Wasn’t there an American football team which won every game but the SuperBowl? That must have hurt.
New England Patriots, 2007. The Super Bowl loss was on a fluke play (a Giants receiver, David Tyree, caught a touchdown with his helmet). Yes, it hurt.
Yes but the OP isn’t just asking about upsets; he’s asking about great teams getting unexpectedly crushed in blowouts. The Giants only squeaked by the Patriots 17-14.
If the Giants had won 77-14, that would have fit more what the OP is about.
1990 Reds beat the (heavily favored) A’s 4-0 in a World Series sweep
Nitpick: the pass that Tyree caught was a 32-yard gain on a fourth-and-long during the game-winning drive. The TD pass was caught by Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds to play.
It was a 3rd-and-5.
Okay then, the 1940 NFL championship game. The great Washington Redskins team got destroyed by the Chicago Bears 73-0.
I remember reading a story about that game as a kid. Apparently, the Redskins had a chance to score early in the game and didn’t. Someone asked Baugh what would have been different if they had scored there. He replied “the final score would have been 73-7”.
Don’t know if it is true, but I hope it is.
You are correct. My mistake. Manning escaped a sack (which would have made it 4th and long) and made the pass to Tyree.
I’ve heard that story also. Hey, maybe you’re the one I heard it from! 
It sounds like something Baugh would have said.
Reigning world and European Champion Spain getting destroyed 1-5 by Holland in the 2014 opening round. They even had a a 1-0 lead at first.
Leaving aside the Don Denkinger issue, the 11-0 beat-down that the Royals gave the 101-game-winning (best in all of baseball) Cardinals in the 7th game of the 1985 World Series should be somewhere on the list.
:In 1995 in the Australian Football League, Carlton were nigh on unbeatable. They cruised through the season, eventually winning the grand final easily by 10+ goals. Probably the best-ever team in my lifetime - cetainly in the discussion.
However - in Rounds 7 & 8 of that year, they played two very lowly teams, and lost both games - by 12 and 10 goals respectively. Absolutely slaughtered. The two sides that beat them finished 12th and 14th (out of 16) at the end of the season.
The legend goes, the Carlton players saw an opportunity (or two) to get hold of a little more folding cash, and so entered into ‘arrangements’ with various bookmakers. Of course, not true:cool:
Since we’re talking World Series, let’s not forget the defending world series champion Oakland Athletics getting swept by the Cincinnati Reds in 1990.
Yeah, but that was 1-game. Baseball’s a best 4 of 7 and the Cardinals were pretty much there with the Royals until that night.
As a Cardinals fan, the 2004 World Series beat-down by Boston was much harder to take, far more embarrassing. The only thing embarrassing about losing to KC was the way the team came unglued in the middle innings with Andujar and Herzog getting ejected.
I also remember the Super Bowl cover’s title the week of the Super Bowl.
It had a picture of John Elway with the title “We’ll show up.”
Everyone knew the Broncos were dead meat; it was just a matter of how badly they would be beaten. Most had the 49ers winning by a touchdown or two, but it was far worse. I remember how the Broncos were confident that Atwater and others would be able to defend the middle deep ball. They got torched again, and again, and again…by the middle deep ball. Sometimes it was Rice, sometimes it was Taylor. Occasionally, Montana mixed it up with Brent Jones and Roger Craig to keep the linebackers near the line of scrimmage. God what a massacre that was.
I still remember “the quarter”
This was the one I thought of - two of the games were very close, though - 2-1 in the final game and 5-4 in extra innings for game 2.
Going back to Super Bowl 18 and the CFP Championship 2019, there are just so many parallels.
Another example: Alabama goes for a fake field goal with the game still somewhat within reach, only to have it backfire massively. Very reminiscent of the Redskins deciding to throw a screen pass in the direction of Joe Washington with the game still only 14-3, promptly intercepted by Jack Squirek who then made it 21-3.
asahi:
Sure, but I didn’t see that the OP specified a championship. From the OP, I figured a one-game ass-kicking qualified.