That quarter was the football equivalent of Tyson vs. Spinks, if that fight had started out with Spinks as the favorite and landing four or five haymakers in the first twenty seconds. Denver had a 10-0 lead after a quarter, and Williams had not been the planned starter that season; he only played five regular season games, two as a starter. If they had online in game betting you could have gotten seven to one for a Washington bet after the first quarter; no team had ever even blown a 10-point lead in a Super Bowl. Williams had not played well in the playoffs to that point. And then Williams and his boys just annihilated them in a span of thirty minutes and the game was basically over.
They were a very weird Super Bowl winner. Aside from having no star QB - the usual started, Jay Schroder, had a bad season - they also didn’t have a clear starting running back; it was usually George Rogers, who also had a bad year and never played in the NFL again.
Denver has been on the short end of three of the five biggest blowouts in Super Bowl history.
Besides losing to Washington 42-10, the Broncos have also lost to Seattle 43-8, and to the Niners 55-10. That 45 point loss to SF is the biggest loss ever in the Super Bowl.
The two other mega-blowouts are the Bears defeating the Pats 46-10, and the Cowboys beating the Bills 52-17.
That’s when I stopped watching Super Bowls, because they seemed to be so often boring games. The only two that I remember as thrilling, exciting contests were the Bills falling to the Giants on Scott Norwood’s missed field goal in 1992 (Super Bowl XXV), and twelve years later in Super Bowl XXXVIII, when the Patriots eked out a win over the Panthers on another last-minute field goal, this one made by Adam Vinatieri. That last is of course remembered more for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” than the game itself; which is a damned shame, as it was a gripping, evenly fought contest.
I would agree that there have been a whole bunch of snoozers among the 55 games.
But I just looked at recent history. In the last 15 Super Bowls, only two have been blowouts: TB over KC 31-9 two years ago, and the 43-8 beatdown of the Broncos by Seattle in 2014. In all the other 13 games, the winning team either trailed going into the 4th quarter, or led by less than a touchdown. In other words, the outcome was very much in doubt until late in the game. Last year the Rams scored a TD with less than 5 minutes left to win 23-20. Three years ago the Chiefs scored 3 TDs in the 4th quarter to win by 11. Four years ago the game was tied after three quarters before NE outscored the Rams 10-0 in the final quarter.
And no matter how you feel about the Patriots, coming back from a 25 point halftime deficit to win in OT is just something else. I sometimes wonder how many people shut the game off after the half and missed the whole thing.
Philly seems to have the edge on paper, but I believe it’s all going to boil down to how well the Eagles’ defense can contain and pressure Mahomes. He willed his team to the AFC title and is going to do the same thing Sunday unless the Eagles’ defense can stop him.
Reports are that Mahomes’ ankle is doing ok, but you don’t really bounce back from high ankle sprains like that. He may be better than functional and may even perform at a very high level, but he won’t be at 100% mobility.
The Eagles had a good shot even with a healthy Mahomes. Nothing’s guaranteed, but it does shift things at least a little in their favor.
Thank you, I couldn’t remember exactly. I knew it was around the time of the first Gulf War, because the NFL and the network toned down a lot of the usual hype.
Yeah, that was the famous Whitney Houston star spangled banner, though I think she was lipsyncing.
Also interesting that everyone in the stadium had little American flags they waved. That was back when waving the flag was wholesome. Nowadays when I see the flag being waved (or displayed on a house) my instinct is to keep moving.
Google is playing coy with me but it seems to indicate that the desert storm ground campaign began either a few weeks after that Superbowl, or a few days before.
How could you forget XXIII, when the Bengals were up by 3 with 3 minutes left, and Joe Montana led a 92 yard touchdown drive? It was a low scoring game, true, but it was always close and exciting as hell, IMHO.
I was going to refute this claim, until I looked more closely at the flow of the game. There were 3 scores on the first four possessions of the second half, but then there was a stretch of seven straight punts, five of which were 3-and-outs. So your opinion is certainly justified!
That was a good Superbowl. It annoyed me at the time how it was so good it overshadowed the previous year when the Giants beat the undefeated Patriots. It even had its own iconic pass. So yeah, that was solid.
I lost a bet to my wife’s cousin’s husband, Tony, in Philadelphia in the NFC Conference Championship, and Tony is making me sing the Eagles’ fight song.
So here goes… that Tony, he sure knows how to hurt a guy.
