for the Cowboys)
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, Kyle Rote)
National Anthem: Tommy Loy
Coin Toss: Norm Schachter, referee
Halftime: Southeast Missouri State College Marching Golden Eagles Band, with Anita Bryant

• Ranked the 24th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The first post-merger Super Bowl played between the conference champions of the NFC and AFC. The Colts represented the NFL in the Super Bowl two years prior but represented the AFC in the first Super Bowl after the merger - they, along with the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers, moved to the AFC in order to balance the conferences at 13 teams each. Also the first Super Bowl to award the winning team the Lombardi Trophy (newly renamed after the winner of the first two Super Bowls following his death from stomach cancer), the first to be played on artificial turf, and the first in which both teams had the players' names on the backs of their jerseys.^note The AFL required names on jerseys throughout its history; the NFL only adopted that practice with the merger. In the first four Super Bowls, none of the NFL participants had names on their jerseys. Ironically, both participants in this game had previously been NFL teams.
• Both teams had been very strong through the Super Bowl era, with the Colts having already made a Super Bowl (and lost in dramatic fashion) while the Cowboys recorded more wins than any other team in the last five years despite always coming up just short in the playoffs. Both teams also had very notable quarterback controversies, their strong defenses covering up for inconsistencies at offense.
  • Aging Colts legend Johnny Unitas continued to compete with Earl Morrall for the starting position; he put up worse numbers in the regular season but was allowed by first-year head coach Don McCafferty (a long-time assistant with the Colts dating back to Unitas' early years) to take the reins for the playoffs. Even with these issues, they had the #3 passing offense in the league, but one of the weaker ground games. NFL Films named the Colts the #72 Greatest Team of the league's first 100 years.
  • The Cowboys, meanwhile, were forced to choose between their existing starter, Craig Morton, and their newer talent, Roger Staubach; Staubach was a fan favorite and had a higher ceiling, but his improvisational playstyle didn't match as well with Cowboys' coach Tom Landry's more meticulous game plans, so Morton stayed under center.
• After four years of gambling odds predicting a heavy favorite and two years of them being dead wrong, this year's contest was anticipated to be much closer, with the 11-2-1 Colts being favored by just 2.5 points over the 10-4 Cowboys. This prediction turned out to be right on, though not quite in the manner most anticipated...
• Broadcast to an audience of 46 million; while still an increase from the last game, this was one of the few times in Super Bowl history that the price of an ad spot went down from the last year. Much of the broadcast was preserved, but a good chunk of the fourth quarter was somehow lost. In the prior four matchups, this wouldn't have been an issue, but many of the most dramatic events of the game exist on film only in the NFL Films recordings and a few fragments preserved by the CBC.
• Sometimes referred to as the "Stupor Bowl" or "Blunder Bowl" due to the poor play, particularly on the offense. While many of the game's players have expressed frustration with how the game played out, it was, at the very least, entertaining, featuring a fourth-quarter comeback win after four straight years of blowouts essentially decided in the first half. Other observers note that it was an intensely physical game, with many of the "blunders" being caused by how hard the teams' defenses were hitting on the day. The Stupor Bowl included costly penalties (adding up to the most penalized yards in Super Bowl history), officiating miscues, a missed PAT, and a cumulative eleven turnovers, with five made in the fourth quarter alone. Some highlights/lowlights include:
  • In the first quarter, Unitas threw an interception on the first play of their second drive. Penalties cost the Cowboys the possession, but a muffed punt return from the Colts and a recovery by Cowboys safety Cliff Harris gave Dallas possession right next to the end zone; they still failed to convert it to a touchdown and only scored a field goal. A subsequent drive saw the Cowboys stall out again on a 1st-and-6 situation thanks to a penalty, scoring a second field goal as consolation.
  • In the second quarter, Unitas nearly threw his second interception off of a shaky pass that bounced off the intended receiver; it bounced again off a Dallas defender and landed in the hands of Colts star tight end John Mackey, who ran in a 75-yard touchdown. However, the Colts' rookie kicker Jim O'Brien hesitated under the bright lights, allowing the Cowboys to block the PAT and leave the score tied 6-6.
  • Unitas followed this lucky break by committing two more turnovers, a fumble and an interception, both caused by him getting smashed by the defense. Unitas was taken out of the game from injury and Morrall stepped in, a reverse of the dynamic in III. The Cowboys capitalized off the turnovers and scored their only touchdown. The Colts attempted a fourth down TD before the half rather than go for an easy field goal, Morrall failed to convert, and the score sat 13-6 at halftime.
  • Things got even worse right away in the second half, as the Colts returner fumbled the ball and gave it to Dallas. The Cowboys took the ball to the one-yard line, nearly scoring before Colts LB Mike Curtis punched the ball out of Dallas RB Duane Thomas' hands. A massive pileup ensued, and at this point, the refs got in on the blunders, ruling that Baltimore recovered the ball even though it appeared to most observers that a Cowboy managed to secure it.
  • The Colts failed to fully take advantage of this second chance and attempted a 52-yard field goal from O'Brien, which fell well short (not at all uncommon at that time). However, under that era's rules, the kick was treated as a punt since it didn't enter the end zone; none of the Cowboys realized just how short it fell and did not attempt to return it, so the Colts were able to down the ball at the Cowboys' one yard line.^note This rule was changed just a few years later; today, that field goal attempt would have cost the Colts defense half the field on the ensuing Cowboys drive.
  • After no scoring in the third quarter, the fourth is where things truly got head-spinning. After an end zone interception from Morrall resulted in another stalled Cowboys drive, the Colts attempted to mix things up with a flea-flicker trick play. What resulted was one of the most bizarre and unsophisticated plays in Super Bowl history: The Cowboys stormed the Colts backfield before RB Sam Havrilak could toss the ball back to Morrall. Thinking fast, he instead threw it forward to WR Eddie Hinton, who bolted for the end zone, only to be stripped by a Cowboys defender. In a mad scramble, at least six players laid hands on the ball before it rolled out of the back of the end zone, returning it to the Cowboys.
  • With hope rapidly fading for the Colts, Craig Morton stepped up to keep things interesting. Morton had already had a generally poor game but hadn't committed any turnovers to that point; with victory still in sight, he melted down completely in the game's final minutes. He first threw an interception to Colts safety Rick Volk, who ran it back 30 yards and set up a Colts touchdown; after two unfortunate kicks, O'Brien kept his cool and nailed the PAT, tying the game. During his next potential game-winning drive, Morton threw another interception by bouncing a ball off of RB Dan Reeves^note in his first of nine Super Bowl appearances as a player and coach, allowing a now cool-as-ice O'Brien to fully redeem himself with a game-winning field goal with :05 left on the clock. Morton ended the game with a third and final interception on his last-ditch pass attempt.
• As the clock ran out, Cowboys DT Bob Lilly threw his helmet halfway down the field in despair. This just about summed up the response to the game; while there was goodwill for Morrall's redemption arc, McCafferty's rookie coaching win, and the strength of the Colts defense, most observers agreed that the Cowboys, especially their offense, lost the Big Game more than the Colts won it. Up until the very end of the game, the Doomsday Defense played excellent football, and Dallas had committed just one turnover that arguably was due to referee error. However, they also put up ten penalties that totaled up to a Super Bowl-record 133 lost yards, preventing them from getting in the end zone and putting points on the board.^note Two of these were offensive holding penalties, which were greatly reduced just a few years later.
• The only time the MVP award went to a player from the losing team, Cowboys LB Chuck Howley, who made two interceptions, forced a fumble, and generally dominated both of the Colts QBs. He was also the first defensive player to win the award after four straight occasions of the winning teams' QBs receiving them for fairly average performances. He turned down the award on principle, which is probably why it's never been given to a losing team again.
• Despite its messiness, neither team massively slumped right away following this game. However, despite the win, the Colts came out worse. They stayed competitive for one more year before being shut out by Shula's Dolphins in the next AFC Championship. A subsequent owner change and the aging-out of their greatest players led the franchise into a spiral; it took another 36 years (and a move out of Baltimore) before the Colts revisited a Super Bowl.
• If anything, frustration at having come so close only to throw everything away greatly improved the Cowboys, and Morton's abysmal performance^note Only a 34.1 passer rating. While one of his three interceptions was at least partially Dan Reeves' fault, and another one was a desperate heave on the final play, he hadn't done much positive during the game either - he put up fewer yards than Morrall despite actually playing the full game, and despite attempting more passes than Morrall and Unitas combined helped the case of Roger Staubach, who took the starting position during the next season and lead the 'Boys to four more Super Bowls and two wins in his Hall of Fame career.
• Second and final Super Bowl for Kyle Rote as lead analyst; as the following season Rote and Al DeRogatis^note who was usually part of the #2 team alongside Jim Simpson traded positions; though Rote's broadcast career gradually fizzled out until he was out of broadcasting by 1975.

Super Bowls VI to X

VI — January 16, 1972 / Tulane Stadium, New Orleans, Louisiana / Dallas Cowboys def. Miami Dolphins, 24-3

MVP: Roger Staubach, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Ray Scott, Pat Summerall)
National Anthem: United States Air Force Academy Chorale
Coin Toss: Jim Tunney, referee
Halftime: Tribute to Louis Armstrong by Ella Fitzgerald, Carol Channing, Al Hirt, and the United States Marine Corps Drill Team

• Ranked the 44th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The start of two Super Bowl dynasties:
  • Coming off their stinging loss in Super Bowl V, the Cowboys initially struggled, going 4-3 in the first half of the season. Their QB controversy between Craig Morton and Roger Staubach persisted to the extent that head coach Tom Landry had them alternating plays in a memorable Week 7 loss to the Bears. After that, Landry finally settled on Staubach, and the team went undefeated in the back half of the season, improving their record from the last year to 11-3. Staubach finished the season as the league's top rated passer, and the Cowboys boasted the league's most productive offense. Their Doomsday Defense remained as strong as ever, and the team bested Minnesota and San Francisco in the playoffs on the way to the first consecutive Super Bowl appearance since the Packers. NFL Films named them the #34 Greatest Team of the league's first century.
  • After languishing for their first four seasons as an AFL expansion franchise, the Dolphins immediately emerged as competitors in their first season under coach Don Shula in 1970. One year later, boasting a league-leading run game based around star RB Larry Csonka and his sidekick Jim Kiick, an efficient QB in Bob Griese, and a defense that outperformed Dallas in points allowed, the Fins made an unexpected run through the playoffs. First, they defeated the Chiefs in the longest game in NFL history, a double-overtime bout on Christmas Day. The next week, they shut out Shula's former team, the defending champion Colts, in the AFC Championship, in the process making him the first head coach to guide two different teams to a Super Bowl appearance.
• After last year's exciting bout and the chance to see the extremely popular Cowboys finally claim a crown, the ratings saw a huge uptick, with over 56.6 million viewers, more than had watched Super Bowl I five years prior when it aired on two different networks. This was also with the local New Orleans market being blacked out, the last year this policy was in effect.
• The coldest Super Bowl ever played, with a temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) at kickoff.^note Some subsequent Super Bowls had colder outdoor weather but were played in indoor stadiums that insulated the players and spectators.
• The first post-merger Super Bowl to pit former NFL and AFL teams.^note The AFC representative in the previous year's edition was the Baltimore Colts, a legacy NFL team.
• After winning six straight division titles and posting the best winning record through the Super Bowl era, the Cowboys were the favored team heading into the game, but only by six points. This reflected both the greater respect Vegas had finally developed for former AFL teams and the Cowboys' reputation as "Next Year's Champions" who were unable to win when it counted most. The Cowboys finally shed that reputation in this match, dominating both sides of the ball in a very one-sided affair.
• The Cowboys took the lead with a field goal in the first quarter and never let it go. Staubach threw no interceptions and two touchdown passes to fellow future Hall of Famers Lance Alworth and Mike Ditka. The Cowboys' ground game put up most of the offense's yardage against a seemingly helpless Dolphins defense, scored another TD, and coughed up only one turnover in the final minutes of the game when the winner had already been decided.
• Ultimately, the Doomsday Defense were the real stars. They held the Dolphins' score to just one field goal in the second quarter - this would be the only Super Bowl for the next 47 years in which a team didn't score a single touchdown. The game was very much still winnable for the Dolphins at the half, with the score at 10-3, but the Cowboys prevented a single Dolphins first down in the third quarter and previous year's Super Bowl MVP Chuck Howley pulled off a 41-yard interception return in the fourth, permitting the offense to run up the score.
• In some ways, the Dolphins were their own worst enemy, even despite committing zero penalties: Neither Csonka nor Kiick had lost a fumble all season, but Csonka lost one on a flubbed handoff in the first quarter, which led to the Cowboys' first scoring drive. Griese likewise fumbled and surrendered a snap in the last quarter, but his most embarrassing mistake came in the first when he scrambled backwards 29 yards before being brought down by Bob Lilly, still the longest negative play in Super Bowl history (and was the longest sack in league history until 1997).
• After the heavily penalized play in the last title game (the most penalized yards in Super Bowl history, which many believed cost the Cowboys the game), the refs were very hands-off in this match, penalizing the fewest total yards in any Super Bowl (just 15 distributed over three penalties to Dallas).
• Staubach's 119 passing yards is the fewest among Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks. Reportedly, Dallas running back Duane Thomas was the voters' actual pick for MVP, but as Thomas had chosen to be an Elective Mute for most of the season over a contract dispute and gave one-word answers to the press corps the entire preceding week, the more charismatic and popular Staubach was selected instead; Thomas never played another game for the Cowboys.
• Once again, no real slump after this Super Bowl. The Landry-Staubach Cowboys remained one of the strongest teams in the league for the rest of the decade, making several more Super Bowl appearances and one more win, though they sat out of the Big Game for the next few years.
• This was the only game the Dolphins lost in calendar 1972: Miami bounced back even stronger the next season and put up the only "perfect" record of the modern era on the way to two straight Super Bowl victories.
• This Super Bowl was scheduled to be the last game played at Tulane Stadium; as its replacement - the Louisiana Superdome^note now Caesars Superdome - was intended to be opened for the 1972 season. However; construction ran into significant delays and the groundbreaking; originally scheduled for 1968, didn't take place until August 1971; roughly 4 and a half months before this Super Bowl.
• One bit of trivia that - for all the attention it received in the pregame buildup - didn't add up to much at the end. At one point prior to the Super Bowl; Shula got a phone call from President Richard Nixon in which Nixon, an avid football fan, suggested running a down-and-in pass to Dolphins receiver Paul Warfield. Miami ran the "Nixon Play" late in the 1st quarter but the Cowboys broke the pass up.

VII — January 14, 1973 / Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California / Miami Dolphins def. Washington Redskins, 14-7

MVP: Jake Scott, S
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis)
National Anthem: Little Angels of Holy Angels Church in Chicago
Coin Toss: Tom Bell, referee
Halftime: Andy Williams, Woody Herman, and the Michigan Marching Band

• Ranked the 30th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The end of arguably the greatest single season for any NFL franchise, and the snuffing of a potential dynasty:
  • Coming off their somewhat humiliating loss in VI (head coach Don Shula's second embarrassment in the Big Game after III), the Dolphins reassembled and came back even stronger. Eugene "Mercury" Morris joined the existing running back duo of Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick, producing the most productive run game in NFL history to that point. The "No Name" Defense (named after an off-handed comment from Tom Landry right before VI) proved to be more dominant than any other unit in the league and put up three shutouts. Even an injury to quarterback Bob Griese couldn't keep the team down; after Griese broke his leg in Week 5, good ol' Earl Morrall, who had just reunited with his former coach Don Shula, once again stepped in and kept the team surging ahead until Griese was ready to reclaim his position in the AFC Championship to secure a narrow win over Pittsburgh at the start of their dynastic run. With the league's best offense and defense (and, admittedly, a very easy schedule), the Dolphins didn't lose a single game all season and were one game away from not just claiming the title but accomplishing something that no NFL or AFL team had ever done: completing a perfect season.
  • Despite the Dolphins' dominant record entering the game, however, they were only favored to win by a single point due to the tougher schedule of the 11-3 team from Washington. After new head coach George Allen broke a 25-year franchise playoff drought the previous season, they ascended to the upper echelons of the league after years in the wilderness. Allen favored experienced veterans who could run his advanced plays, and the "Over-the-Hill Gang" he assembled was one of the oldest teams the NFL has ever seen, with an average age of 31 among the starters. Journeyman Billy Kilmer took the starting QB job from aging veteran Sonny Jurgensen and led the league in passer rating and touchdowns for his sole Pro Bowl season. One of the few young players on the team, fourth-year running back Larry Brown, won the season's MVP and the first Offensive Player of the Year award with his tenacious running ability, and the team sported the best defense in the NFC. They defeated the Packers and Cowboys in the playoffs to break an even longer postseason losing streak and reach their first championship game since 1945.
• With the old blackout rules lifted, the Super Bowl returned to Los Angeles. Ratings still went down slightly (53.3 million viewers), possibly reflecting last year's blowout.
• Only one of the first six Super Bowls after the merger not played on artificial turf.
• Last pre-game to feature the pledge of allegiance, traditionally led by recently returned Apollo astronauts, on account of the Apollo missions ending.
• Primarily a defensive game, with the lowest total points scored in a Super Bowl for the next 46 years. The No Name Defense held the Washington offense from scoring a single point (though they lucked out from a missed field goal in the third quarter) and intercepted Kilmer three times, giving him an abysmal 19.6 passer rating. Washington's defense was also impressive; after surrendering two touchdowns in the first half, it held the Dolphins from scoring a single point in the second, the only time this has happened to a winning team in the Super Bowl, thanks in part to a clutch end zone interception after a drive that featured a 49-yard run from Csonka.
  • The Dolphins ground game pulled most of their offensive weight, as it had most of the season; Griese threw for only 88 yards (28 of those being from a single touchdown pass in the first quarter, his only one of the game). The combined total net yards passing from both teams (156) remains a record low for a Super Bowl.
• The Dolphins completed their perfect season, but not before Miami got a few scares in the fourth quarter:
  • First, in the play before his third interception, Kilmer attempted a touchdown pass to a wide-open Jerry Smith in the end zone. This would have made it a one-score game in the fourth quarter were it not for the ball hitting the goalpost instead and falling incomplete. The goalposts were moved behind the end zone just over a year later, at least in part due to frustration over this play; many football historians look at this moment as a massive What Could Have Been for Smith, one of the few known gay athletes in NFL history who also set numerous records and might well be in the Hall of Fame had he pulled off such a key play.^note This was a curious parallel to Washington's last trip to a championship game, in 1945 against the Cleveland Rams, when an early pass attempt by Sammy Baugh intended for Wayne Millner got caught by the Cleveland winds and knocked into the goalpost - which under 1945 rules was actually a safety. This turned out to be the margin of victory as the Rams won 15-14. An infuriated George Preston Marshall, the Washington team's founder, quickly pushed for a rule change that changed the result of a pass hitting a team's own goalpost from a safety to simply an incompletion.
  • The second, more famous flub, came when Shula called for Garo Yepremian to kick a field goal in the last minutes of the game, hoping to end their 17-0 season on a score of 17-0. Yepremian's attempt was blocked, and his panicked attempt to grab the ball and pass it to a teammate - which was barely a pass, it came loose in his hand as he tried to throw, and he ended up bobbling and swatting it forward instead - resulted in Washington CB Mike Bass picking it out of midair and returning it 49 yards for a touchdown (his team's only score of the game) with just over two minutes left. Thankfully for Yepremian, the Dolphins still held the lead, Miami's defense held out to still win the game, and he remained a Pro Bowl kicker for many more seasons. Still, he never lived down "Garo's Gaffe" and was only consoled by a supportive letter from Shula... which he found out decades later was actually written by Shula's wife without his knowledge. (NFL Films later named it the #75 Greatest Play in NFL history for the league's 100th anniversary.)
• For the second time, the game MVP was awarded to a defensive player, Miami safety Jake Scott, who was responsible for two of the team's interceptions. Many players on the defense later expressed that lineman Manny Fernandez had the game of his life with a sack and 17 tackles and deserved the honor as much as Scott.
• Washington remained a competitive team for several years after this game, but Allen, who had never won a postseason game before this season, would never win one again in the NFL despite continuing to see great success in the regular season. It took ten years for Washington to secure another playoff win and return to the Super Bowl, where they'd have a chance at revenge against Miami.
• The Dolphins, on the other hand, kept things rolling into the next season, with most of the same players returning for another run at the Super Bowl. Unsurprisingly, as the only "perfect" team, the NFL named this group the #1 Greatest Team of the league's first 100 years.

VIII — January 13, 1974 / Rice Stadium, Houston, Texas / Miami Dolphins def. Minnesota Vikings, 24-7

MVP: Larry Csonka, RB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Ray Scott, Pat Summerall, Bart Starr)
National Anthem/"God Bless America": Charley Pride
Coin Toss: Ben Dreith, referee
Halftime: University of Texas Longhorn Band and Westchester Wranglerettes

• Ranked the 2nd worst (54th) Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• First Super Bowl in which both franchises had played in at least one previous one. The Dolphins become the first team to appear in three consecutive Super Bowls.
  • While Don Shula's Dolphins did not replicate their 1972 perfect record, instead going 12-2, some believe their '73 team was even better, as they had a much tougher schedule (they were still only ranked the #28 Greatest Team for the league's 100th anniversary). Their offensive production regressed, particularly their passing game (this time under a healthy Bob Griese through the whole season), but their run game remained top of the league. Most significantly, their No Name Defense surrendered even fewer points than the year prior thanks in part to the efforts of the league's Defensive Player of the Year, safety Dick Anderson. After besting the Bengals and Raiders in the playoffs, the Dolphins became the first team to play in three Super Bowls, let alone three in a row (and they'd be the only ones until the Bills went 0-4 in the early '90s). They were 6.5-point favorites in this game, the first time a former AFL team was favored in the Super Bowl.
  • Four years after the Vikings got dismantled in Super Bowl IV, Bud Grant and the Purple People Eaters were ready to give it another go after a 12-2 record and besting both of Miami's former Super Bowl adversaries in the playoffs. They boasted the second-best defense in the league behind the Dolphins with most of the same pieces in place from their last Super Bowl run. Their offense had one key difference from that game: future Hall of Famer and prototype scrambling quarterback Fran Tarkenton, who was in the midst of a forgettable tenure with the New York Giants during the team's first title game appearance.
• First Super Bowl hosted outside of Miami, New Orleans, or L.A.; first Super Bowl hosted in a stadium not then in-use by the NFL (the Oilers had played at Rice a few years prior before moving to the smaller Astrodome).
• Last NFL game with the goal posts in front of the end zone (unless you count the Pro Bowl the following week).
• Two-time Super Bowl MVP Bart Starr joined Ray Scott and Pat Summerall in the booth (with Starr providing analysis from the TV truck); this was Scott's last Super Bowl as an announcer and Summerall's last as the color commentator^note Jack Buck was briefly promoted to the #1 play-by-play role, only for CBS management - feeling Buck and Summerall sounded too similar to each other - at midseason to move Summerall from color commentary to play-by-play, with Tom Brookshier being promoted to the #1 analyst role.
• Ratings were once again down after the last year (51.7 million), possibly reflecting the general lack of excitement in last year's low-scoring bout.
• First Super Bowl where "America the Beautiful" was sung in addition to the National Anthem. This wouldn't become a regular occurrence for decades, eventually becoming the standard 35 years later.
• The lead up to the Super Bowl featured a rare outburst from typically level-headed coach Bud Grant of the Vikings, who complained that the NFL were giving the Dolphins an unfair advantage by lending them the Oilers' practice facilities while the Vikings had to make do with a substandard high school venue. Nothing major came of it, and some reporters suspected that Bud was doing this to help refocus his players on the game rather than the spectacle. Given what happened, it might not have worked.
• The game was even more one-sided than Vegas predicted; Miami played an almost perfect conservative ground game, with no turnovers and only a single penalty for four yards (compared to seven for 65 for Minnesota). The Dolphins also became the first team to score a touchdown in their first drive in the Super Bowl and never surrendered that lead, scoring another TD on their second while completely shutting down the Minnesota offense to just one first down in the quarter. Their 14-0 first quarter lead in the Super Bowl has only been tied twice.
• Miami scored a field goal in the second quarter. The Vikings tried to turn the momentum around by going for a fourth down TD as halftime approached rather than attempt an easy field goal; they fumbled the ball, leaving the score at 17-0 and making the rest of the game essentially a Foregone Conclusion.
• After scoring another touchdown in the third quarter, Miami's offense took their foot off the gas. Tarkenton got Minnesota some points on the board in the fourth quarter with the first QB rushing TD in Super Bowl history, but an offsides penalty cost the Vikings an offside kick recovery and a later interception from Tarkenton cost them any chance at a comeback.
• Shula's Dolphins became the second team (after Lombardi's Packers) to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
• Larry Csonka became the first running back to win Super Bowl MVP. No one could really justify giving it to Griese; Csonka rushed for 145 yards and two touchdowns, while the Dolphins QB attempted only seven passes the whole game (a Super Bowl record low) for an efficient but unremarkable total of 73 yards. The game as a whole featured the fewest passes in any Super Bowl (35).
• This marked the end of the Dolphins' era of dominance. While the team remained generally winning under Shula all the way through the 1990s, they did not win a playoff game nor return to the Super Bowl for nearly a decade, and they still have yet to win another championship title.
• The Vikings were the first team to lose two Super Bowls, but Grant and the Purple People Eaters weren't done trying to win a title; they'd remain a force in the NFC for several years and return to the Big Game the next season to face the next great AFC dynasty.

IX — January 12, 1975 / Tulane Stadium, New Orleans, Louisiana / Pittsburgh Steelers def. Minnesota Vikings, 16-6

MVP: Franco Harris, RB
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis, Don Meredith)
National Anthem: Mardi Gras Barbershop Quartet with Grambling State University Band
Coin Toss: Bernie Ulman, referee
Halftime: Tribute to Duke Ellington, by his son Mercer and the Grambling State University Band

• Ranked the 38th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Though the Steelers had been competitive for the past two seasons, their appearance in this game officially kicked off a run of championship dominance for Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain dynasty. In the franchise's 42-year history, it had never once even appeared in a championship game, and you could count Steelers winning seasons on your fingers. Starting in 1969, coach Chuck Noll and a crew of savvy executives steadily built one of the greatest rosters in NFL history through the draft, aiming to finally bring their Hall of Fame owner Art Rooney on-field success that reflected his contributions to the game. This roster was ranked the #43 Greatest Team in the league's first century.
  • In the 1974 season, former #1 pick Terry Bradshaw initially struggled to win the starting position from Joe Gilliam. Neither QB performed particularly well, but Bradshaw secured it for the back half of the season while the running game led by Franco Harris pulled most of the weight. The team's true strength laid in its famous defense: DT Joe Greene earned his second Defensive Player of the Year award, LB Jack Lambert won Defensive Rookie of the Year, and CB Mel Blount led a league-leading secondary. After going 10-3-1 in the regular season, they bested the Bills and Raiders in the playoffs, the latter match being an unexpected upset after the Raiders' memorable defeat of the defending champion Dolphins the week before.
• The Vikings went 10-4 in the regular season and secured a narrow victory against the L.A. Rams in the NFC Championship. With their third Super Bowl appearance, the most of any team but the Dolphins at the time, but no wins, Bud Grant and the Purple People Eaters had a lot to prove, especially when going against a franchise that had (until recently) largely been known for failure.
  • While the Steelers were narrow 3-point favorites, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, set in Minneapolis, infamously aired an episode the day prior predicting a Vikings win. (Mary Tyler Moore issued an apology after the episode to anyone who lost money from this.)
• Final pro game played at the aging Tulane Stadium, as the Louisiana Superdome (which was originally supposed to host) was not yet complete. This proved to have a massive impact on the game, as rains the night before and a cold temperature (colder than any Super Bowl but VI) led to a slippery playing surface that would not have existed in the indoor dome and influenced several key plays. This snafu led to the NFL instituting a rule that prohibited assigning a new stadium a Super Bowl in its first slated season.
• Don Meredith - newly arrived from ABC; where he had been an original commentator for Monday Night Football - makes his first appearance in the Super Bowl booth. Conversely, this marked the final Super Bowl for Al DeRogatis, whose broadcasting career ended in 1975 (save for a brief run in 1988 where he was one of a handful of older broadcasters, including Curt Gowdy, who worked for NBC temporarily while many of NBC's regular NFL broadcasters worked the Seoul Summer Olympics).
• After two years of slight decline, ratings were up to 56 million viewers, though it still didn't match the success of VI.
• The pre-game featured a barbershop quartet singing the anthem.
• Yet another low-scoring slog between two legendary defenses. The first half was especially slow-moving, with a record-low score of 2-0 (the only possible lower tally would be a completely points-less half). A big part of this was due to the slippery field leading to a lot of blunders, some quite amusing.
  • The wet surface was hell for the kickers, limiting both teams' options for scoring. The Steelers came away with no points in the first quarter after missing two makeable FG attempts, the latter due to a bungled snap. The Vikings likewise missed an attempt in the second quarter despite recovering a fumble at the Steelers' 24-yard line.
  • Pittsburgh scored the first safety in Super Bowl history after the slippery conditions led to more blunders, specifically rookie Sam McCullum failing to secure a punt back from the Vikings' 7-yard line and halfback Dave Osborn subsequently fumbling a backwards pitch into the end zone. Vikings QB Fran Tarkenton saved Minnesota five points by running back in time to jump on the ball and prevent a Steelers touchdown.^note Dwight White, the defensive end who downed Tarkenton for the safety, had been in the hospital with pneumonia earlier in the week, lost 20 pounds, and was not expected to play in the game.
  • Things only got more frustrating for Tarkenton that quarter, as a solid drive right before halftime was brought to an end when the Steelers' formidable secondary forcefully knocked the ball out of receiver John Gilliam's hands and "intercepted" it five yards from the end zone.
• Did things improve for the Vikings in the second half? Please, this is the Vikings in the Super Bowl: On the very first play, kicker Bill Brown slipped running up to the ball, allowing the Steelers to pick it up close to the end zone to start a very short drive capped with a Franco Harris touchdown.
  • Tarkenton pulled off one of the more impressive plays in Super Bowl history after he caught his own deflected pass, kept his cool, and threw a successful 41-yard follow-up. Unfortunately, the refs ruled this was an illegal pass, and the drive stalled out with an interception.
  • Early in the fourth quarter, with victory still in reach, a fumble recovery and a favorable pass interference penalty brought the Vikings just five yards from scoring, only for Joe Greene to force and recover a fumble. The Vikings defense managed to make the best out of this by preventing a first down then blocking and recovering a punt in the end zone for a touchdown. Unfortunately, this was not only the Vikings' only score, but they also missed the PAT, bouncing the ball off the upright.
  • Any chance the Vikings had was effectively quashed by the Steelers' next drive when the refs controversially ruled against Minnesota once again. TE Larry Brown caught a 30-yard pass from Bradshaw but fumbled the ball; despite initially calling that the Vikings recovered, which would have opened the window for them to come back and score, the head linesman overruled and stated that he was downed by contact. Bradshaw and company resumed moving right down the field, with Brown catching a TD pass.
  • With just three minutes to go, the Vikings needed to move fast and rely on the pass to make up the deficit. Their last hopes blinked out when Tarkenton threw his third interception on his first pass attempt, giving him a terrible 14.1 rating that didn't fully reflect his performance in the game.
• Grant raged afterwards that the game featured three "terrible teams": the opposing players and the officials that arguably cost the Vikings possession twice. Despite his frustrations, the score doesn't quite convey how one-sided this bout was. The Vikings' total offense accrued 119 net yards, the fewest in Super Bowl history (Franco Harris alone rushed for more). Minnesota's ground game only rushed for 17 net yards; such was the power of the Steel Curtain. In fact, the only thing that kept the Vikings in the game at all was the sheer number of costly penalties the refs leveled against the physically brutal Steelers^note eight totaling 122 yards to the Vikings' four for a mere 18.
• For the second year in a row, the MVP was awarded to the running back, Franco Harris (who rushed for a TD and a then-Super Bowl record 158 yards), rather than the QB.^note Bradshaw had been effective when it counted most, put up a TD pass, avoided interceptions despite them normally being an issue for him, and even effectively ran more than his scramble-famous opponent, but still tallied fewer than 100 passing yards as the Steelers attempted a still-Super Bowl record 57 rushing attempts; he'd get the award twice in subsequent seasons. Harris was the first African-American player to win the award.
• The Steelers' victory launched an enduring dynasty: they appeared in the Super Bowl three more times in the subsequent decade and win each bout, laying the groundwork for consistent success that endured for years and all but erase the memory of their pre-merger struggles.
• Grant's Vikings still weren't going to give up: they'd be back in the Super Bowl in two years for what turned out to be the final time.

X — January 18, 1976 / Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida / Pittsburgh Steelers def. Dallas Cowboys, 21-17

MVP: Lynn Swann, WR
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, Tom Brookshier, Hank Stram)
National Anthem: Tom Sullivan and Up with People
Coin Toss: John Warner, Navy secretary
Halftime: Tribute to the 200th anniversary of the USA, by Up with People

• Ranked the #45 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary and the fifteenth highest-ranked Super Bowl on that list. Lynn Swann's juggling "Circus Catch" was judged the #12 Greatest Play and the seventh best in a Super Bowl. The Steelers were ranked the #10 Greatest Team. Ranked the 13th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• First Super Bowl in which both teams, head coaches, and starting QBs had previously won a Super Bowl. Considering these were (and still are) two of the most popular franchises in the NFL, this exciting matchup drew in the greatest market share of any TV broadcast in U.S. history, with an estimated 78% of American households with the TV on that Sunday tuning into CBS to watch the game. This remains the best market share of any Super Bowl and potentially any TV broadcast outside of a massive news event, even though its total ratings (i.e. the percentage of all households watching the game) were pretty average by Super Bowl standards, indicating that there really wasn't much else on. Regardless, this game had the biggest audience (57.7 million) of any Super Bowl at the time; one decade in, this experiment in sports spectacle was already a massive success.
• First Super Bowl determined by a seeded playoff system.
  • The Steelers were the first official #1 seed and 7-point favorites entering the game. Chuck Noll's defending champions improved on last year's record, going 12-2, and boasted the second-best rushing offense in the league with Franco Harris (behind only the Buffalo Bills with O. J. Simpson), a much more reliable passing attack than the last year (with Terry Bradshaw making his first Pro Bowl), and a still mighty Steel Curtain led by the Defensive Player of the Year, CB Mel Blount, and a host of Hall of Famers (though "Mean" Joe Greene struggled with injuries much of the season). Their +211 point differential remains the best in franchise history. In the playoffs, they bested the Colts and narrowly defeated the Raiders in a thrilling Championship match played out over a frozen field that saw both Bradshaw and star receiver Lynn Swann go out from concussions. The latter spent two days in the hospital and was limited in practice but still insisted on playing to defend Pittsburgh's title.
  • The Cowboys, on the other hand, were a Cinderella team despite being only four years removed from their last championship. Many of the veterans of coach Tom Landry's original contending team moved on after their win in VI and two subsequent defeats in NFC Championships. They'd missed the playoffs entirely the previous season, though Landry, QB Roger Staubach, and a few key defensive pieces of the "Doomsday II" defense helped them secure a 10-4 record and sneak into the postseason with a wild card spot. Their path through the playoffs was extremely exciting, with Staubach coining the phrase "Hail Mary pass" with his Down to the Last Play game-winning throw to Drew Pearson to beat the Vikings in the divisional round, then blowing out the highly-favored Rams in the NFC Championship, making them the first wild card team to play in the Super Bowl.
• Pat Summerall's first Super Bowl as the play-by-play announcer, and Tom Brookshier's first Super Bowl in the booth. Former Super Bowl winning coach Hank Stram filled in for Brookshier in the exciting final quarter while he ran down to the locker rooms to prep for post-game interviews.^note Stram had decided to sit out 1975 after being fired by the Kansas City Chiefs, only to leave CBS to take the New Orleans Saints head coaching job. After the Saints fired him after 1977, he returned to CBS
• The film adaptation of Black Sunday was shot at this game.
• Last outdoor Super Bowl played on artificial turf until Super Bowl XLVIII (played on the newer FieldTurf); as the much-derided Poly-Turf was quickly replaced as the Orange Bowl reverted to grass for the remainder of its existence.
• The game lived up to its massive hype: the score stayed close all the way to the last play, with the victors actually having to make up a deficit in the last quarter. Unlike the last time this happened in V, however, both of the teams played excellent football throughout with the fewest penalties in Super Bowl history (two, both to the Cowboys). Thus, the game is remembered more for its So Cool, It's Awesome performances than the So Bad, It's Good blunders of the last "exciting" Super Bowl.
• Many of the narratives of the game were established in the first two plays:
  • The Cowboys ran a trick play on the opening kickoff return, with rookie LB Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson taking a reverse handoff and returning the ball 48 yards, likely making a touchdown on the opening play were it not for a last-ditch tackle from Steelers kicker Roy Gerela. Tackling is not typically in a kicker's job description with good reason; Gerela suffered bruised ribs in the effort that affected his performance for the rest of the game.
  • On the first regular play of the game, Steelers DE L.C. Greenwood sacked Staubach and forced a fumble, though the Cowboys recovered it. This was the story of the rest of the game: Staubach was sacked a Super Bowl-record seven times, with Greenwood responsible for a single-player record four of them (though the NFL didn't officially recognize sacks as a stat until 1982).
• This was the first Super Bowl in which both teams scored in the first quarter. The Cowboys scored first after capitalizing from another Steelers special teams blunder. Punter Bobby Walden fumbled his snap and gave Dallas possession at the Steelers' 29-yard line; Staubach threw a TD pass the very next play. This was the first time the Steelers had surrendered points in the first quarter all season, and with eight of the last nine Super Bowls going to the team that scored first, that was a bad sign for them.
  • It was a good sign for the viewers, though, as it forced the Steelers to respond on offense. Despite Bradshaw and Swann's injuries two weeks prior, both played very well the whole game, with Swann making one out of several impressive catches in the Steelers' subsequent drive that culminated in a TD pass to TE Randy Grossman.
• In the second quarter, Dallas retook the lead with a field goal but was later prevented from making a second when the Steel Curtain drove the Cowboys offense back 25 yards and out of range with a tackle for loss and two sacks. Unfortunately for the Steelers (and Swann, who made another impressive 53-yard juggling catch), Pittsburgh was unable to make up the points after the bruised Gerela missed a field goal attempt, leaving them down 10-7 at the half.
• First of four half-time shows to feature squeaky-clean singing group Up with People, brought in for this event to celebrate America's bicentennial. That's still the most performances for any single act at the Super Bowl aside from the Grambling State Marching Band, but they're probably best known nowadays for scathing parodies of their act on The Simpsons and other programs.
• In the third quarter, the Steelers picked off a Staubach pass and ran it back to Dallas' 25-yard line. However, Gerela again missed a field goal. Dallas safety Cliff Harris mockingly patted Gerela on the head to thank him for helping Dallas out; feared Pittsburgh LB Jack Lambert responded by picking Harris up and throwing him to the ground. This could have gotten Lambert removed for Unnecessary Roughness, but the officials all seemed to agree that Harris had that coming (or just didn't want to test Lambert).
• The fourth quarter was one of the most exciting in Super Bowl history:
  • Early on, the Steelers special teams got it together in a big way: First, they blocked a punt in the Cowboys end zone, sending it back for a safety. On the subsequent drive, Gerela finally made a field goal, giving the Steelers their first lead. On the first play of the next drive, Pittsburgh intercepted Staubach for a second time deep in Dallas territory. Doomsday II held back a touchdown, but Gerela nailed a second field goal, expanding the lead to 15-10.
  • Pittsburgh's next drive featured one of the most iconic plays in Super Bowl history: Under pressure from a Dallas blitz, Bradshaw threw a tremendous deep pass to Lynn Swann seconds before being knocked out cold from a direct helmet hit; he didn't know that Swann had caught the ball and run it in for a 64-yard TD until after he woke up in the locker room. However, Gerela missed the PAT, leaving the score 21-10.
  • With three minutes left, a Cowboys comeback would be a miracle, even with the Steelers missing their QB. But the Cowboys had just proven a few weeks prior that they were extremely dangerous even when hope seemed lost, and the next drive saw them score in just five plays with a 34-yard touchdown pass from Staubach to the obscure bench player Percy Howard, an undrafted rookie who hadn't played football in college, hadn't made a catch all season, and never made a catch in the NFL again. Still, with the score now 21-17, the Cowboys needed one more touchdown to win.
  • The last 90 seconds of the game were extremely tense. With their offense very hampered, the Steelers hadn't been able to secure the first down they needed to run out the clock. Noll elected to go for it on fourth down and let the defense win the game rather than risk something unexpected happening with their unreliable punting team. Doomsday II held firm, giving the Cowboys just enough time and field position to make another game-winning drive. Staubach took the offense into Steelers territory and had two chances to make another "Hail Mary" pass. The first throw bounced off Howard's head, costing the rookie a chance at glory; the second was intercepted in the end zone, securing the win for Pittsburgh.
• The Steelers became the third team to win consecutive Super Bowls. Outside of their special teams foibles, they put up one of the most disciplined performances in Super Bowl history, with no penalties or turnovers.
• First Super Bowl without a rushing touchdown.
• Lynn Swann's incredible performance, with multiple all-time great catches totaling for a then-Super Bowl record 161 receiving yards, made him the first receiver to be named Super Bowl MVP and essentially secured his place in the Hall of Fame despite having lower career stats than many of his peers. The concussed Bradshaw had to wait until the team's next Super Bowl appearance to win the award, but his fearless performance in this game mostly quieted the last of his critics in Pittsburgh for many years.
• Neither team slumped after this excellent game, and most of their players remained in place to try to run it back. Dallas returned to the Super Bowl to win it all in just two seasons, and the two teams faced off in a rematch the year after that in XIII, cementing one of the fiercest rivalries in the NFL.

Super Bowls XI to XV

XI — January 9, 1977 / Rose Bowl, Pasadena (Los Angeles), California / Oakland Raiders def. Minnesota Vikings, 32-14

MVP: Fred Biletnikoff, WR
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, Don Meredith)
National Anthem: (none) — Vikki Carr sang "America the Beautiful"
Coin Toss: Jim Tunney, referee
Halftime: Disney's ""it's a small world"" presentation, featuring the cast of The New Mickey Mouse Club

• Ranked the 48th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• After last year's face-off of former champions, this matchup was a "bridesmaid" game guaranteed to give a Lombardi Trophy to one of two popular and successful #1 seed teams accustomed to always coming up short. As a result, ratings and audience (over 62 million people) were at an all-time high once again.
  • Since losing Super Bowl II, the Raiders had been the most consistent team in the AFL/AFC, putting up the best record in the conference, reaching six Championship games in eight years, and losing each one. Coach John Madden led the team through most of this era, succeeding predecessor John Rauch just two seasons after the loss in II; only four Raiders from that game (WR Fred Biletnikoff, CB Willie Brown, G Gene Upshaw, and RB Pete Banaszak) remained on the team a near-decade later, and all four put up critical performances in this one. QB Ken "The Snake" Stabler led the team brimming with future Hall of Famers and colorful characters (and "borderline criminals" to their critics) to a league-leading 13-1 record. They followed that with a narrow Miracle Rally victory over a Cinderella New England Patriots team^note which had delivered the Raiders' sole regular season loss in the divisional round and a gratifying AFC Championship win over their greatest rival, a Franco Harris-less Pittsburgh Steelers. This team was ranked the #8 Greatest Team in the league's first 100 years.
  • The Vikings, on the other hand, had the best regular season record in the league over the last decade, were making their fourth Super Bowl appearance (the most of any franchise at the time), and still hadn't won one. With Fran Tarkenton (who had just passed most of the all-time QB records) and the Purple People Eater defense all getting older and all of their prior Big Game appearances being fairly embarrassing blowouts, coach Bud Grant and his team were desperate for a win. The team had the Offensive Rookie of the Year (receiver Sammy White) and the second-best defense in the league that season, which took them to an 11-2-1 record and decisive victories against Washington and L.A. in the playoffs. Even still, they were 4-point underdogs, a line that would have been preferable to the outcome of this game.
• First Super Bowl hosted in a stadium that never had an NFL team as a tenant. The Rose Bowl was selected as an ideal "neutral site" as one of the largest and most iconic sports venues in the world with an ideal location in terms of weather and proximity to America's entertainment capital. It remained in regular rotation until the '90s when the NFL decided it would be better to keep the Super Bowl an in-house project.
• Last Super Bowl to finish in daylight. Earliest Super Bowl in the calendar year (the NFL experimented with moving the season up to avoid playoff games on Christmas Day that year).
• Only Super Bowl to not include the National Anthem in the pre-show.
• There was no happy ending for the Vikings: For the fourth time, Minnesota was completely shut out of scoring in the first half. The Vikings' inability to score reached new heights of ridiculousness when they successfully blocked a punt from future Hall of Famer Ray Guy early on^note the first of only three times in his storied career that Guy had a punt blocked and recovered three yards from the end zone only to fumble it right back to Oakland two plays later. Meanwhile, despite a missed field goal in the first quarter, the Raiders ran up the score in the second, securing a field goal and two touchdowns, with kicker Errol Mann missing the second PAT to leave the score 16-0 at the half.
• The halftime show featured the L.A. Unified School District's All-City marching band backing up a truly saccharine performance by the cast of The Mickey Mouse Club- no, not the versions from the '50s or the '90s that produced all the famous kid stars, but the short-lived '70s iteration full of kids barely anyone heard from again. This alone made the show immediately dated; the fact that it featured not one but two performances of ""it's a small world"", the second featuring a bunch of people dressed up in ethnic costumes, made it even more so. On a more positive note, it also featured the first crowd stunt in halftime show history, with the audience being given colored cards to hold up on cue.
• The Raiders scored another field goal in the third quarter, but a lucky penalty gave Minnesota the chance to get back in the game, with Tarkenton throwing his first TD pass and leaving the score 19-7 entering the fourth... only for Tarkenton to then throw a costly interception, which set up Stabler to throw a 48-yard pass to Biletnikoff and Banaszak to then score his second TD of the day. Now down by three scores with less than eight minutes left, the Vikings' loss was basically a Foregone Conclusion.
• Forced to pass, Tarkenton was picked off a second time by Willie Brown, who ran the ball back 75 yards for a TD and a long-standing record for Super Bowl returns (Mann missed the PAT again). NFL Films captured the perfect angle of "Old Man Willie"'s long run back; it remains one of the most enduring images from this era of football, and NFL Films named it the #61 Greatest Play in NFL history for the league's 100th anniversary.
  • Grant benched Tarkenton after this for backup Bob Lee, who put up a commendable last minute effort on paper, completing 7-of-9 passes for a touchdown and a better passer rating than Stabler. In reality, of course, Lee was throwing against a defense that had already won the game; the Raiders ran out the clock after that.
• The first post-merger Super Bowl to be won by a charter AFL franchise, and a major victory for the irascible former AFL commissioner Al Davis. The Raiders dominated all aspects of the game outside of some flubs on kicking and punting; they committed no turnovers, put up nearly four times as many rushing yards as the Vikings, and kept command of the score the whole game.
• Biletnikoff caught four passes for 79 yards and zero TDs but was still awarded game MVP with easily the lowest numbers of any receiver to win the award. Many have questioned this choice, pointing to Stabler, Brown, RB Clarence Davis (who led the team with 137 rushing yards), or TE David Casper (who also caught four passes, one of them a TD, for 70 yards). However, Biletnikoff had the longest catch of the game, and three of his four came just short of the end zone and set up a touchdown the very next play.
• This was Madden's only championship as Raiders head coach, as he retired two years later to enter broadcasting and branding video games. The Raiders remained strong under his successor, Tom Flores, and returned to and won two more Super Bowls in the next decade.
• The final appearance of the Vikings in a Super Bowl. Though the team remained competitive for another year before losing in the next NFC Championship game, Grant, Tarkenton, and the Purple People Eaters had expended their chances to win a Lombardi. The team's luck in subsequent decades has been even worse, as they've posted the fourth-longest active Super Bowl appearance drought, longer than than any team save the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns (who have never appeared in one) and the New York Jets (who were one-and-done in III). The generally poor regular season records of these other three teams in the Super Bowl era helps to explain their droughts; the Vikings, on the other hand, have consistently performed right up with some of the most-titled teams in the NFL, only to always fail to complete the mission come January.

XII — January 15, 1978 / Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana / Dallas Cowboys def. Denver Broncos, 27-10

MVP: Randy White and Harvey Martin, DE and DT
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, Tom Brookshier)
National Anthem: Phyllis Kelly of Northeast Louisiana University^note now the University of Louisiana at Monroe
Coin Toss: Red Grange, Hall of Fame RB
Halftime: Tyler Junior College Apache Belles, Pete Fountain, and Al Hirt

• Often considered one of the worst Super Bowls ever, being both a very one-sided affair and a fairly poor showing from both teams on offense, which played a role in the league altering its rules the following season to penalize more defensive plays and quicken the pace of the game. Ranked the 3rd worst (53rd) Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
  • The Denver Broncos had been the worst franchise in the AFL and historically one of the worst in the NFL, going their first 14 years without a winning season and having never previously made the playoffs. In 1977, however, the team put up a conference-leading 12-2 record (the best in franchise history) under a brand-new head coach, Red Miller, and starting QB, Craig Morton. Morton had lost the starting position to Roger Staubach in Dallas years ago and played poorly for the Giants for several seasons, only to bounce back as a steady-handed game manager in Denver and win Comeback Player of the Year. The exuberant Miller won Coach of the Year. Receiver Rick Upchurch put up over 600 punt return yards, far outstripping his competition on special teams through the rest of the league. However, the real star of Denver's season was their dominant Orange Crush defense, the best run defense in the league and third best overall^note though it had proven to be rather weak against the pass, which certainly would not come back to haunt them.... The Broncos' Cinderella season continued through the playoffs as they defeated the last two Super Bowl winners, the Steelers and Raiders.
  • Despite the excitement around Denver and both teams being the #1 seeds in their respective conferences, Tom Landry's Cowboys entered their fourth Super Bowl as six-point favorites. Their offense was second in the league, with Roger Staubach still under center and rookie Heisman-winner RB Tony Dorsett winning Offensive Rookie of the Year after dominating the back half of the season. The Doomsday II Defense was #2 against the pass and #3 against the run, with DE Harvey Martin posting an unofficial record 23 sacks on the season and winning Defensive Player of the Year. The #1 seed Cowboys bested Chicago and Minnesota in the playoffs. Ranked the #17 Greatest Team in the league's first century by NFL Films.
• First Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season game, with Dallas defeating Denver in the final week of the season with a final score of 14-6; with both teams already having clinched their playoff spots, the starters didn't see much play in that first match.
• First Super Bowl scheduled to air in prime time. This, combined with the massive popularity of the Cowboys, led to a huge spike in audience (nearly 79 million, up close to 17 million from last year) despite having the lowest share of active viewers of any prior Super Bowl due to greater competition.
  • If you've ever wondered why the pre-show for the Super Bowl is often longer than the game itself, this game is the reason why; CBS had to more than double the length of the original planned show when the planned event, a golf tournament, was rained out; the ratings for this show outperformed all expectations, and networks have continued to plan their entire day's programming around the Big Game ever since.
• First Super Bowl to be played indoors, being set in the Superdome, which (appropriately given the name) eventually became the most-used Super Bowl venue.
• The game was expected to be a defensive showdown going in; not only were both teams feared for their defenses, 1977 overall was the lowest scoring season in decades. It certainly was no fun for the quarterbacks: while Staubach passed efficiently and threw no interceptions,^note Well, kinda; he threw one, but the refs ruled he had stepped out of bounds first and gave it back to the Cowboys he was sacked five times, four in the first half. The Broncos' QBs were sacked four times. Quarterbacks plural, you ask? Well...
• Morton was the only starting QB to lead two different franchises to their first Super Bowl. This is pretty much the only positive Super Bowl-related thing attached to his resume; his terrible performance in V had been a major reason for Dallas' loss, and he managed to somehow perform even worse for Denver. He completed only 4 of his 15 passes before being benched in the third quarter, and only one of those resulted in positive yards. He completed as many passes to the other team in the first half as he did to his own, resulting in the fewest passing yards ever in a Super Bowl and a 0.0 passer rating. That grade's rare enough as it is, but it's almost inconceivable from a QB that led their team to the postseason; he remains the only Super Bowl QB to reach this floor. If there had been any doubt remaining about who should have won the Cowboys' old QB competition, this game completely erased it.
• Morton's play was just the tip of the iceberg for this game's messiness, especially in the first half:
  • Nobody on offense seemed able to handle the ball, with ten total fumbles. The Cowboys fumbled six times, five of them in the first half (including on their very first play). They recovered all but two. The Broncos, on the other hand, lost all four of their fumbles to a Dallas defense that was playing out of its mind, bringing Denver's total turnover tally to eight to Dallas' two. Between Morton's interceptions and the rest of the team's fumbles, six of Denver's first eight possessions ended with turnovers. In almost every case, this would result in the game being a Foregone Conclusion well before halftime. However...
  • Dallas' special teams were in total disarray. After they nearly avoided surrendering a muffed punt early in the game, kicker Efren Herrera missed three straight field goals in the second quarter, which was the main reason the final score was even somewhat close. NFL and TV execs were probably glad for that, as it gave viewers a reason to keep watching the mess after halftime; had he made them, the Broncos would have been down 22-0 rather than than 13-0 at the half after they had already given up a touchdown and two field goals.
  • Unsurprisingly, both teams' play was pretty undisciplined in other ways: the refs set the record for most penalties in a Super Bowl at 20 and the most dealt to a single team (the Cowboys) at 12. These records have been tied, but never surpassed.
• The Broncos converted the opening drive in the second half into points with a fairly impressive 47-yard field goal. However, Staubach proceeded to twist the knife by throwing a 45-yard pass that Butch Johnson caught with his fingertips while diving into the end zone.
• On the Broncos' next possession, Upchurch pulled off some of his usual magic, running a punt back for a then-Super Bowl record 67 yards. Morton nearly threw another interception on the next play, which resulted in him being benched for backup Norris Weese; Denver ran in the ball for their only touchdown, bringing the score up 20-10.
• Entering the fourth quarter, the Broncos had another Hope Spot after strip sacking Staubach and recovering the ball. Doomsday II held firm, however, and later returned the favor with a strip sack of their own. On the very next play, Dallas sealed the game with a flashy trick play; Staubach pitched the ball to fullback Robert Newhouse, who threw a 29-yard TD pass, becoming the first running back and first Black player to throw a touchdown in the Super Bowl.
• First and only time that two players (Randy White and Harvey Martin) were awarded MVP, and the only time that a defensive tackle (White) has been given the honor. The voters actually pushed to give MVP to the entire Doomsday II defense, but the NFL told them they had to keep it down to two; they elected to give it to the players who sacked the Denver QBs rather than those that intercepted their passes.
• In fitting with their performance here, this Broncos roster turned out to be one of the most forgettable in Super Bowl history. While they stayed a playoff team for a few more years, almost the entire roster was gone by the time the franchise returned to the Big Game nearly a decade later. Despite his terrible performance in this game, Morton mostly bounced back and remained starter until 1982, actually outlasting Staubach. Despite his immediate success as head coach and never posting a losing record, Red Miller was fired just three seasons later after a change in team ownership and never coached in the NFL again.
  • With this loss, many fans have observed the Broncos picked up the Curse from last year's Super Bowl loser; like the Vikings, the Broncos would also lose their first four Super Bowls in humiliating fashion.
• The Cowboys, on the other hand, mostly stuck together and kept their momentum going into another Super Bowl appearance the following year.

XIII — January 21, 1979 — Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida / Pittsburgh Steelers def. Dallas Cowboys, 35-31

MVP: Terry Bradshaw, QB
Network/Announcers: NBC (Curt Gowdy, John Brodie, Merlin Olsen)
National Anthem: The Colgate Thirteen
Coin Toss: George Halas, Hall of Fame founder and coach of the Chicago Bears
Halftime: Various Caribbean bands

• Ranked the #17 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary and the ninth highest-ranked Super Bowl on that list. The Steelers were the #3 Greatest Team and the Cowboys #94. Between Pittsburgh and Dallas, 15 players in this game went on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There were 21 Hall-of-Famers in all counting both head coaches, Steelers owner Art Rooney, both team presidents, and an assistant coach, making it potentially the most star-studded Super Bowl in league history. Ranked the 4th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• First Super Bowl to be a rematch of a previous Super Bowl (the Cowboys and Steelers previously faced one another at Super Bowl X) and the second to pit two Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks against each other. Despite that exciting premise driving up the audience share from the last year, ratings and viewership actually declined around four million from XII, with an audience of around 74.74 million.^note This was most likely due either to disappointment over XII's sloppy/one-sided play or a more general lack of interest following its debut in primetime.
• First Super Bowl played in the 16-game season era. This was accompanied by a new playoff format: a 10-team tournament with four wild-card teams, which faced off against each other first in a "play-in" phase. Both Dallas and Pittsburgh were competing to be the first team to win three Super Bowls.
  • Pittsburgh were narrow 3.5-point favorites to win. Coach Chuck Noll's Steel Curtain was once again the league's #1 defense, even despite the league altering its rules to open up the passing game (one rule forbidding contact with receivers downfield became known as the "Mel Blount rule" after the feared Steelers corner). Ironically, this only wound up helping their offense; QB Terry Bradshaw led the league in TD passes and was named MVP. The Steelers ultimately posted the best record in the league (14-2) and cruised through the playoffs, delivering decisive defeats to the Broncos and Oilers.
  • Coming of their victory in XII, Dallas became the first franchise to appear in five Super Bowls. QB Roger Staubach, now a veteran of four Super Bowls as an active player, was the highest rated passer in the league leading the NFL's #1 offense. Coach Tom Landry's Doomsday II defense remained dominant and led the whole league against the run. After a slow start, the Cowboys shook off their Super Bowl hangover, finishing with a 12-4 record, good for the #2 seed. After narrowly avoiding a massive upset loss to the Falcons that benched Staubach with a concussion, they recovered exceptionally well in the NFC Championship and shut out the #1 seed Rams 28-0. LB Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson's boasting during and after this game (most famously mocking Bradshaw's intelligence by saying he "couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him the c and the t") elevated him to national celebrity status and became a mostly unwelcome media distraction for the reserved Landry.
• Final of seven Super Bowl broadcasts for Curt Gowdy; first of five for Merlin Olsen (and first of one for John Brodie)^note Gowdy was already being phased out of NBC's broadcast roles, having ceded the lead play-by-play job on NBC's college basketball coverage by Dick Enberg, who eventually succeeded Gowdy as the lead NFL voice. Gowdy had already been dropped from NBC's MLB coverage in favor of Joe Garagiola.
• Fifth and final Super Bowl played at the Orange Bowl; it held the record for most Super Bowls exclusively until 1993 and wouldn't be passed by the Superdome until 2002.
• The National Anthem was delivered by the Colgate 13, an Acappella group from Colgate University.
• NFL and Chicago Bears founder George Halas drove onto the field in a 1920s automobile for the coin toss, celebrating the league's upcoming 60th anniversary^note an amusing blooper took place as during the coin toss, a miscue led to the audio of local Steelers radio broadcasters Jack Flemming and Myron Cope being heard over the NBC feed.
• The score stayed close throughout the first half of one of the more thrilling and high-scoring games in Super Bowl history:
  • A first quarter TD pass from Bradshaw to John Stallworth gave Pittsburgh an early lead. Just like in X, after not surrendering a first quarter touchdown the whole season, the Steel Curtain parted and allowed the Cowboys to break their streak; Staubach threw a 39-yard TD pass as the quarter expired, tying the score.
  • Early in the second quarter, Henderson assisted fellow LB Mike Hegman in strip sacking Bradshaw. Hegman returned the ball 37-yards for a touchdown, giving Dallas the lead. This was Bradshaw's third straight turnover following an interception (his first in a Super Bowl) and another strip sack in the first quarter, seemingly confirming Henderson's prior insults. However, Dallas' lead didn't even last two minutes before Bradshaw threw a pass to Stallworth, who broke a tackle and evaded numerous defenders on the way to a 75-yard touchdown, re-tying the score. The Steelers did not commit another turnover or fall behind in points for the rest of the game.
  • After a field goal attempt from Pittsburgh bounced off an upright, Dallas attempted to regain the lead at the half. However, an interception from Blount set Bradshaw up to lead another drive and throw his third TD pass of the day, leaving the score 21-14 at the half.
• Cowboys' fans best remember this game for backup tight end Jackie Smith (a veteran who had just come out of retirement after a 15-year career with the St. Louis Cardinals) dropping a wide-open potentially game-tying touchdown on third down late in the third quarter. Dallas had to settle for a field goal that narrowed the score to 21-17; a different outcome on this play could have resulted in the game going into overtime.
• Just like in X, the final quarter is where things got real interesting:
  • A number of controversial calls and actions by the officials fell in the Steelers' favor early in the quarter. First, a questionable pass interference penalty allowed the Steelers to advance after a third down incompletion. Three plays later, Henderson sacked Bradshaw after the officials called a delay-of-game penalty on Pittsburgh. While there was nothing particularly challengeable on this call, Henderson's subsequent confrontation with the refs over "undoing" his sack led many to question whether it was an accident when, on the next play, umpire Art Demmas got tangled up in the fray and impeded Cowboys safety Charlie Waters' attempt to tackle Steelers RB Franco Harris as he ran in a 22-yard TD. By the end of the game, the Cowboys had been penalized for more than twice as many yards as the Steelers; where one falls on the debate over whether this was warranted typically depends on your team.
  • On the subsequent kickoff, Dallas DT Randy White (playing with a broken hand in a cast) fumbled an unintended squib kick and allowed Pittsburgh to claim possession. On the very next play, Bradshaw threw his fourth TD pass, setting the score at 35-17 with less than seven minutes to go. With the Cowboys now three possessions behind, the game was essentially sealed up...
  • ...but nobody told the Cowboys that. Dallas put forth a truly heroic effort as all parts of their productive offense efficiently moved the ball as the clock wound down. Staubach was able to throw two TD passes in the last minutes of the game thanks to a successful onside kick attempt (much to the despair of Vegas, as it brought the score right to the money line and cost the sportsbooks many of their wagers). A second onside kick with 22 seconds remaining was unsuccessful, however, and Pittsburgh claimed their third Lombardi Trophy.
• After the game, Bradshaw asked Henderson (via the reporters) whether he could spell "MVP", accepting the game award for the first time after setting then-Super Bowl records for passing yards and touchdown passes.
• This was Staubach, Landry, and all of the "America's Team" Cowboys' final Super Bowl. Staubach retired after the following season, still near the peak of his skills but worn down by all of the concussions he had sustained. Landry's team remained strong, coming one game short of a return to the Super Bowl three times in the next four years, but his two decades of success finally came to a close by the mid-'80s, after which new owner Jerry Jones cleaned house to make way for a new dynasty.
• Pittsburgh's dynasty was not yet done; they ran it back next year for one more effort to extend their lead in Super Bowl titles.

XIV — January 20, 1980 / Rose Bowl, Pasadena (Los Angeles), California / Pittsburgh Steelers def. Los Angeles Rams, 31-19

MVP: Terry Bradshaw, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, Tom Brookshier)
National Anthem: Cheryl Ladd
Coin Toss: Art Rooney, Hall of Fame owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers
Halftime: Tribute to the Big Band era, by Up with People.

• Ranked the #92 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary; Terry Bradshaw's 73-yard TD pass John Stallworth was ranked #45 Greatest Play and the Steelers themselves #39. Ranked the 15th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The first Super Bowl under the seeding system in which neither #1 seeded team reached the game.^note The AFC's #1 seed, the Chargers, suffered a humiliating loss in the divisional round after star QB Dan Fouts played the worst game of his life with five interceptions and no touchdowns. Also the first Super Bowl between two teams established before 1960 (the Steelers were established in 1933, followed by the Rams in 1936).
• Though their defense was no longer best in the league, the defending champion Steelers were overall as dominant as they had been all decade and boasted the best offense in the league (though Terry Bradshaw's interception issue had become more of a problem, which contributed to the team also leading the league in turnovers). They went 12-4 and easily cruised past the Dolphins and Oilers in the playoffs. They likely would have been favorites in any matchup, but they were 10.5-point favorites to win this game, the most lopsided spread since the merger: most of the media didn't believe their opponents deserved to even share the same field.
• The Rams' first appearance in the Big Game was a long time coming; they had played in four of the last five NFC Championships and lost each one. Their appearance in this game was seen as a minor miracle: they were the first (and for three decades only) team with less than 10 wins in the regular season (9-7) to reach the Super Bowl. With this appearance, they became the first team to play a Super Bowl in their home market (with the Rose Bowl located 12 miles from the Rams' then-home, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum).^note Outlets like ESPN have reported that the 49ers in Super Bowl XIX were the closest to playing at home before Tampa Bay's home field win in Super Bowl LV, but they seem to have forgotten that the Rams didn't start playing home games in Anaheim until the season after this game. The Rams' season was even more of a Cinderella story than their record implies, as the franchise faced more obstacles in this season than most teams ever have to:
  • Prior to the season, popular team owner Carroll Rosenbloom died in a mysterious drowning accident, leading to a Succession Crisis between his wife, Georgia Frontiere, and his son from a previous marriage, Steve. Frontiere, his named heir, eventually won out the power struggle, becoming the only active woman owner in the NFL at the time; unsurprisingly, she was faced with intense criticism from many parts of the media, especially when she announced the team would move out of L.A. proper to neighboring Anaheim the following season (a deal made by Carroll).
  • On the field, the Rams' issues were even worse. The team was plagued with injuries, including to their starting QB Pat Haden, who was benched for first-time starter Vince Ferragamo, who became one of the most inexperienced Super Bowl starting QBs ever with just 7 total NFL starts before the game.^note Only Jeff Hostetler has since had fewer, with six before XXV. Their offense and defense were both middle-of-the-pack (though their defense did hold the Seahawks to a league-record -7 net yards in one memorable shutout), their total point differential was only +14, and their roster had only two future Hall of Famers, DE Jack Youngblood and OT Jackie Slater.
  • In the playoffs, the Rams delivered a massive upset to the #1 seed Cowboys in what turned out to be Roger Staubach's final game; however, Youngblood broke his leg, and though he continued to play through it, their most potent weapon was severely weakened. Their victory in the NFC Championship was a defensive battle in which they scored no touchdowns against the Buccaneers, which were making their first franchise playoff run just two years removed from being arguably the worst team in NFL history. With so much against them and with the Steelers so dominant, an easy Pittsburgh victory seemed assured.
• Tom Brookshier's last Super Bowl as a commentator; CBS was so pleased with the performance of the recently-retired John Madden in the pre-game that they moved him to join Summerall in the booth the following season, paving the way for likely the most beloved broadcast duo in NFL history.
• Possibly because of the lopsided odds, ratings and market share were again down slightly from last year, though the total audience (around 76 million) was an improvement. Additionally, the game holds the Super Bowl record for in-person attendance: 103,985 people packed the massive Rose Bowl to the gills.
• The Iran Hostage Crisis that had begun two months earlier cast a cloud over the game. Prior to her National Anthem performance, Cheryl Ladd announced she was dedicating her performance to the hostages; while just before Western media were expelled from Iran, a reporter for KMPC-AM (the Rams' flagship radio station) managed to make a recording of that station's local coverage available for the hostages to listen to.
• Despite the final score just edging over the money line, this game turned out to be far from a blowout; in fact, it was one of the closest in Super Bowl history. The lead changed a still-Super Bowl record seven times (it had never changed more than three before). It was also one of the best played championships: for the first time ever, no one fumbled the ball in the Big Game.
• The first quarter set the tempo for most of the game. After the Steelers scored a field goal on their first possession, the Rams responded with a touchdown drive that featured both the longest run the Steel Curtain had allowed all season and the first rushing TD they had permitted in a Super Bowl. The Steelers immediately responded with a scoring drive of their own, ending with a Franco Harris TD in the second quarter. However, an interception from Bradshaw kept Pittsburgh from scoring again in the half while L.A. scored two field goals, leaving the favored team down 13-10 at the half.
• Another cheese-fest halftime show from Up with People, this a tribute to the "Big Band" era featuring a conga line and an assurance from the announcer that "Whatever the hits of the '80s will be, those great songs of the swing era will keep coming back!" It's good for a laugh.
• After getting roasted by coaches in the locker room at the half, the Steelers came back dangerous, scoring a touchdown in four plays off of an impressive 47-yard pass from Bradshaw and an equally impressive leaping catch from Lynn Swann, giving them back the lead. L.A. then humiliated Pittsburgh on the subsequent drive. Ferragamo threw a 50-yard pass, and on the very next play, RB Lawrence McCutcheon threw a 24-yard TD on a trick play (though L.A. missed the PAT). The Rams intercepted Bradshaw twice in the rest of the quarter and knocked Swann out of the game, leaving them seemingly in control and leading 19-17 entering the fourth...
• ...only for Bradshaw to then throw a 73-yard TD pass to John Stallworth, retaking the lead. Ferragamo was intercepted for the Rams' only turnover on the next drive. Another massive pass to Stallworth and a costly pass-interference penalty set up Harris' second TD run with under two minutes left, putting the game away for Pittsburgh.
• The Steelers extend their lead in Super Bowls to four; it took another decade for a team to tie their record and fifteen years for it to be surpassed. Chuck Noll remained the only head coach to win four Lombardis until Bill Belichick surpassed him in the 2010s; Bradshaw was the only QB with four until Joe Montana tied him in the next decade and Tom Brady eventually surpassed them both. They do remain the only franchise to win back-to-back Super Bowls twice, and the "four titles in six years" dynastic run is still the most dominant in NFL history. This also was the last championship team comprised solely of "homegrown" players initially drafted or signed by the organization that never played for another franchise.
• Despite throwing more interceptions than touchdowns, Bradshaw became the first player since Bart Starr to win Super Bowl MVP twice. He set a still-standing Super Bowl record for yards per pass attempt (14.7 yards), which is almost as impressive as Stallworth's also-record efficiency numbers from this game: he posted a game-leading 121 yards and a touchdown off of just three catches, averaging 40.3 yards a catch.
  • The Steel Curtain pulled their weight with four sacks to Ferragamo that helped to stall out drives (though they also lucked out from multiple dropped catches in the end zone from Rams receivers).
  • Other unsung heroes of the Steelers' win: their o-line, which didn't allow a single sack all game, and kick returner Larry Anderson, who quietly doubled L.A.'s kick return yards on fewer attempts and helped set up several drives.
• The Rams generally remained consistent playoff competitors for the next decade but once again regressed back to always coming up short of the Super Bowl. However, most of their biggest names from this game were soon out of the picture, and it took another twenty years (and a move to St. Louis) for the franchise to return to—and finally win—the Big Game.
  • Despite potentially being just one interception away from pulling off a massive upset, Ferragamo remains one of the more obscure passers to start in a Super Bowl. He had a solid performance as the Rams starter the following year before leaving the NFL after the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL offered him a massive contract; he performed terribly in the Canadian game, came crawling back to the Rams after a year, and put up one more decent season before fading back into obscurity.
  • Rams head coach Ray Malavasi is likewise one of the more obscure Super Bowl coaches; the second-year coach was out of the NFL in three years after posting two losing seasons. He hopped around a few other leagues before dying of a sudden heart attack in 1987 at age 57.
  • In 1986, Georgia Frontiere's seventh and final husband, film composer Dominic Frontiere, spent time in jail for having scalped 1,000 tickets for this game at much higher prices. Georgia pled ignorance of this, divorced Dominic afterwards, and never remarried.
• As the NFL entered the '80s, this was the End of an Age for the Steel Curtain dynasty that dominated the '70s, as its key players started to retire. Noll remained the team's head coach for another twelve years, but despite reaching one more AFC Championship a few years later, the four-time Super Bowl winner rarely took his team more than one game above or below .500 for the rest of his tenure. The Steelers did not return to Super Bowl contention until the '90s and did not bring more titles to Pittsburgh until the 2000s.
• One last note: While the famous "Hey Kid, Catch" Coca-Cola ad starring Mean Joe Greene did air during this Super Bowl, this most famous of "Super Bowl ads" had been airing on TV since October.

XV — January 25, 1981 / Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana / Oakland Raiders def. Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10

MVP: Jim Plunkett, QB
Network/Announcers: NBC (Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen)
National Anthem: Helen O'Connell
Coin Toss: Marie Lombardi, widow of Vince Lombardi, legendary Green Bay Packers coach
Halftime: Mardi Gras presentation by Jim Skinner Productions and the Southern University Marching Band

• Ranked the 45th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Since their last Championship victory two decades prior, the Eagles had endured a 17-year playoff drought before coach Dick Vermeil brought them back to playoff contention in 1978. In 1980, the team posted a 12-4 record with the help of the league's #1 defense and QB Ron Jaworski putting up the best season of his career and his sole Pro Bowl selection. The #2 seed Eagles handily bested the Vikings before beating their division rivals, the Cowboys, in the NFC Championship. They were narrowly favored by three entering the game.
• That said, all eyes were on Oakland before, during, and after the Super Bowl, for a few reasons:
  • First and most importantly, the Raiders—specifically owner Al Davis—had been at war with the NFL all season. Before the season, following a long dispute over improvements to the Oakland Coliseum, Davis declared his intention to move the team to Los Angeles. After the league's other owners refused to approve the move, a flurry of antitrust lawsuits and countersuits between the Raiders, the NFL, and the cities and venues of Oakland and Los Angeles ensued, and Oakland's loyal fans staged numerous organized protests over the loss of their team. The notoriously outspoken Davis had not minced words about his feelings towards the rest of the league, and the idea of Commissioner Pete Rozelle having to congratulate Davis and hand him the Lombardi Trophy if his team won had fans on the edge of their seats.
  • Their play on the field was just as exciting. The Raiders had an okay offense and a middling defense that season, but they sported a number of exciting stars, including Defensive Player of the Year CB Lester Hayes. Their most notable on-field storyline all season QB Jim Plunkett's comeback. The team had traded away their aging starter Ken Stabler the previous offseason for the Oilers' QB, Dan Pastorini, only for him to break his leg early in the year. Plunkett had been the #1 pick of the 1971 Draft, but he had been a huge bust for the Patriots and bounced around the league before landing on Oakland's bench. After initially playing terribly, Plunkett managed to get things together and led the Raiders to an 11-5 record and a wild-card berth, earning Comeback Player of the Year.
  • After an easy victory over the Oilers in the Wild Card game, their faceoff against a resurgent Browns went Down to the Last Play. Down two points and well within field goal range, the Browns opted to attempt a touchdown pass (the infamous "Red Right 88") that was intercepted in the end zone. After narrowly avoiding elimination, the Raiders proceeded to upset the #1 seed Chargers in the AFC Championship.
• Second Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest; however, whereas Philadelphia won the regular season matchup in Week 12 10-7, Oakland won the Super Bowl.
• First of eight Super Bowls announced by Dick Enberg. ("Oh my!") Audience was down to around 68.29 million, the lowest since the last time the Raiders played (and Pittsburgh or Dallas hadn't); its 63% market share was likewise the lowest numbers seen by the Big Game to that point.
• One of three Super Bowl broadcasts on NBC that used the 11-feathered peacock paired with the "Trapezoidal N" to make the "Proud N"; this would be used for two others (XVII and XX).
• In celebration of the 52 American hostages being released from Iran five days earlier, this game had Patriotic Fervor coming out of its pores. The Superdome was decorated with a giant yellow bow, while yellow stripes were placed on the bottom of both teams' helmets.
• The script of this episode was essentially written after Jaworski's first pass was intercepted by LB Rod Martin. Martin intercepted Jaworski thrice, a Super Bowl record. Jaworski committed four total turnovers, also surrendering a fumble; the Raiders did not commit any.
• The Raiders matched the Dolphins' Super Bowl VIII feat of early game dominance, putting up 14 unanswered points in the first quarter off of two touchdown passes from Plunkett (the second a then-Super Bowl record 80-yard pass). Jaworski threw a touchdown pass that was nullified by a penalty to the team's sole future Hall of Famer, WR Harold Carmichael.
• The second quarter gave the Eagles slim hope as they got points on the board with a field goal and the Raiders missed their own. However, Jaworski overthrew some key passes and their attempt at a field goal before the half was blocked by Raiders LB Ted Hendricks, leaving the score 14-3.
• After another cheesy Up With People performance, the Raiders immediately launched into another successful TD drive; after another interception, they scored a field goal. In the fourth quarter, the Eagles finally scored a touchdown, but the Raiders responded with one last field goal. Down three possessions with eight minutes left, the Eagles were basically done already, and Jaworski's last two turnovers ensured the Raiders could run out the clock.
• The second Super Bowl to lack a single rushing TD.
• Despite Martin's dominant defensive performance, the Super Bowl MVP went to Plunkett. The first Latino/Native American player to win the award, his then-Super Bowl record performance in passer rating terms^note 145.0, 13/21 for 261 yards, 3 TDs, and no turnovers capped off his remarkable comeback year. It was certainly a finer showing than Jaworski's, who set his own record for most pass attempts in the Big Game but couldn't make anything productive from them^note 49.3, 18/38, 291 yards, 1 TD, 4 turnovers.
• The Oakland Raiders become the first wild-card team to win the Super Bowl (and were named #74 Greatest Team of the NFL's first century). Their second-year coach Tom Flores becomes the first minority head coach to win one and first to win as a player and a coach (he was a backup QB for the Chiefs in IV).
• Davis behaved himself just fine accepting the trophy from Rozelle. It still didn't prevent him from ditching Oakland for Los Angeles two seasons later. In perhaps a bit of Laser-Guided Karma, the Raiders slumped noticeably in their final season in Oakland. Plunkett regressed hard, leading to their offense being shut out in a record three straight games and the team posting their first losing record since Davis was the coach in 1964. Both Plunkett and the Raiders quickly bounced back upon reaching their new home in L.A. and returned to the Super Bowl in a few years time.
• Unfortunately for the Eagles and their die-hard fanbase, just reaching this game only to get beaten pretty soundly remained a franchise high point for several decades. They'd fall out of playoff contention for a few years after the next season, and while they'd be generally strong in the Randall Cunningham-era of the late '80s and early '90s, they didn't become a major league power again until the 21st century. Dick Vermeil would get another shot at a Lombardi, but it was with another team two decades later.

Super Bowls XVI to XX

XVI — January 24, 1982 — Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac (Detroit), Michigan / San Francisco 49ers def. Cincinnati Bengals, 26-21

MVP: Joe Montana, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, John Madden)
National Anthem: Diana Ross
Coin Toss: Bobby Layne, Hall of Fame QB for the Detroit Lions
Halftime: Tribute to the music of The '60s and Motown, by Up with People

• Ranked the 25th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• First Super Bowl to feature a team founded in the Super Bowl era; the Bengals started play in the AFL in 1968, after II. Also first Super Bowl since III to feature two teams that had never appeared in the Big Game before and the only one to feature two teams that both had losing records the year prior.
  • Outside a brief era of playoff contention in the early '70s, the Niners had spent most of their time in the NFL at the middle or bottom of the league's standings. Just two years prior, new coach Bill Walsh and rookie QB Joe Montana put up a 2-14 record. The next year, they improved to 6-10; this year, they went 13-3, the best record in the league. Montana had the best completion percentage that year, the defense was #2 in the league, and Walsh won Coach of the Year for his remarkable turnaround job. In the postseason, the Niners handedly beat the Giants before facing off with the Cowboys in the NFC Championship. This closely fought bout ended with an 83-yard drive from Montana in the final minutes of the game, culminating in "The Catch" from Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone that sealed the game by a point and marked the end of the Cowboys' rule of the NFC and the start of a new dynasty.
  • The Bengals likewise experienced an unexpected ascent right after a losing season, the latest for a decidedly uneven franchise that had never won a postseason game at the time. Long-time starting QB Ken Anderson had a late-Career Resurrection after several down years^note which ironically started around when Bill Walsh left the Cincinnati coaching staff in 1975, earning Comeback Player of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year, and league MVP after posting the league's best passer rating and leading its #3 offense. The 12-4 Bengals earned the #1 seed in the AFC and narrowly defeated the Bills in their first-ever franchise playoff win. They then bested the Chargers in the AFC Championship, which posted the coldest temperature in terms of wind chill in NFL history (-37 Fahrenheit/-38.3 Celsius) and earned the nickname "The Freezer Bowl".^note The Bengals lucked out with this home field advantage; besides facing a warm weather team, the Chargers just came off of another classic game the week prior, the "Epic in Miami", a long and hard-fought match played in some of the hottest temperatures in an NFL game. HC Forrest Gregg made his fourth Super Bowl appearance after three Super Bowls with the Packers and Cowboys as an offensive tackle, making him the first Super Bowl coach to have actually played in the Big Game.
• Third Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest, with San Francisco edging Cincinnati in Week 14, 21-3; this easy victory was the main reason the Niners were narrowly favored by one, which no doubt helped with ratings.
• The highest rated Super Bowl ever, with 49.1% of all American households with a TV (85.24 million people, beating out prior record-holder XII by over six million) viewing the broadcast on CBS. This was the third highest-rated TV broadcast ever at the time, behind only the "Who Done It?" episode of Dallas and the finale of Roots (1977). Since then, only the current record-holder, the finale of M*A*S*H, has surpassed this game's ratings (though plenty of subsequent Super Bowls have surpassed it in total audience due to population growth).
• First of eleven Super Bowls featuring John Madden's iconic color commentary. Also the first NFL game ever to feature the telestrator, which soon became one of Madden's favorite toys.
• First Super Bowl played in a cold-weather city (albeit in a domed stadium). Most of the non-football entertainment played up the fact it was being played near Detroit: Detroit native Diana Ross sang the anthem with the University of Michigan band (which also played the Canadian anthem), Lions legend Bobby Layne performed the coin toss, and the Up With People halftime show was a tribute to Motown music (and Sixties music in general; if you ever wanted to see "The Monster Mash" played in the Super Bowl, you got your wish).
  • The snowy weather didn't affect the conditions of the game itself, but it did cause a host of logistical nightmares, including getting the Niners' bus stuck in traffic caused by a motorcade carrying then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, keeping them from arriving until 90 minutes before kickoff.
• First Super Bowl where the winning team put up fewer yards of offense than the loser (and by a fairly substantial margin, with the Bengals outpacing the Niners 356-275). This and the one-possession final score might lead one to think that this was a close game, but it truthfully didn't play much like one: those yards were accumulated mostly from the Bengals trying to desperately catch up after falling behind 20-0 in the first half, a then-record Super Bowl halftime deficit.
  • The Bengals had a fantastic early opportunity when they forced and recovered a fumble on the game's opening kickoff. They launched a solid drive, only for Anderson to throw his first interception of the postseason near the end zone. The Niners responded with a drive that ended with a QB sneak TD from Montana. Their opening fumble got the turnovers out of their system; the Niners didn't turn the ball over again for the rest of the game.
  • Early in the second quarter, future Super Bowl broadcaster and then-Bengals WR Cris Collinsworth lost a fumble near the end zone; Montana responded with a 92-yard drive culminating in a TD pass.
  • The next play was the first of many standouts from 49ers kicker Ray Wersching. Earlier in the season, an injured Wersching discovered that the venue's artificial surface produced erratic bounces for weakly kicked balls, and he used that knowledge to pin the Bengals all the way back at their 2-yard line. On San Francisco's next possession, with just 15 seconds before the half, Wersching kicked the first of his Super Bowl record-tying four field goals. He then kicked another squib that the Bengals fumbled away, allowing him to immediately kick another easy field goal to further drive up the score before halftime.
• The Bengals managed to rally in the second half to make the game somewhat interesting:
  • On their opening drive, Anderson managed to throw his first TD. However, the rest of the quarter was a defensive battle. The Bengals held the Niners to four total yards. However, despite the Niners defense allowing a 49-yard pass to Collinsworth and allowing a first down on their 3-yard line due to missing a player on the field^note LB Keena Turner, who was disoriented after having been sick with chicken pox that past week, they managed to hold out and prevent a potential game-changing score, rendering all that effort pointless.
  • In the fourth quarter, the Bengals defense again quickly forced a punt; this time Anderson was able to score another TD pass and make it a one-possession game (20-14) with ten minutes left. The Niners countered with a drawn out drive meant to burn clock that ended in a field goal.
  • On the first play of the Bengals' next possession, Anderson threw a second interception. The Bengals offense forced DB Eric Wright to fumble and nearly re-recovered the ball, but the Niners walked away with it and once again burned clock before kicking a field goal.
  • Down 26-14 and with less than two minutes left, San Francisco's win was practically a Foregone Conclusion. Still, the Bengals fought hard in the face of defeat. Anderson completed six straight passes for a touchdown, making this the only Super Bowl in which the losing team scored more TDs than the winner. However, this gave them only 16 seconds to score another even if the onside kick attempt worked, which it did not.
• Despite Wersching's outstanding performance on special teams, Niners LB Dan Bunz's end zone stand that prevented a third quarter touchdown, and Bengals WR Dan Ross setting or breaking several Super Bowl receiving records, a relatively understated performance by Montana^note 100.0 passer rating, 14/22 for 157 yards, 1 passing and 1 rushing TD, and zero interceptions earned him MVP honors.
• The 49ers experienced one of the sharpest Super Bowl slumps ever the next season due to the effects of the player strike, going 3-6 and missing the playoffs in a year where 16 teams were invited to the postseason. However, this turned out to be a bump in the road and their last losing season until 1998. With the benefit of hindsight, this victory is now seen as the beginning of the NFL's next great dynasty; Montana's team appeared in three more Super Bowls in the '80s and win all three. This team was named the #31 Greatest Team for the league's 100th anniversary.
• The subsequent decade was much more uneven for the Bengals. Gregg left the team two seasons later to take a job coaching his former team in Green Bay and ultimately became the first Super Bowl coach to put up a losing career record as an HC. Despite setting new Super Bowl records for completions and completion percentage and leading the Bengals on another solid run the next year, Anderson regressed in following seasons and retired after 1986; despite setting many efficiency records over a long career, his failure to win this game is often cited as the reason why he has not been inducted into Canton.^note Offensive tackle Anthony Muñoz is the only member of either 1980s Bengals Super Bowl roster in the Hall of Fame. The Bengals fell out of playoff contention for years, only to experience a second unexpected resurgence in 1988, when they reached their second Super Bowl and once again faced off against the 49ers under the leadership of Sam Wyche, who was an assistant coach for the Niners in this game.

XVII — January 30, 1983 — Rose Bowl, Pasadena (Los Angeles), California / Washington Redskins def. Miami Dolphins, 27-17

MVP: John Riggins, RB
Network/Announcers: NBC (Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen)
National Anthem: Leslie Easterbrook
Coin Toss: Elroy Hirsch, Hall of Fame end for the L.A. Rams
Halftime: Los Angeles Super Drill Team and Bob Jani Productions

• Ranked the #73 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary. John Riggins' TD run that changed the momentum of the game was named the #20 Greatest Play and the ninth best in a Super Bowl. Washington wins #54 Greatest Team. Ranked the 23rd best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The capstone to one of the most tumultuous seasons in NFL history, as a players' strike that lasted from Weeks 3-10 shortened the season to just nine games. The NFL responded by reconfiguring the playoffs into a 16-team tournament with the top eight teams in each conference, regardless of division membership.
• Second rematch Super Bowl after XIII and the first in which the previously defeated team avenged themselves (the 17-0 Dolphins defeated Washington in VII, prolonging their championship drought another decade).
  • Washington was the #1 seed of the NFC and one of the most decorated teams in the league, going 8-1 despite coming off of a five-year playoff drought and an 8-8 record the prior year. Second-year coach Joe Gibbs won Coach of the Year for shaping the team back into winners. Gibbs was an offensive-minded coach, most famously shaping the "Hogs" o-line, and QB Joe Theismann had a stellar year, winning Man of the Year and leading his conference in passer rating.^note Theismann had been drafted by the Dolphins prior to their Super Bowl victories and perfect season, but he went to the CFL for better pay and missed out. However, their regular season success was most defined by their defense, which was #1 in the league, and their special teams, which featured placekicker Mark Moseley making every PAT and all but one of his field goals. This was the most accurate single-season performance ever seen by a kicker at the time and earned Moseley league MVP, the only time the award has ever been given to a special-teams player.^note Moseley's records have since been beaten by many other kickers, most of which haven't even been considered for this prestigious honor; the player's strike likely had more to do with his win than his performance alone. Washington fairly easily cruised through the Lions,^note which had a losing record, only making the playoffs due to the expanded format Vikings, and Cowboys in the playoffs.
  • Despite all of Washington's accolades, the Dolphins were narrowly favored by three. Most believed that Don Shula's experience and drive to return to Super Bowl victory after years of postseason frustration would help him defeat Washington once again. Miami's defense, "The Killer Bs" , were the #2 overall defense in the league behind only their opponents (and the #1 against the pass), and they also had the #3 most productive rushing offense, but they had a glaring weakness: their passing game, led by QB David Woodley (the then-youngest Super Bowl starting QB), was the second-worst in the league. Still, the Fins 7-2 record was good for the #2 seed, and they easily handled the Patriots and Chargers before shutting out the Jets in a particularly muddy AFC Championship.
• Ratings were down from the past year's all-time high, possibly due to the effects of the strike; audience numbers were still very impressive (81.77 million, down about 3.5 million from last year).
• The game opened with a moment of silence for Alabama coaching legend Bear Bryant, who had passed a week before. Actress Leslie Easterbrook, then known best for her role on Laverne & Shirley and not really at all for singing, barely made it to the stadium on time to perform the national anthem and ran up to the microphone during the moment.
  • While this unintentional comedy wasn't caught on cameras, the coin flip was; after the referee misidentified which side the coin landed on and let out a loud "Whoops!", announcer Dick Enberg perfectly deadpanned "So some confusion over what is heads and what is tails."
  • Theismann's Rousing Speech in the huddle was also pretty hilarious for its honesty and frequently is featured in Super Bowl retrospectives for summing up the basic Super Bowl experience.
  Theismann: We busted our asses! We worked harder than anyone to be here! Nobody can beat us in a team! And it's worth $70,000 and a big ring!
• One of the more exciting Super Bowls ever thanks to Washington's Miracle Rally in the fourth quarter. Multiple observers questioned if a shorter season helped keep the players fresher for the Big Game. The game was primarily fought on the ground; its 81 total rushing attempts remains a Super Bowl record, as does its anemic 19 completed passes.
• Miami got out to an early lead after Woodley threw a 76-yard TD pass to Jimmy Cefalo. This was easily the highlight of Woodley's day; he fumbled away the ball a few plays later and only completed three passes for 21 yards the rest of the game, putting up one of the worst Super Bowl performances by a starting QB (his backup, Don Strock, couldn't complete one after Woodley was eventually benched late in the game).
• In the second quarter, after the teams traded field goals, Theismann threw a TD to tie the game two minutes before the half. However, on the following kickoff, Miami returner Fulton Walker ran the ball back 98 yards for a touchdown. It was the first kick return TD in a Super Bowl and the longest kick return in postseason history to that point.^note Miami's kick return team had a monster game; Walker posted 190 of their total 222 yards, and they were a major reason for the game even being close. Washington had a commendable responding drive, making it all the way to the Dolphins' 9-yard line, but they attempted to try for a TD in the final seconds rather than settle for an easy field goal and were unable to stop the clock in time after that effort failed, leaving the score 17-10 at the half.
• Things continued to look grim for Washington after the half, as Miami held them to just a field goal and intercepted a pass from Theismann. However, Washington's defense held firm and soon returned the favor by picking an attempted TD pass from Woodley. On the next drive, Theismann narrowly averted disaster by knocking his own nearly-intercepted pass out of Miami LB Kim Bokamper's hands after it was deflected off the line of scrimmage back into the end zone.
• Down 17-13 entering the final quarter, Theismann was intercepted a second time after a failed flea flicker. On their next possession, on fourth-and-one, 12-year veteran RB John Riggins had the play of his career, as "The Diesel" gave Washington much more than a first down by breaking a tackle and running 43 yards for a TD. Now in the lead for the first time all game, Washington kept handing Riggins the ball on their next possession, burning a lot of clock before Theismann threw his second TD with less than two minutes remaining, all but putting the game away; Miami's next drive quickly stalled out, and Washington won its first championship in 40 years.
• Riggins won game MVP: Beyond his iconic touchdown run, then the longest in Super Bowl history, the aging running back set Big Game records for rushing yards (166) and attempts (38, which still stands and is unlikely to be passed in the modern pass-happy league), single-handedly beating out Miami's entire production on offense.^note Washington as a whole more than doubled Miami's offense, 400-176. However, credit should also go to the Washington defense, which allowed only two first downs and zero pass completions after the half.
• The pilot episode of The A-Team premiered after this game, the most prominent early example of a network using the Super Bowl ratings boost to promote a new show.
• A fictionalized version of this Super Bowl provided the basis for the plot of Ace Ventura, where fictitious Miami kicker Ray Finkle wanted revenge against Dan Marino (who, in real life, joined the Dolphins the following season) for a failed field goal attempt that cost Miami a win.
• Miami's obvious need to find a capable passer was fulfilled in the subsequent draft when Dan Marino landed right in the Dolphins' lap. They quickly returned to the Super Bowl two years later, now with perhaps the greatest passer of his generation under center.
• Washington's victory kicked off a dynastic run that lasted another decade. They had a very strong season the following year with most of the same pieces in place and returned to the Super Bowl, but they had much different results in their next Big Game.

XVIII — January 22, 1984 — Tampa Stadium, Tampa, Florida / Los Angeles Raiders def. Washington Redskins, 38-9

MVP: Marcus Allen, RB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, John Madden)
National Anthem: Barry Manilow
Coin Toss: Bronko Nagurski, Hall of Fame RB
Halftime: "Salute to Superstars of the Silver Screen" by the University of Florida and Florida State University marching band

• NFL Films named the Raiders the #33 Greatest Team of the NFL's first century; Washington is #76. Marcus Allen's 74-yard TD run was the #14 Greatest Play. Ranked the 41st best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The third matchup between two starting quarterbacks and head coaches who had previously won a Super Bowl, with the defending champions up against the winner from three seasons prior.^note One fun storyline heading into this game: Washington QB Joe Theismann came second behind Raiders QB Jim Plunkett in the 1970 Heisman vote.
• This Washington team is considered by many to be one of the greatest to ever see the field. Led once again by QB Joe Theismann, RB John Riggins, and their "Hogs" offensive line, Washington's #1 offense set an NFL record for points scored in a season that stood for 15 years. Theismann earned league MVP and Offensive Player of the Year, Riggins led the league in rushing TDs with 24 (a record that stood for a decade), and Joe Gibbs won his second-straight Coach of the Year award. They also had the #1 defense in the league against the run, though their overall ranking was in the middle of the league due to it also being the absolute worst against the pass. Their turnover margin of +43 remains the best in NFL history. All this won them a 14-2 record, the best in the league, setting them up to annihilate the Rams 51-7 in the playoffs.
  • They then faced off against the Niners in the NFC Championship, a closely-fought battle where last year's MVP Mark Moseley narrowly saved Washington's season with a field goal after Joe Montana led a 21-point comeback in the final quarter. However, the game was only close due to Moseley first missing four prior field goals and only won after two very questionable penalties in Washington's favor; this apparent vulnerability was one reason this dominant team was only favored by three entering the Super Bowl.
• The Raiders, now in their second year in Los Angeles, posted the #3 offense in the league and had a fairly middling defense (though it was #4 against the run, Washington's greatest strength). QB Jim Plunkett's performance dipped seriously after their last Super Bowl victory, leading to him being benched earlier in the season, but he regained the starting job after only two weeks when his replacement was injured and quickly rebounded. Their biggest offensive star was RB Marcus Allen, now in his second season. The Raiders put up a 12-4 record and had a fairly easy time getting through the playoffs, beating the Steelers and Seahawks^note No, you did not misread that. Prior to the 2002 realignment, the Seahawks were an AFC team. and setting up coach Tom Flores' team to win another title.
• Fourth Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest; however, whereas Washington won the regular season matchup in Week 5, 37-35 thanks to a thrilling fourth quarter comeback, Los Angeles won the Super Bowl.
• Ratings and audience again declined, this time more sharply than the last year (77.62 million, down over four million). First time since V that the average price of an ad spot went down.
• Probably best known among non-sports fans as the Super Bowl where Apple's famous "Nineteen Eighty-Four" commercial directed by Ridley Scott, hyping the Macintosh computer, was broadcast for the first and only time on national TV.^note The ad had actually aired in 10 local markets prior to the game. Most notably, Apple's ad agency had the spot run on New Year's Eve in 1983 during the last possible commercial break on KMVT in Twin Falls, Idaho so that it would qualify for the 1984 Clio Awards.
• From Super Bowls XVI to XXXI, the NFC team won 15 out of 16 games. This is the one exception. This Raiders team also remains the highest-scoring AFC representative ever in the Big Game.
• Each of the Raiders platoons scored a TD in the first half: their special teams blocked a punt in Washington's end zone, Plunkett led a successful drive that featured a 50-yard pass to Cliff Branch, and Jack Squirek - inserted into the game to play man-to-man on running back Joe Washington - intercepted a screen pass for a pick-six with seven seconds left before halftime^note During the team's prior Week 5 meeting, Theismann had found Washington for a 67-yard screen pass that set up a game-winning touchdown pass, also to Washington. Despite forcing two turnovers from Los Angeles off a muffed punt and a forced tackle, Washington only scored a field goal (Moseley missed another attempt), leaving the score 21-3 at the half.
  • Another special teams highlight from the Raiders in the first half was a narrowly averted disaster: Hall of Fame punter Ray Guy salvaged a high snap with an impressive one-handed leaping catch and still managed to boot the ball into the end zone for a touchback.
• The halftime show was the most extravagant ever to that point, with the marching bands of Florida's biggest universities and various mascots from nearby Walt Disney World starring in a massive spectacle tributing Old Hollywood; if you ever wanted to see Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy star in a live action musical, here you go.
• Washington had a successful TD drive after the half, with Riggins running in the team's only touchdown. This was their last score of the game; Moseley's PAT attempt was blocked. Marcus Allen scored two more touchdowns in the third quarter, the latter from a Super Bowl-record 74-yard run after a series of particularly elusive and fleet-footed moves. The Raiders defense prevented Riggins from responding with any game-saving plays like last year's and clamped down hard on Theismann; after already sacking him thrice previously, they sacked him thrice more in the final quarter, stripping him of the ball in one, and also intercepted him a second time. A final field goal from the Raiders sealed the game for L.A.
• At the time, this was the most one-sided Super Bowl final score ever and was the first to beat out the 25-point margin set by I; this, combined with the Raiders' colors, earned it the nickname "Black Sunday". It's still among the biggest blowout Super Bowls ever, though the next decade would feature four bigger ones.
• Allen was named Super Bowl MVP after posting 191 yards and 2 TDs, breaking Riggins' rushing yards record from the prior Super Bowl. Despite posting only one more rushing attempt than Washington, L.A. put up over 2.5x more rushing yards than their opponent. Ronald Reagan joked after the game that the Soviets had called him to demand he turn over Allen, as he was clearly America's secret weapon.^note Plunkett posted another efficient, workmanlike game, but his 97.4 rating (16/25, 1 TD, 0 INT) was not going to earn him a second MVP.
• The pilot for Airwolf premiered after this game.
• The final game to be featured in a highlight film narrated by the legendary John Facenda; he died of lung cancer early the following season.
• This was the Raiders' final league championship; until the Rams won Super Bowl LVI nearly four decades later, this was the only Lombardi Trophy for Los Angeles. The Raiders remained playoff contenders for another two seasons before becoming much more inconsistent (something partially attributed to Al Davis benching Allen and driving him away from the franchise for somewhat unclear reasons). Still this game is still often seen as the End of an Era for the classic maverick Raiders that had been a league power since the late '60s and had captured the imagination of many football fans. The team returned to Oakland in 1995, a few years before they'd return to another, final Super Bowl.
• Gibbs' Washington team remained strong for many more seasons and returned to the Big Game in a few years. Theismann and Riggins, however, would not be with them. Theismann suffered a devastating leg injury in a 1985 game that brought an abrupt end to his playing career, and Riggins also retired at the end of that season.

XIX — January 20, 1985 / Stanford Stadium, Stanford (San Francisco Bay Area), California / San Francisco 49ers def. Miami Dolphins, 38-16

MVP: Joe Montana, QB
Network/Announcers: ABC (Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, Joe Theismann)
National Anthem: San Francisco Boys Chorus, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Piedmont Children's Chorus, and San Francisco Children's Chorus
Coin Toss: President Ronald Reagan (via satellite) and Hugh McElhenny, Hall of Fame RB
Halftime: Tops In Blue (United States Air Force artists)

• Ranked the 36th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• This meeting of two #1 seeds was heavily hyped as the faceoff of two all-time great teams. (NFL Films named the Niners and Dolphins the #4 and #63 Greatest Teams in the league's first century.) On paper, this should have been one of the most competitive matchups ever, as their combined win record of 33-3 remains the best in a Super Bowl.
  • The Dolphins' season was defined by the performance of QB Dan Marino. In just his second year, Marino shattered practically every NFL passing record with a single-season performance that stood unmatched for decades (during which NFL rules changed considerably), and he won league MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. Of course, this also meant that his receiving corps also broke numerous long-standing records, and the Dolphins had the #1 offense in the league. Its defense was generally strong, and while it did poorly against the run, it hardly seemed to matter with how quickly Marino was able to score. The team went 14-2, and the offense dominated Seattle and Pittsburgh in the playoffs,^note the latter the only team to beat the Niners all season taking them to the franchise's fifth Super Bowl and coach Don Shula's sixth (then a record). Marino remains the youngest quarterback (23 years, 4 months, 5 days) to start in a Super Bowl.
  • Despite all of Miami's success, the odds favored the 49ers by 3.5 for a few reasons. First, coach Bill Walsh's team had the better record: they were the first team to win 15 games in a regular season, by that metric outstripping Shula's "perfect" '72 Dolphins who only had to win 14. Second, while QB Joe Montana didn't put up Marino's flashy numbers, he was extremely efficient and, thanks to multi-threat RB Roger Craig, also had a dominant ground game to fall back on; the Niners had the #2 offense that year. Third, and most critically, they had the league's #1 defense, the only one in the NFL that could potentially clamp down on Marino. This defense dominated in the playoffs, leading the team to a win over the Giants and a total shutout against the Bears in the NFC Championship. Oh, and one final bonus; due to the Big Game being hosted in nearby Stanford Stadium for the first and only time, San Francisco essentially had home field advantage.^note Their home field at Candlestick Park was just 25 miles away, closer to San Francisco than the team's current home field in Santa Clara. Addtionally, one of their training fields was located barely 5 miles from Stanford.
• First Super Bowl televised by ABC, resulting in a very strange broadcasting situation. Frank Gifford and Don Meredith returned to the Super Bowl announcing booth for the first time in many years (for Gifford, since Super Bowl I). For the first time since Super Bowl II, the network also scooped up an active player, Washington QB Joe Theismann, just a few weeks after his team was eliminated in the playoffs. While the idea of two charismatic former players pairing with an active one fresh who had recently experienced both Super Bowl victory and defeat and had recently played both competing teams sounds fun/interesting on paper, in practice it turned out to be a mess; neither Meredith nor Theismann would announce another Super Bowl (Meredith retired from broadcasting altogether after this game), and Gifford was relegated to color commentary.
  • This hosting arrangement turned out to be Harsher in Hindsight when, later that year, Theismann's career was cut short during a Monday Night Football match hosted by Gifford, who had to offer his commentary on his former co-host's gruesome leg injury—another reason this experiment hasn't been repeated.
  • Theismann took the position in the booth that would - under normal circumstances - have been held by O. J. Simpson; who would end up co-hosting Super Bowl coverage alongside Al Michaels and Jim Lampley.
• The hype of the match-up's potential and the move to a new network drove the audience back up to a record high after two down years, with around 85.53 million viewers.
• President Reagan performed the coin flip via satellite; as chance had it, Super Bowl Sunday landed on his Inauguration Day, and since it was a Sunday and the public ceremony wouldn't be held until the next day, this was his first public appearance in his second term.
• In the first quarter, the game actually played out as the close-fought and high-scoring match-up that fans had hoped for. The Dolphins heavily relied on Marino's pass attack; they only ran the ball nine times the whole game, still the lowest for any team in a Super Bowl. This worked at first; they took the early lead with a field goal, then responded to a blazing Niners TD drive with one of their own, leaving them ahead 10-7 entering the second quarter...
• ...which is when it all fell apart. Walsh adjusted the Niners defense to a "dime" scheme with six defensive backs shutting down Miami's passing options. This Dolphins' ground game proved to have none of the strength of Shula's last four Super Bowl teams, putting up a meager 25 yards, and Marino was still sacked four times despite most of his opponents hanging back. Miami's drives all sputtered out, and when they did, their Pro Bowl punter Reggie Roby seemed to melt down, averaging less than 40 yards a punt and not landing any of them within SF's 20-yard line. This set the Niners up to quickly score three TDs.
  • Miami had a tough break; during SF's last TD drive of the half, safety Lyle Blackwood recovered a fumble off a receiver and had the way clear for him to score a TD that would have put Miami right back in the game... had the officials not called it an incomplete pass and the play dead.
  • However, Miami also had a lucky break right before the half; after their offense briefly came back to life and scored a field goal just before halftime, the Niners fumbled the kickoff right back to Miami and let them score another, leaving the score 28-16 at the half; still a steep deficit, but one that required one fewer possession to make up than without that added score.
• Another surreal halftime show, this one meant as a tribute to the "World of Children's Dreams" as imagined by the official U.S. Air Force touring company (which wasn't disbanded until 2016). Through various elaborate sets and popular music numbers, the show captured all the things '80s kids dreamed of being: movie stars, pirates, circus clowns, astronauts (featuring the return of a Jet Pack to the Super Bowl!), athletes, and soldiers willing to defend America's freedom, which "gives everyone the opportunity to realize their dreams, but only if you're willing to succeed, willing to work for them, and willing to believe in yourself". Did we mention that this game was played in the exact middle of the Reagan administration?
• Unfortunately, this was the record fourth (and so far final) time the Dolphins failed to score a point in the second half of a Super Bowl. The Niners defense clamped down hard, their offense scored another field goal and touchdown, and the fourth quarter went scoreless as a desperate Marino was picked off twice.
• For all the hype surrounding Marino's passing prowess in the regular season, Montana stepped away with all the acclaim in the Big Game. While Marino broke Super Bowl records for pass attempts and completions, Montana walked away with the new records for Super Bowl QB passing and rushing yards after throwing three TDs (and no INTs) and running in a fourth, easily securing the game MVP. RB Roger Craig made a decent case for the award, too, as he became the first player to score three TDs in a Super Bowl (two receiving, one rushing), a record that has only ever been tied. All together, the Niners offense exceeded or tied most major records for the Big Game.
• The 49ers remained a dominant force in the league for another decade, though a serious back injury to Montana held them back from appearing in a Super Bowl for a few seasons.
• This loss marked Shula's last Super Bowl appearances, leaving his Big Game record 2-4, a disappointing number for such a legendary coach. While Shula stayed on in Miami for another decade, their defeat effectively broke the Dolphins organization, which still has yet to return to the Super Bowl.
  • By proxy, this disappointing outing was also Marino's lone Super Bowl appearance. While he remained a top QB for the rest of his Hall of Fame career, he never replicated his success in this season and never could get back over the hump, to the shock of sportswriters who predicted multiple Super Bowls and at least one victory as a Foregone Conclusion for such a talent. He remains likely the most acclaimed QB to never win the Big Game.
  • Beyond the Dolphins, this loss seemed to break the entire AFC; starting with this win, the NFC's representative won 13 straight Super Bowls.

XX — January 26, 1986 / Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana / Chicago Bears def. New England Patriots, 46-10

MVP: Richard Dent, DE
Network/Announcers: NBC (Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen, Bob Griese)
National Anthem: Wynton Marsalis (on trumpet)
Coin Toss: Bart Starr, Hall of Fame QB and MVP of the first two Super Bowls, on behalf of all MVPs from the last two decades
Halftime: Up with People

• Ranked the 34th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• To date, the last Super Bowl in which both teams were making their first appearance. The only teams still without any Super Bowl appearances are the Detroit Lions (the only remaining NFC team), the Cleveland Browns, the Houston Texans, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Fifth Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest, with Chicago beating New England in Week 2, 20-7.
  • Oh, those Bears and their Super Bowl Shuffle. Ranked the #2 Greatest Team of the NFL's first century, there was much more to Chicago than their cheesy promo single. Over two decades removed from the Bears' last championship under legendary founder George Halas (who passed away two years prior), Coach of the Year Mike Ditka reinvigorated one of the NFL's original franchises and formed one of the most colorful, memorable, and dominant teams in NFL history. Their #2 offense was led by the NFL's then-career rushing yards leader Walter Payton (who gave the Bears the #1 run offense in the league) and the "punky QB" Jim McMahon (whose passing performance was much less impressive but got the job done). The Bears true strength, however, lay in their oppressive 46 defense, organized by the irascible coordinator Buddy Ryan and anchored by Defensive Player of the Year LB Mike Singletary, sack-leading DE Richard Dent, and massive rookie lineman William "The Refrigerator" Perry. This defense led the league in almost every metric, giving the team a 15-1 record and a staggering 456-198 (+258) point differential. They were even more impressive in the playoffs, completely shutting out both the Giants and Rams.
  • The Patriots were a Cinderella team that had fought hard to get their 11-5 record with a fairly strong defense and a pretty middling offense. This only earned them third in their close-fought division and the #5 seed, but second-year head coach (and former Hall of Fame receiver for the Colts) Raymond Berry led them on a remarkable playoff run with three straight away games, defeating the Jets, narrowly edging out the #1 seed Raiders, and delivering a truly massive upset in the AFC Championship against the Dolphins, the team's first win in the Orange Bowl in two decades. Miami's offense had been the only one to beat Chicago all season, and few thought that the Pats had another miracle left in them; the Bears were favored by 10.
    • Of the Pats' eventual eleven appearances in the Big Game, this was the only time they got to the Super Bowl as a wild card team, wearing their original red-and-white "Pat Patriot" uniforms, and under the ownership of the Sullivan family.
• The first Super Bowl to attract over 90 million viewers (92.57, to be more precise), up over seven million from the past year's record high.
• Retired two-time Super Bowl-winning QB Bob Griese joined the Super Bowl broadcast booth for the only time, albeit in a separate booth from Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen.
• The Patriots claimed a very early lead with a field goal barely a minute in after Payton fumbled on the game's second play. That was the end of the miracles for the Patriots: they then got buried by the Bears for 44 unanswered points. 23 of those came in the first half (three FGs, two TDs). Patriots starter Tony Eason was switched out for Steve Grogan in the second quarter after he failed to complete even a single pass, but things only slightly improved; the team put up -7 yards of offense before halftime.
• The last Up With People halftime show, dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. (who had just received a national holiday). It was, of course, a solemn and tasteful event honoring the murdered civil rights icon (nah, it was another pop song medley).
• Still the highest-scoring third quarter by a single team in Super Bowl history with three TDs, resulting in the biggest score gap ever seen that early in the Super Bowl. McMahon threw a 60-yard pass in Chicago's first possession, starting a drive that ended with his second rushing TD of the day. Grogan threw a pick-six on the Pats' next drive. Finally, "The Refrigerator" was put in as a fullback to score a touchdown, a Cherry Tapping moment that NFL Films ranked the #79 Greatest Play in NFL history in the league's first century and set the record for most rushing TDs in the Big Game with four (later tied in XXXII).
• Overcoming a 20-point deficit at the half would have been one of the greatest comebacks ever; overcoming a 41-point deficit was essentially impossible, and the Bears could have conceivably sat the last quarter out. However, after they allowed one touchdown in garbage time, the defense continued to beat up on the Pats, forcing a fumble, an interception, and a sack in the end zone for a safety, appropriately ending the game on a defensive score.
• At the time, 46-10 was the most lopsided outcome in a Super Bowl. The Pats' net total of 7 rushing yards remains the lowest in a Super Bowl; their passing numbers were better, but the Bears still far outstripped their offensive production (408-123 total yards). Chicago held possession nearly twice as long as New England and sacked the Pats' QBs seven times, tying the Super Bowl record set by the Steel Curtain in X. The Pats coughed up six turnovers (two interceptions from Grogan and four fumbles) to Chicago's two.
• Game MVP went to Richard Dent, the first time a non-QB/RB won since XII. He blocked a pass, put up 1.5 sacks, and forced two fumbles. Other candidates: Singletary recovered two fumbles. McMahon threw for 256 yards and ran in two TDs. WR Willie Gault put up 129 yards on four catches while also doing kick return duty. Not on the list: Walter Payton, who took most of the heat from the Pats defense to free up the rest of the offense; he rushed for 61 yards and no touchdowns in his sole championship game.
• The team made a point to lift both Ditka and Ryan on their shoulders after the game win; both men had fought throughout the season, even coming to blows after their only loss, and Ryan had already signed to be the Eagles' head coach the next year. Neither coach would ever win a Super Bowl without the other.
• Sadly, this game was soon overshadowed by the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion only two days later, which meant President Reagan had to cancel his meeting with the Bears. In 2011, President Obama made up for it by inviting the surviving members of his adopted hometown team to the White House.
• The lopsided results of this Super Bowl are almost Hilarious in Hindsight considering their team's future Super Bowl prospects:
  • Despite the strength of Ditka's Bears throughout most of the '80s and early '90s, this was his team's sole appearance in the Super Bowl. The storied franchise later revisited the Super Bowl two decades later, but they still have yet to win another Lombardi, giving them an even longer championship drought than the one they broke here.
  • The Patriots' success in season leading up this game was, at the time, an anomaly in the team's mostly terrible history. While they remained generally good under Berry for the next few years, upsetting the Dolphins for the chance at being destroyed by the Bears remained the highpoint of the franchise for another decade. Then, an ownership change to Robert Kraft set them on the path to becoming the most dominant Super Bowl force of the 21st century.

Super Bowls XXI to XXV

XXI — January 25, 1987 / Rose Bowl, Pasadena (Los Angeles), California / New York Giants def. Denver Broncos, 39-20

MVP: Phil Simms, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, John Madden)
National Anthem: Neil Diamond
Coin Toss: Willie Davis, Hall of Fame DE
Halftime: Tribute to the centennial of Hollywood, narrated by George Burns and featuring Mickey Rooney and the Grambling State Marching Band

• Ranked the 37th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The start of two minor dynasties of the next decade:
  • The New York Giants hadn't won a championship for thirty years prior to this game; following that win, they had played in five of the next seven championship games, lost each one, and were downright terrible through the rest of the '60s and '70s. Things started to finally turn around for "the G-Men" after they drafted all-time great linebacker Lawrence Taylor in 1981, but the team truly emerged as real contenders when coach Bill Parcells was hired in '83. Parcells shaped a "Big Blue Wrecking Crew" defense supported by a strong ground game and decent passing game directed by Phil Simms. This Giants defense, coordinated by some guy named Bill Belichick, was #2 in the league (#1 against the run) and Taylor won league MVP as well as Defensive Player of the Year. The team went 14-2 and shut out Washington in the NFL Championship after holding San Francisco to just a field goal the week before, just missing out on duplicating Chicago's playoff defense record from the year before. This Stone Wall was favored by 9.5 points, and NFL Films named them #12 Greatest Team in the league's first century.
  • The underdog Broncos were a very different team than their last Super Bowl appearance nearly a decade before, besides a few remnants of their old Orange Crush defense (who all retired after this game). Coach Dan Reeves succeeded Red Miller six years prior, but most attributed their success to the talents of their QB, John Elway, who joined the Broncos in '83 and quickly broke out as one of the league's premier talents. Even with Elway at the helm, the Broncos were generally good-not-great in most statistical categories and were the #2 seed at 11-5. They did have one of the more memorable playoff runs ever, narrowly beating the Patriots before delivering a legendary upset against the #1 seed Browns in the AFC Championship, which went to overtime after Elway led "The Drive" to tie the game in the final seconds of regulation.
• Sixth Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest with New York beating Denver 19-16 in Week 12.
• Ratings were down from last year's massive spike, but it still had the second-highest audience ever to that point (87.19 million).
• A broadcasting milestone for CBS Sports: it was the debut of the drum-heavy theme music by Lloyd Landesman that is still used by CBS and its affiliates for college gridiron.
• The first quarter suggested that this would be a closely fought game. Denver took the lead first with a Super Bowl record-tying 48-yard field goal from Rick Karlis. While the Giants responded with a TD, a number of penalties on the New York defense resulted in the Broncos cruising to their own touchdown.
• Both offenses dried up in the second quarter, in part due to Karlis missing two short-distance field goals and in part due to the officiating. This was the first Super Bowl where instant replay was available, but the officials bungled a call on a 25-yard pass from Elway to Clarence Kay, ruling it incomplete even when the TV cameras proved that he had control of the ball. On the very next play, Elway was sacked in the end zone for a safety, the only score of the quarter, leaving Denver narrowly ahead 10-9 at the half.
• The halftime show was another Disney-led tribute to the movies, this time featuring an intro where a 90-year-old George Burns told Snow White that she was "pretty, but too old for him." You know: for kids!
• The Giants flipped the switch in the second half, seemingly energized after their special teams got a first down off of a fake punt. New York scored two TDs and a FG in the third quarter. The defense intercepted Elway at the start of the fourth (the only turnover of the game), after which Simms threw his third TD pass (which bounced off the hands of the intended receiver into the waiting arms of another).
• Having put up 26 unanswered points since the Broncos' last score, the last ten minutes of the game were reduced to garbage time. While Karlis was finally able to score another FG, the Giants responded with another touchdown. An impressive 47-yard TD pass from Elway in the game's final minutes (the 100th Super Bowl TD) was really just a spectacle for fans who had decided to stick through the game's one-sided ending.
• Phil Simms, an above-average QB that few outside of New York would put on a list of all-time greats, put up the best passing performance in Super Bowl history from a purely statistical standpoint. Simms completed 22 of his 25 passes, ten of them in a row, for a passer rating of 150.9—all Super Bowl records that still stand today—on the way to winning game MVP.
• A very important Super Bowl for tropes: Dumping Gatorade on coaches and saying "I'm Going to Disney World!" both became a thing here.
• After ending the Giants' three-decade championship drought, Parcells and the Big Blue Wrecking Crew experienced one of the worst Super Bowl slumps ever in 1987, losing their first five regular season games on the way to finishing last in their division and missing the playoffs. However, this was primarily due to the wider ripple effects of the 1987 player strike; they quickly bounced back to strength in subsequent seasons and won another Super Bowl in just a few years (though a Game-Breaking Injury during that season prevented Simms from returning to the Big Game).
  • Perhaps even more significantly, this was the first of Bill Belichick's record eleven Super Bowl appearances and nine wins.
• Elway and Reeves' Broncos weren't even close done trying to win a Lombardi; this was the first of five appearances for Elway and four for Reeves as a head coach. They'd both come back in two of the next three Super Bowls... for even worse blowouts.

XXII — January 31, 1988 / Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California / Washington Redskins def. Denver Broncos, 42-10

MVP: Doug Williams, QB
Network/Announcers: ABC (Al Michaels, Frank Gifford, Dan Dierdorf)
National Anthem: Herb Alpert
Coin Toss: Don Hutson, Hall of Fame end who pioneered the receiver position
Halftime: Chubby Checker, with The Rockettes and the USC Marching Band

• Ranked the #85 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary. Washington's named the #65 Greatest Team. Ranked the 33rd best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• The culmination of another strike-shortened season, though replacement players kept it from being as dramatically shortened as 1982.
  • Once again, a Washington team coached by Joe Gibbs rode out the turbulence of a strike; their team was the only one in the league not to have a single starter cross the picket line, preventing internal strife many other teams experienced, and the replacement players won all three of their games, including a memorable face-off against division rival Dallas, which had most of its regular players back. (This group served as the inspiration for The Replacements (2000) and would receive Super Bowl rings decades later.) However, the turmoil was anything but over; all season, QBs Jay Schroeder and Doug Williams had fought over the the starting position, with Williams only taking it in the final two weeks of the season after the playoff berth had been clinched. Despite losing both games, giving Washington an 11-4 record and the #3 seed, Williams stayed in the driver's seat and led the team to narrow victories over the Bears and Vikings in the playoffs.
    • Williams' comeback story to reach this game is one of the more impressive in NFL history. He had been the first African-American QB ever taken in the first round of the NFL Draft in 1978, going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and taking the dismal team to the playoffs. However, pay disputes had led to Williams first leaving the NFL for the USFL and then winding up on Washington's bench the year before this Super Bowl run. Contrary to popular belief, no one asked Williams, the first black QB to start in a Super Bowl, "So how long have you been a black quarterback?" (Full explanation here.)
  • Despite their rather embarrassing Super Bowl loss the year before, Denver entered this game 3-point favorites. This was mainly due to how their QB situation contrasted with Washington's: while Joe Gibbs wavered between signal callers, Broncos coach Dan Reeves had the league MVP John Elway under center, and Denver had put up a much better defense against the pass than Washington had all season. After trouncing the Oilers in the playoffs, the Broncos had another nail-biter faceoff against the Browns in the AFC Championship, this one decided by a defensive play: "The Fumble", in which Cleveland RB Earnest Byner had the ball stripped away two yards from a potential game-tying touchdown.
• Ratings and audience went down again, this time rather sharply (80.14 million average viewers, down over 7 from last year); once again, this was explained as an effect of the strike.
• First of ten Super Bowls with Al Michaels in the broadcast booth, and first of three with Dan Dierdorf offering commentary.
• The preshow festivities featured a salute to Bob Hope and the last instrumental rendition of the National Anthem at a Super Bowl.
• The first Super Bowl to see a team win after falling behind by a double-digit margin, as the Broncos led 10-0 at the end of the first quarter. Elway threw a 56-yard TD pass on his very first possession, less than two minutes into the game. On the next drive, he threw several more impressive passes and even became the first QB to catch a pass in the Super Bowl on a 23-yard trick play. Though that drive ended in a field goal, Super Bowl history suggested that the Broncos had sealed the game in the first six minutes.
  • Washington's offensive performance in the first quarter likewise suggested that the game would be a total rout. While the defense managed to get it together with a massive sack that kept Denver from another field goal, Williams couldn't get anything going on offense and was even taken out of the game after twisting his leg before a throw. (Though the ref called the play dead thinking he had been sacked, Williams actually fumbled the ball before he had been touched by a Bronco defender; the call saved Washington from surrendering a likely defensive touchdown.) Schroeder stepped in, got sacked on his very first play, and didn't complete a pass in relief.
• The beginning of the game was quickly forgotten to history: Washington's victory was so much more a Curb-Stomp Battle than Miracle Rally that few even remember that this game is still tied for the second biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. Washington outscored Denver 35-0 in the second quarter (not second half, second quarter), with the team setting multiple standing records in the process.
  • The leg injury scare seemed to flip a switch for Williams. On his very first play back on the field, he threw a 80-yard TD pass to Ricky Sanders. He'd throw three more before the half (including another 50-yard bomb to Sanders), in the process setting still-standing single-quarter Super Bowl records for passing yards (228) and TD passes (four). Sanders' 168 yards and 2 TDs were likewise single-quarter receiving records.
  • Rookie RB Timmy Smith, who was filling in for injured starter George Rogers in his first NFL start, posted a record 122 rushing yards in the quarter, including a 58-yard TD run sandwiched between Williams' touchdowns.
  • Even this level of passing and rushing production wouldn't have been able to put up 35 points in 15 minutes were it not for the defense putting the ball back in Washington's hands. They intercepted Elway twice in the quarter and sacked him multiple times (five by the end of the game).
  • It is hard not to view the Broncos as just completely melting down under the bright lights; their starting defense hadn't surrendered 35 points in an entire game the whole season, and the MVP's 36.8 passer rating^note 14/38 completions for 257 yards, 1 TD, 3 INTs was one of his worst ever performances.
  • The 35-10 score is still the widest halftime margin in Super Bowl history. It also marks the highest scoring first half in a Super Bowl.
• Some Super Bowl histories incorrectly list this halftime show as the first to feature a popular music artist, but this was another big band production that just happened to have Chubby Checker come out to perform another version of "The Twist". Organized by Radio City Music Hall, the performance also featured 88 grand pianos, a bunch of dancers wearing football helmets, and the debut of the first ever African-American Rockette.
• Washington ultimately put up 42 unanswered points on Denver, with Smith scoring another touchdown in the fourth quarter and the defense not permitting another Broncos score. After the unmatched scoring bonanza of the first half, this tied VII for the fewest points in the second half in a Super Bowl. In the end, Washington nearly doubled Denver's offensive production (602-327 yards) and posted 280 rushing yards, still a Super Bowl record, as is the total rushing yards across both teams (377, with Washington responsible for 75% of those yards). Williams, Sanders, and Smith all set Super Bowl records for passing (340), receiving (193), and rushing (204) yards.
• The pilot for The Wonder Years premiered after the game.
• Gibbs kept Washington competitive and returned them to the Super Bowl in four years. However, that roster lacked two of this game's most memorable stars.
  • Williams' superstar performance won him game MVP and made him an icon for countless young Black athletes with hopes of playing quarterback in the NFL. It still wasn't enough to get him a permanent starting position nor the contract he wanted; he retired from football just two seasons later.
  • Smith is often described as the biggest One-Hit Wonder in Super Bowl history. He put up more yards in this game than he had run in his entire preceding rookie season; after it, he only played 15 more games in the NFL and was out of the league by 1990.
• Elway, Reeves, and the Broncos returned to yet another Super Bowl in two years to have another shot at a Lombardi; they'd get blown out even worse than their last two appearances.

XXIII — January 22, 1989 / Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami (now Miami Gardens), Florida / San Francisco 49ers def. Cincinnati Bengals, 20-16

MVP: Jerry Rice, WR
Network/Announcers: NBC (Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen)
National Anthem: Billy Joel
Coin Toss: Nick Buoniconti, Bob Griese, and Larry Little, Dolphins veterans
Halftime: "Be Bop Bamboozled", led by magician / Elvis Impersonator Alex Cole (aka "Elvis Presto")

• Ranked the #19 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary and the tenth highest-ranked Super Bowl on that list. Joe Montana's game-winning TD pass to John Taylor was the #21 Greatest Play and the tenth best in a Super Bowl. The 49ers themselves are the #69 Greatest Team. Ranked the 9th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Third rematch Super Bowl, with the 49ers and Bengals facing off again after their prior meeting in XVI. Notably, Bengals coach Sam Wyche had been an assistant to Niners coach Bill Walsh during that last match-up.
  • The 49ers dynasty that Walsh had begun in XVI had looked rather shaky for the last few seasons, coming up short in their first playoff game three years straight. A QB controversy reared its head between Joe Montana and backup Steve Young, with Montana just managing to reclaim his position in the back half of the season. Since their last Super Bowl appearance, the Niners had picked up future all-time great WR Jerry Rice, but their biggest star on offense that year was multi-threat RB Roger Craig, who won Offensive Player of the Year while putting up over 2,000 yards from scrimmage as a runner and receiver and giving the team the #2 rushing offense in the league. Their defense had been bolstered the year prior by LB Charles Haley. Finally, return specialist John Taylor led the league in several stats on special teams. After an incredibly close playoff race, the Niners just managed to eek into the #2 seed and a postseason bye with a 10-6 record^note four other teams in their conference when 10-6, and two of them missed the playoffs entirely and posted easy postseason wins over the Vikings and Bears.
  • The Bengals had one of the more fun storylines of the year. After the last year's player strike derailed their season completely thanks to a schism between Wyche and QB Boomer Esiason; coupled with the last game before the strike - where the 49ers visited Cincinnati - Wyche made an ill-advised decision to call a running play to run on 4th down in hopes of draining the last few seconds off the clock while Cincinnati led 26-20; a move which backfired badly^note the Bengals were stopped for a loss; and the turnover on downs stopped the clock with just a few seconds left; resulting in Joe Montana finding Jerry Rice for the winning touchdown as time expired, the team patched up their differences and bounced back with a vengeance. Esiason won MVP after leading the league in passer rating, while rookie RB Ickey Woods broke out as one of the league's unlikeliest stars thanks in no small part to his "Ickey Shuffle" TD celebration dance. Woods led the league's #1 rushing offense, which combined with Esiason's passing excellence to produce the #1 overall offense that season, a 12-4 record, and the #1 seed. Unfortunately, Esiason also injured his shoulder late in the year, forcing the defense to step up and the ground game to pull the weight in playoff victories against the Seahawks and Bills.
• The lead-in to the game was rather chaotic. Most significantly, Miami had experienced several days of destructive rioting after a police officer shot and killed a speeding Black motorist, leading to rumors that the game would be moved to Tampa. Additionally, Bengals fullback Stanley Wilson was caught using cocaine in his hotel room the night before the game and suffered a lifetime ban from the NFL as a result.
• Ratings were up slightly from last year (average audience 81.59 million).
• Last Super Bowl played in the Eastern time zone where the game started before dark.
• Also, the first-ever Super Bowl broadcast to use the 6-feathered NBC "peacock" we know today, which has been used for every Super Bowl since that NBC has broadcast.
• Though Vegas favored SF by 7 due to their greater pedigree and fewer injuries than their opponents, this game turned out to be one of the closer fought Super Bowls ever, with much of it featuring a tied score.
• Currently the last Super Bowl to lack any rushing TDs.
• The first half of the game was a low-scoring defensive battle, with several players going out with gruesome injuries in the opening minutes and each team scoring only three points. While the 49ers put up almost twice their opponent's yards, the Bengals defense held them to a single field goal; SF missed a 19-yard attempt, the shortest ever missed in the Super Bowl thanks to an errant snap, and later fumbled the ball away when nearing position for another attempt.^note Because of the fumble, most forget the impressive play from John Taylor that preceded it. After missing a 63-yard punt, Taylor managed to chase it down and return it for 45 yards; both lengths were Super Bowl records for many years. The Bengals scored a field goal shortly before the end of the second quarter, leaving the score tied at the half for the first time in Super Bowl history.
• The halftime show is often held up as one of the worst (or at least cheesiest and strangest) ever, a gimmicky mess that featured distracting CG 3D images (retailers were encouraged to hand out 3D glasses to promote the show in advance) and an Elvis Impersonator who performed a bunch of magic tricks and gags in the middle of a massive choreographed music number that featured very few Elvis songs. Bob Costas appeared visibly embarrassed to have to bookend it, calling it "the most wonderfully understated 12 minutes in television".
• The scoring production increased after the half. The Bengals scored a field goal on their opening possession, but Esiason threw an interception on their next possession to rookie LB Bill Romanowski, which the Niners converted into their own FG, re-tying the score 6-6. The game then narrowly avoided becoming the first Super Bowl in which no touchdowns were scored in the first three quarters when, with a minute left, Bengals returner Stanford Jennings ran the kickoff back 93 yards for a touchdown, Cincinnati's only one of the game.
• SF immediately responded with a blazing four-play drive: Montana threw two long passes to Rice and Craig, narrowly missed throwing an end zone interception when Cincy CB Lewis Billups dropped the ball in the end zone, and threw his first TD pass of the game to Rice, again tying the game. However, SF missed a FG attempt on their next possession, Cincinnati did not, and after a penalty on the subsequent kickoff, the Niners trailed 16-13 with 92 yards ahead of them and just over three minutes left in the game.
• In the game's best remembered sequence, Montana led an 11-play game-winning drive down the field, throwing a TD pass to Taylor (his only catch of the game) with 34 seconds left. The Bengals didn't have another return TD in them, and the Niners defense ended the game.
• Rice was awarded game MVP after posting a TD and a still-Super Bowl record 215 receiving yards (and rushing another 5 for good measure). Had he not had such a day as Montanta's main target, the man who threw him all those passes would have been an easy winner with a superb performance^note 23/36 completed passes for 357 yards, 2 TDs, no turnovers, 115.2 rating.
• The Bengals regressed back to the bottom of the league's hierarchy after this game and have never come close to the heights of this season. Esiason took them to one more playoff victory in 1990, but it would be the franchise's last for the next three decades before an unexpected return to the Super Bowl after 2021.
  • Despite his poor performance in this game^note 11/25 passes, 144 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, 46.1 rating, Esiason later became Super Bowl staple in the broadcast booth; after serving as commentator in XXXIV's TV broadcast, he has called a record 18 Super Bowls on the radio for CBS/Westwood One.
• This was Walsh's final game prior to retirement from NFL coaching. However, his team didn't miss a step, continuing to dominate the league and returning to the Super Bowl the following year.
• The fifth and final Super Bowl that Merlin Olsen worked as a broadcaster, as he was demoted to the #2 crew to make room for Bill Walsh himself - who became the lead analyst for NBC from 1989-91 - with Olsen moving to CBS in 1990 before leaving broadcasting altogether after 1991.
• The final game of Pete Rozelle's tenure as league commissioner; after overseeing the NFL since before the Super Bowl's existence, he handed the reins to Paul Tagliabue the following season.

XXIV — January 28, 1990 / Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana / San Francisco 49ers def. Denver Broncos, 55-10

MVP: Joe Montana, QB
Network/Announcers: CBS (Pat Summerall, John Madden)
National Anthem: Aaron Neville
Coin Toss: Mel Blount, Terry Bradshaw, Art Shell, and Willie Wood, recent Hall of Fame inductees
Halftime: Tribute to New Orleans and the 40th anniversary of Peanuts by Pete Fountain, Doug Kershaw, and Irma Thomas

• Ranked the 50th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• After Bill Walsh's retirement following last year's victory, former defensive coordinator George Seifert took the reins in San Francisco and led the 49ers right back to another one. The team was named the #5 Greatest of the NFL's first century by NFL Films. Joe Montana was named MVP and Offensive Player of the Year after leading the league's #1 offense. Their defense was no less impressive or star-studded, being #3 in points allowed. The Niners posted a league-leading 14-2 record (their two losses being by a combined five points) and utterly annihilated the Vikings (41-13) and Rams (30-3) in the playoffs.
• Dan Reeves' Broncos had looked shaky since their last Super Bowl defeat, particularly with QB John Elway regressing into a notable interception problem. They still snagged the #1 seed with an 11-5 record, bolstered by a #1 defense featuring rookie safety Steve Atwater. They narrowly beat the Steelers by a single point before once again besting the Browns in the most forgettable of their AFC Championship faceoffs.
• The first Super Bowl of Paul Tagliabue's tenure as commissioner.
• With the three-time Super Bowl-winning 49ers seeming so unstoppable against the three-time Super Bowl-losing Broncos, Vegas favored SF by 12, the widest betting odds since IV. The Foregone Conclusion nature of the whole affair led to a massive drop in ratings; the 39.0 Nielsen rating was the lowest since III and remained the lowest until LV. The audience took a massive dip too: 73.85 million, down nearly eight million from last year and the smallest number since XV.
• This game marked the End of an Era for CBS' NFL Today pregame show; with all of the regular contributors not returning for the 1990 season^note for starters, Brent Musburger - who in addition to hosting the show worked as either a play-by-play broadcaster or studio host for most of CBS' marquee sporting events - was fired the day before the 1990 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game (and just weeks before he was set to be the lead voice of CBS' newly-acquired Major League Baseball coverage) and eventually was hired by ABC. Irv Cross, Brent's co-host for the previous 15 years, was demoted to analyst on a mid-level crew, Dick Butkus left to focus on acting and Will McDonough - who had worked all 24 Super Bowls up to then either for CBS or with the Boston Globe - left for a similar position with NBC; resulting in the NFL Today being hosted for 1990 by Greg Gumbel and Terry Bradshaw
• Turns out that audiences were right to stay away, as this turned out to be possibly the most one-sided (and thus least exciting) Super Bowl ever. It was, at least, high-scoring: Reeves' Broncos capped off their run of blowout Super Bowl losses by losing by the largest margin in Super Bowl history, with the Niners maintaining possession for nearly twice as long, moving the ball nearly three times as many yards, and putting up eight touchdowns and 55 points (both Super Bowl records). But hey, at least the Broncos weren't given any penalties!
• The first quarter was actually pretty competitive (at least compared to the rest of the game). After Montana set the tone of the game with a TD pass to Jerry Rice, the Broncos came back with a field goal. SF forced and recovered a fumble and scored another TD, and while they missed the PAT, this was the start of a crushing 34 unanswered points they piled on Denver. They scored two more TDs in the second quarter, the second another pass to Rice, leaving the score 27-3 at the half.
• The halftime show had the bizarre concept of celebrating the 40th birthday of everyone's favorite placekicker Charlie Brown by having the Peanuts characters join a massive Mardi Gras celebration featuring an impressive lifesize riverboat float. If those sound like two concepts that don't make much sense together... you'd be right!
• Things went from bad to worse for the Broncos in the third quarter. Elway threw an interception on his first pass, and Montana threw Rice his third TD pass of the game; he is still the only player to score three receiving TDs in the Super Bowl. Elway was intercepted again in the following drive, and Montana threw another TD pass two plays later; the two TDs came just over three minutes apart. With the score now 41-3, the Niners defense could afford to get a little sloppy; a pass interference penalty on Bill Romanowski brought the Broncos right up to the end zone, allowing Elway to run in the team's only touchdown.
• If you were expecting the Broncos to mount an almost impossible 31-point comeback in the fourth quarter, you were sorely disappointed. After scoring another touchdown, the Niners defense sacked Elway twice, stripping him of the ball for his third turnover on the second, and nearly returned it for another TD; Roger Craig sealed the 1-yard go-ahead TD, and the Niners sat most of their starters for the rest of the quarter as the game fizzled out and the Niners claimed the first back-to-back Super Bowl victory since the Steel Curtain Steelers and tied that team's Lombardi count.
• Montana's final Super Bowl saw him earn his record third game MVP with an absolute clinic of a performance: 22/29 passes completed for 297 yards, a then-Super Bowl record five TDs, no turnovers, and a 147.6 rating (still the second-best ever in the Big Game). No player has passed his MVP record save for a young Niners fan named Tom Brady, who watched this game in awe as a boy.
• Elway, on the other hand, had one of the absolute worst QB performances in Super Bowl history: 10/26 completed passes for 108 yards, no TDs, three turnovers, and a 19.4 rating. He was sacked six times, which probably had something to do with it.
• With such a dominant win, the Niners seemed primed to run it back the next year for the first ever Super Bowl threepeat. They came extremely close, once again going 14-2 and Montana earning another MVP. However, a devastating loss two-point loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship ended the dream and, more significantly, badly injured Montana. Seifert's Niners would eventually return to the Big Game, but with a new quarterback and missing several key pieces of their '80s dynasty, including Roger Craig and Ronnie Lott.
• Now matching the Vikings' record of going 0-4 in the Big Game, the Broncos needed to regroup. They slumped hard to a losing record the next season, though Reeves held onto his job a few more years and took the team to one more AFC Championship appearance before being axed. Elway did not quit, however, and eventually redeemed himself and the franchise when they returned to the Super Bowl nearly a decade later.

XXV — January 27, 1991 / Tampa Stadium, Tampa, Florida / New York Giants def. Buffalo Bills, 20-19

MVP: Ottis Anderson, RB
Network/Announcers: ABC (Al Michaels, Frank Gifford, Dan Dierdorf)
National Anthem: Whitney Houston
Coin Toss: Pete Rozelle, former NFL commissioner
Halftime: New Kids on the Block

• Three words to sum up: Norwood Wide Right. Ranked the #10 Greatest Game in NFL history by NFL Films for the league's 100th anniversary and the fifth highest-ranked Super Bowl on that list. Mark Ingram's impressive catch and evasion of multiple defenders was named the #73 Greatest Play. The Giants were the #29 Greatest Team and the Bills #35. Ranked the 8th best Super Bowl by NFL Throwback in 2022.
• Seventh Super Bowl to be a rematch of a regular season contest. Buffalo won the regular season matchup in Week 15 17-13 and also ended former Super Bowl MVP Phil Simms' season with a foot injury, leading to his replacement at QB by five-year backup Jeff Hostetler, who had seen only six career starts prior to this Super Bowl (still a record). This played a factor in the Bills being favored by 7.
  • The Bills had won two AFL Championships but had largely struggled in the first two decades after the merger, with even O. J. Simpson only able to get them to one playoff berth despite his dominance over the league in the '70s. Things finally turned around in the late '80s under coach Marv Levy, QB Jim Kelly, all-time sack leader and Defensive Player of the Year Bruce Smith, WR Andre Reed, RB Thurman Thomas, and a whole bunch of other greats. In this season, the Bills' no-huddle offense was #1 in the league and they had a very strong defense, earning a 13-3 record and the #1 seed. In the playoffs^note the first to feature 12 teams thanks to the addition of another wild card, they beat the Dolphins in a thriller before delivering the biggest blow-out in the history of the AFC Championship, beating the Raiders 51-3.
  • Bill Parcells' Giants had the #1 defense in the league, and the "Big Blue Wrecking Crew" coached by coordinator Bill Belichick and centered around the great LB Lawrence Taylor anchored the team after the loss of Simms. Parcells had already designed the offense around ball control, attempting to move the ball as slowly as possible down the field to maximize their defense's potency. Hostetler performed well in relief in the final games of the season, helping the team to secure a 13-3 record and the #2 seed. After easily defeating the Bears, the Giants faced off with the defending champion 49ers in the NFC Championship. Despite SF being hugely favored to win their third straight Super Bowl, New York pulled off an incredible upset, knocking Joe Montana out of the game (and effectively out of the 49ers), forcing and recovering a fumble from Roger Craig in the final minutes, and nailing a game-winning field goal as time expired.
• Ratings rebounded after last year's severe dip, but the 79.51 million audience (an increase just shy of six million) was still below the number from two years prior.
• The first Super Bowl played entirely after dark, which stayed the case in all subsequent Super Bowls played in the Eastern Time Zone.
• Whitney Houston's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner", sung just 10 days after the start of Operation: Desert Storm, was popular enough to be released as a single, resulting in the only time the national anthem made the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.^note It initially hit #20; after the September 11th attacks, it returned to the charts and hit a new peak of #6, making it Houston's final Top 10 of her career. Her version remains the standard to which every anthem performance is held to this day and is viewed as a high point of the late artist's career.
• To start the game, the teams traded field goals. These two possessions told the story of the game: while the Bills scored in just over a minute into their possession thanks to a massive 61-yard pass from Kelly, the Giants held onto the ball for over six minutes on their scoring drive. However, the Bills soon took the lead, first with a touchdown and then a safety scored by Smith with a sack after Hostetler tripped over veteran RB Ottis Anderson into the end zone. This would be the Bills' sole sack of the night, and the Giants responded by upping the tempo, launching a successful TD drive before the half that left them trailing 12-10.
• After years of marching bands, multimedia presentations, and so much Up with People, the Super Bowl halftime show finally included an A-list popular music act: New Kids on the Block. However, they were still not the sole focus of the show: rather, it was another Disney production, and a very surreal one at that. It featured an "all-kids" cast^note minus the "New" Kids, the Disney mascots, and, for some reason, Offensive Player of the Year and future Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon, who had just been eliminated from contention a few weeks prior yet trotted out to awkwardly stand next to Minnie Mouse and a bunch of children in what turned out to be his only Super Bowl appearance lip-syncing a medley of pop songs and old football anthems. The middle of the performance took a massive swerve, with a little blonde cherub singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" as children of active service members were trotted onstage and George H. W. Bush delivered a pre-recorded message. Then the show took another swerve with the third performance of ""it's a small world"" in the Super Bowl, a Culture Equals Costume ensemble, and a New Kids concert wedged in the middle.
  • While Houston's rendition of the national anthem remains remembered fondly, this show was criticized by many, even at the time, for being a garish confluence of militarism and consumerism capitalizing on cute kids and Patriotic Fervor.^note While part of this tonal dissonance was because Disney's planning of the show had been underway before Desert Storm called for the troop tribute to be jammed in, the sentence "And now, to honor our armed forces children, Coca-Cola proudly presents: The New Kids on the Block!" only grows more jarring with time. Despite all of the production poured into the show, most viewers didn't even see it live; it was aired on tape delay after the game due to ABC News' war coverage at halftime, and many ABC affiliates chose to air the pilot to Davis Rules instead.
• The Giants got possession after the half and resumed their ball control offense: the drive took up over nine minutes of game time, with the highlight being WR Mark Ingram Sr. breaking five Bills tackles on a 3rd-and-13 situation to just eek out the first down. When the Giants scored another TD and finally turned the ball back over with a 17-12 lead, over two hours of real time had passed since the Bills had last held onto the football.
• After a few stalled drives, the Bills responded well in the fourth quarter, with Thomas completing a 31-yard TD run to take back the lead. The Giants responded with another long drive that ended in a field goal, taking back a one-point lead with seven minutes left on the clock. The Bills were unable to score; while they got kicker Scott Norwood within 47 yards of the goalposts in the game's final seconds, he had only ever made one field goal from over 40 yards on grass turf his entire career, and he did not add to his tally here.
• A year after the game with the largest margin of victory to date, the Super Bowl is decided with the lowest margin of victory possible. This remains the only one-point margin of victory in Super Bowl history. The Giants' ball possession of 40 minutes and 33 seconds is the longest in Super Bowl history, and it was the first in which neither team committed a turnover.
• Ottis Anderson won MVP for rushing 102 yards, catching a pass for seven, and scoring a touchdown, receiving the award more for his contributions to the ball control than his individual performance. His counterpart on the Bills, Thurman Thomas, matched or outpaced him in every metric, rushing 135 yards (the most for a losing player in the Super Bowl), receiving for 55, and scoring his own TD; he was told before Norwood's kick that he would win MVP if it went through. The QBs both put up very serviceable but generally unspectacular performances; Hostetler's win earned him several years as a starter in the league.
• Parcells entered a 10-Minute Retirement after this game (his first of several); he returned to one more Super Bowl with the Patriots in a few years. Most of his staff likewise left for other opportunities, including the mastermind of their game-winning defense, Belichick, who got his first head coaching gig immediately afterwards... with the Browns (he'd be back on Parcells' Patriot staff before going on to his massive success as an HC). Perhaps expectedly, the Giants entered a slump afterwards and went through a few coaches before returning to the Big Game.
• Though no one knew it at the time, especially with how close this game was, the 0-4 Super Bowl Curse started by the Vikings was passed on from the Broncos to the Bills in this game; they would reach that record even more quickly and dramatically then their predecessors.
• The coaching staff on this Giants team became famous in the generation following this championship. Parcells and Belichick, as mentioned, would go on to revive the moribund New England Patriots, but there were also Patriots coordinators Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis, who would serve as Belichick's lieutenants during New England's first three Super Bowl wins, as well as Ron Erdhardt, who gave his name to the Erdhardt-Perkins system that underpins the Patriots' offensive strategy to this day. Tom Coughlin, the wide receivers coach, would later famously lead the Giants to a Super Bowl victory over the 2007 16-0 Patriots, led by Belichick, their first win since the 1990 season, by running a ball control strategy right out the gameplan from this Super Bowl, with their opening drive clocking in at ten minutes.