The Greatest Super Bowls of All Time
The Top 5 Greatest Super Bowls of All Time
The Super Bowl is the pinnacle of greatness in the NFL. Two teams each year get to make it into this game and solidify their legacies forever.
Franchises hope to give back to the fans who have supported them all this way. It’s the latest and most important part of each NFL season.
Who remembers that incredible Super Bowl LII?! Image credits: Pioneer Press
Because of the emotions attached to these games, we’ve been able to witness some of the greatest matchups of all time in the Super Bowl.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the five greatest Super Bowls of all time. Unfortunately, some big ones will have to be left out. There are way too many to recount, so this list had to be painstakingly whittled down…
Super Bowl LII: Philadelphia Eagles 41, New England Patriots 33
This was one of the most unlikely Super Bowls in recent memory.
The fact that the Philadelphia Eagles were even able to make it into the playoffs behind quarterback Nick Foles was unbelievable, to say the least.
When MVP candidate Carson Wentz went down with a super late-season injury that would keep him out for the postseason, everybody in Philadelphia assumed the season would soon be over. What came next was an unreal run by Foles - a run that carried into the Super Bowl against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
Speaking of Brady, he actually broke a record for the most passing yards in a Super Bowl with 505, yet the Eagles led the game from almost start to finish behind Foles and his 373 yards and three touchdowns.
Every big game like this has huge moments, so let’s talk about the first big swing in momentum. The Eagles had the ball, up 15-12, on a fourth-and-goal with 38 seconds left in the first half. A turnover on downs here could easily swing the momentum to the Patriots heading into the locker room, and potentially even allow Brady to tie the game.
Instead, Foles and the Eagles connected on the Philly Special, which saw Foles catch a touchdown pass to the surprise of everybody in the stadium. The score put the Eagles up 22-12 heading into the locker room, giving them a tremendous boost.
As the game continued on in the second half, Brady and the Patriots fought their way back. Eventually, with nine minutes remaining in the game, Brady threw a touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski to give the Patriots their first lead of the entire game, 33-32.
How did Foles respond? Well, he put together one of the most beautiful drives that you’ll ever see.
He led a 14-play, 75-yard, seven-minute drive that resulted in an 11-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz with two minutes left in the game. A pivotal point in this drive that deserves discussion is that Philadelphia went for a fourth-and-one on its own 45-yard line, understood what was at stake, and converted.
Of course, with a little over two minutes left in the game, Brady had a chance to tie and bring his team right back. After all, he had been torching this defense the entire game; he was the last person that Philadelphia wanted to give the football to.
However, two plays into the drive, defensive end Brandon Graham strip-sacked Tom Brady, and the Eagles recovered the football. Just a couple of kneel-downs/runs later, and the Eagles milked the remainder of the time and closed the game out.
Super Bowl XXXIV: St. Louis Rams 23, Tennessee Titans 16
Simply due to the final few seconds, this Super Bowl matchup between the St. Louis Rams and the Titans deserves to be talked about.
The Kurt Warner-led Rams were deemed the Greatest Show on Turf, and for good reason. They were one of the most explosive teams that the league had to offer, and when they burst out to take a 16-0 lead against the Titans late in the third quarter, it looked like the end.
However, the thing with close matchups is that if you let a team hang around long enough, eventually they’ll start to strike back. That’s exactly what happened here.
From 16-0, the Titans scratched and clawed their way back into the game to eventually tie it all up at 16 apiece. It was a 43-yard field goal to knot the score up with just over two minutes remaining in the contest. Tennessee had all the momentum and looked poised to take control of the game.
Then, just one play later, Kurt Warner connects with his star wide receiver, Isaac Bruce, on what turned out to be a 73-yard touchdown and another massive swing in momentum. Even then, the fans began to realise this was the nail in the Titans' coffin.
Yet they still had fight left in them. Quarterback Steve McNair drove the Titans the length of the field in those final few minutes and got them into the red zone with seconds left on the clock. He dropped back and connected with his receiver, Kevin Dyson, over the middle, who got hit and stopped by Rams linebacker Mike Jones.
The hit completely halted his momentum going towards the goal line, and despite stretching the ball out and over his head, Dyson found himself just one yard short of breaking the plain as the clock expired. Had his arms been just an inch longer, or had Mike Jones not hit him as hard as he did, the game would have gone into overtime. Instead, Jones seals the deal for the Rams and gets the Greatest Show on Turf in the history books.
Super Bowl XLII: New York Giants 17, New England Patriots 14
When the Super Bowl was set between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots in 2007, it was expected to be a complete blowout.
The Giants snuck into the playoffs with no expectations and found themselves matched up with a juggernaut. The Patriots were 18-0 at this point and competing to finish as the second team in league history to win a Super Bowl undefeated.
It was also set to be the franchise's fourth championship. So, you have the greatest quarterback of all time, leading one of the best teams that we’ve ever seen, competing against quarterback Eli Manning, who could have been run out of the city had he not pulled it together towards the end of the year. Talk about a true Cinderella run up to this point.
Fast forward down to the final few minutes, and the Patriots held onto a 14-10 lead, but Manning and the Giants had possession of the football. Manning then made one of the most memorable plays that we’ve ever seen, somehow breaking away from multiple Patriots defenders to launch a ball 30 yards down the field and connecting with David Tyree of all receivers, who made an unbelievable helmet catch while being dragged down to the ground.
It didn’t take much longer for Manning to connect with Plaxico Burress for the game-winning touchdown pass with 35 seconds left in the contest. It’s one of the most improbable upsets in sports history. Eli Manning will forever be a hero for ending this excellent Patriots season and saving the league from two extra Tom Brady-led championships.
Truly, this is one of those championships that can’t be explained unless you were able to feel the vibes coming into the big game. It can’t be overstated how dominant the Patriots were all year, yet this lowly Giants squad that snuck into the postseason under Eli Manning somehow bested them on the biggest stage.
The shock that went through the NFL community as it watched this game was unfathomable. And it’s one of the reasons why we might even see Eli Manning make it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, along with his other Super Bowl victory (also against Tom Brady, funnily enough).
Super Bowl XLIII: Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Arizona Cardinals 23
There’s no question that this one has to be on the list.
The Pittsburgh Steelers' matchup with the Arizona Cardinals during XLIII was one that will live on forever. This game featured two of the most memorable moments in league history, both from the Steelers.
Let’s talk about the first. Legendary quarterback Kurt Warner led the Cardinals' offense down to the Steelers' one-yard line with just 18 seconds left in the first half. A touchdown not only would have given them a halftime lead, but would have entirely swung the momentum in the second half.
Warner tries to hit wide receiver Anquan Boldin on their next play, but gets intercepted by linebacker James Harrison, who returns it a full 100 yards for a touchdown to end the first half. It’s the longest play in Super Bowl history and pushed the Steelers to a 17-7 lead heading into the break.
Of course, Arizona wasn’t going to just take that lightly. Warner and great wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald kept their team close throughout the game and somehow managed to steal a 23-20 lead with only 2:37 left in the contest. This gave Ben Roethlisberger and company one final shot at either tying or winning it.
What followed was an excellent drive led by Roethlisberger, which concluded with a beautiful toe-tap touchdown in the back corner of the endzone to Santonio Holmes.
This catch was arguably the greatest in Super Bowl history, and it put Pittsburgh in the lead for good with 35 seconds left. Those two individual plays should get this matchup on the list.
However, it would be a disaster to forget about the 64-yard touchdown from Larry Fitzgerald that put Arizona in the lead with two minutes left. Without that Holmes catch, it’s very likely that this Fitzgerald score would have been the most legendary play from this game.
Super Bowl LI: New England Patriots 34, Atlanta Falcons 28
It’s hard to find a Super Bowl that wound up being better than this one, unless you’re an Atlanta Falcons fan.
Not only was this the first overtime game in Super Bowl history, but it also featured one of the greatest comebacks we might ever see, involving the greatest quarterback to ever play.
The Falcons were dominating the early portion of the game, doing everything the right way. They found themselves up by a score of 28-3 with a total of 17 minutes remaining in the game.
For 99.9% of matchups, the team with this big of a lead late in the game ends up closing it out. That’s not what happened here. This is probably the worst final 20 minutes of football that the Falcons could have played, making mistake after mistake at critical points. The next four possessions for the Patriots after falling into this hole included three touchdowns and one field goal.
Arguably, the worst moment in the entire game was when the Falcons had the football on third-and-one with eight minutes left in the contest. The Falcons were still winning 28-12 at this point and could have easily just attempted back-to-back runs on third and fourth down to pick up the first and keep that clock running.
Instead, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan called a pass play that not only failed to get them the first down but also resulted in a Matt Ryan sack and fumble, which the Patriots quickly capitalised on with a touchdown.
There is also that legendary moment late in the game when quarterback Tom Brady chucks up a deep shot to one of his favourite targets in Julian Edelman. Edelman is blanketed by multiple receivers on a ball that looked underthrown, and yet somehow, throughout all of the traffic, Edelman comes up with a circus catch to bring them down the field.
Fast forward, and New England found a way to tie the ball game with 57 seconds remaining. They won the coin toss in overtime, received the ball, and instantly marched down the field for a touchdown to complete this insane comeback.
Also, similar to the Larry Fitzgerald touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII, Julio Jones came down with a phenomenal catch that would have been one of the greatest in the game had they won. It was a pivotal toe-tapping snag that set up Atlanta beautifully. If only they’d found a way to capitalise.
Read our full profile of Super Bowl LI - it doesn’t get better than this!
Read more on our NFL blog, including an in-depth look at Super Bowl LX
