Worst Super Bowl Blunders

[Leonidas]

Saw this and I have to disagree strongly with his criticism of Marv Levy for kicking the FG with 8 seconds left and no timeouts. He seems to pretty cavalierly believe with 100% certainty Buffalo would have gotten some yardage and the ball out of bounds. Sorry, but facing the odds of making the kick compared to making decent yardage and getting out of bounds I think the safe money says you kick the ball. At least that way you are assured of a chance to win it. Running another play with no TO's offers little to no assurance you'll get that same chance. And at the time I really didn't remember any second guessing of the call. I think this is a sportswriter long after the fact taking a cheap shot.

I think some of the other second guessings here are not so cut and dried either.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....five.coaches/

1. Baltimore's Don Shula in Super Bowl III -- Everybody remembers the Jets half of the quarterback story that day, with Joe Namath guaranteeing victory and striking the first major blow for AFL equality with New York's monumental 16-7 win. But some still maintain that if Shula had handled his own quarterback situation better, the game might have turned out differently and Namath's legend never would have been burnished. (Not to mention that the rest of us wouldn't have had to suffer through the "guarantee'' phenomena in professional sports for the next 35 years or so).

Johnny Unitas was considered the greatest quarterback of his era, and maybe all time, but he wasn't the Colts starter against the Jets. That honor went to veteran Earl Morrall, who had rather improbably won the NFL's regular-season MVP award after replacing Unitas, who missed most of the season with an injured elbow. But Morrall was awful in the biggest game of his career, completing just six of 17 passes for 71 yards and three first-half interceptions.

Despite Unitas being the greatest comeback quarterback of his time, Shula didn't insert his Hall of Famer into the game until the Jets had built a 13-0 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the third quarter. By then, Morrall had led seven scoreless Colts drives, and the Jets had seized control of the game's momentum.

Unitas wasn't exactly sharp himself -- he finished 11 of 24 for 110 yards and one interception -- but he did lead Baltimore to its only touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. Critics have long wondered what might have been for the 15-1 Colts had he entered the game to start the third quarter, when New York's lead was only 7-0.

2. Green Bay's Mike Holmgren in Super Bowl XXXII -- Is it ever wise to allow your opponent to score the go-ahead touchdown in the final two minutes of the NFL's championship game? Holmgren thought so, and ordered his defense to let Denver running back Terrell Davis waltz in from the 1-yard line with 1:45 remaining, giving the Broncos their eventual margin of victory in a 31-24 upset of the Packers.

It was a controversial move from the moment the decision came to light, and the postgame debate grew even juicier when it was revealed that Holmgren believed the play came on first down, rather than second-and-goal. Holmgren's thinking was obvious: With good odds that Denver was going to get that final yard and take a seven-point lead over his favored Packers, why not let the Broncos score and prevent them from milking the clock in the process, thereby greatly reducing Green Bay's chances to mount a game-tying touchdown march.

But Green Bay, putting the ball in the hands of three-time league MVP Brett Favre, saw the strategy backfire. The Packers got the ball at their 30 with 1:39 to play and two timeouts remaining. They made it as far as the Denver 31 before the drive stalled, and the Broncos and John Elway finally had their long-awaited Super Bowl title.

Why did Holmgren go against conventional football wisdom? Maybe because of how the Packers had ended their previous defeat, a Nov. 16 game at woeful Indianapolis. In that game, the Colts had the ball at the Packers 1 with the score tied late in the game. They chose to run the clock down to almost nothing before kicking a chip shot field goal to win 41-38. Against Denver, Holmgren wanted to give Favre one last shot. He did, but not without first becoming the only Super Bowl coach to instruct his team to allow its opponent to score the game-winning touchdown.

3. Chicago's Mike Ditka in Super Bowl XX -- This one requires very little explanation. It's really still painful to even acknowledge: William "The Refrigerator'' Perry scored a Super Bowl rushing touchdown, but Walter "Sweetness'' Payton -- then the NFL's all-time leading rusher -- did not. As much as "Iron Mike'' Ditka did for the NFL and the city of Chicago, this was his one unforgivable sin.

Ditka allowed Perry, the 318-pound cartoon character of a defensive tackle and sometimes blocking back, to score on a third-quarter 1-yard touchdown run, his only carry of the game. Perry capped the surreal moment with a zany, windmill spike of the ball, further cementing the image in our brains. Payton, meanwhile, never sniffed the end zone and finished the 46-10 rout of New England with just 61 yards and a first-quarter fumble on 22 carries.

Adding a little bit more pain to the insult was that Bears fullback Matt Suhey tallied an 11-yard rushing touchdown, and Chicago quarterback Jim McMahon punched in a couple touchdowns on the ground, scoring on runs of 2 and 1 yards. Four rushing touchdowns for the Bears, none for Payton, one of the game's greatest runners and most legendary of figures.

Almost 20 years later, it still hurts.

4. St. Louis' Mike Martz in Super XXXVI -- The powerful and potent Rams came in 14-point favorites over the plucky (and some said lucky) Patriots, and wound up rolling to a 427-267 advantage in total yards. But somehow St. Louis lost the game 20-17. Much of the blame for that defeat settled on Martz's shoulders, for allowing the league's three-time offensive player of the year, running back Marshall Faulk, to go underutilized.

Faulk carried just 17 times for 76 yards, and caught four passes for 54 yards. Despite that fine production -- 130 combined yards on 21 touches, or 6.2 yards per touch -- Faulk was largely overlooked in favor of the Rams' preferred method of offensive matriculation -- the forward pass. St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner heaved up 44 passes and totaled 365 yards in the air. But he had two interceptions, and New England turned them into 10 points. All told, three Rams turnovers resulted in 17 of the Patriots' 20 points.

New England dared the Rams to throw, and Martz took the bait set out for him by the Patriots' Belichick. But New England cornerback Ty Law returned a second-quarter pick for 47 yards and the game's first touchdown, and later, an Otis Smith interception led to a Pats field goal and a 17-3 lead.

The Rams arrived at Super Bowl week 16-2 and holding the distinction of becoming the first team to score 500 points three years in a row. The disappearance of Faulk for stretches of the game strengthened the perception that the St. Louis coach had let pride get in the way of his play-calling and he had a tendency to be a bit too clever for his own good at times. Fair or unfair, Martz and the Rams haven't been back to the Super Bowl since their disappointment on Feb. 3, 2002.

5. Buffalo's Marv Levy in Super Bowl XXV -- So you think San Diego head coach Marty Schottenheimer should have tried to get closer than that 40-yard field goal try in overtime a few weeks back? How about the Jets' Herman Edwards the following week at Pittsburgh, when he had his team practically going in reverse before Doug Brien missed from both 43 and 47 yards in the final two minutes of regulation?

Levy made the same mistake of playing it safe in the playoffs at the wrong time. His move essentially cost the Bills their best chance of winning a Super Bowl in their first of four consecutive failed tries. The situation was this: The underdog Giants led 20-19, with eight seconds remaining and Buffalo had just driven from its 10 to New York's 29. There seemed to be time for one more short pass and then a Scott Norwood game-winning field-goal try.

But rather than let star quarterback Jim Kelly throw for the five or so more critical yards that might have put Norwood into high percentage range -- and his average field goal conversion that season was the lowest among all AFC kickers -- Levy eschewed the risk and instead sent Norwood out to try a 47-yarder with the Lombardi Trophy on the line. Admittedly, the Bills didn't have any time outs, but with their outstanding short-passing game they would have had time to safely gain some yards.

You know the rest. Norwood missed wide right by about 18 inches -- the most famous field goal miss in Super Bowl history -- and the Giants, with four seconds still remaining on the clock, began celebrating their second world championship in five years. Norwood's infamy lives on today, but it's Levy, now in the Hall of Fame, who should share some of the blame.

[ISiddiqui]

"Admittedly the Bills didn't have any time outs"

What is this guy, a moron?

And leaving in Morall, who was league MVP, I don't think was a horrible blunder. Yes, Unitas played well, but who knew how the rust would affect him.

[scooper]

Stanley Wilson

Cocaine

Nuff said.

[Joe]

who cares who scored the touchdowns in SB XX? The Bears won the fucking superbowl by 36 points, couldn't he find any "blunders" better than that?

[rkmsuf]

I'm partial to Thurman Thomas and his helmet myself.

[tategter]

what a dumb little article. written by someone with more hindsite than sense.

[sachmo71]

Buffalo Bills

[VPI97]

Originally Posted by scooper

Stanley Wilson

Cocaine

Nuff said.

Eugene Robinson

Blowjob

[Maple Leafs]

So Mike Ditka makes the list for winning the game in a blowout, but with the wrong people scoring touchdowns? Ugh.

[cartman]

Leon Lett didn't get a mention?

[Joe]

Originally Posted by cartman

Leon Lett didn't get a mention?

No, because the cowboys still won in a blowout... hey... what's ditka doing there?

[Franklinnoble]

Ray Finkle.

[sabotai]

Admittedly, the Bills didn't have any time outs, but with their outstanding short-passing game they would have had time to safely gain some yards.

And if he doesn't get out of bounds, against one of the league's best defenses (Def. Coordinator was Mr. Bill Bellichek), the game is over. What kind of outcry from the fans and media do you think would have followed that? That's a HUGE gamble to take when the Super Bowl is on the line.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by sabotai

And if he doesn't get out of bounds, against one of the league's best defenses (Def. Coordinator was Mr. Bill Bellichek), the game is over. What kind of outcry from the fans and media do you think would have followed that? That's a HUGE gamble to take when the Super Bowl is on the line.

Bah, as Stephen Jackson has said

"I make love to pressure."

[bhlloy]

Frickin idiotic - agree with the points above plus the fact that to get to the sideline the QB would be throwing some sort of out route, a lot of bad things can happen on that kind of route. It would have to be a perfect percentage pass to ensure that the reciever got out of bounds, and the defense would be giving the QB the middle of the field and covering the outside zones.

Ditka won the game, and Holmgren's decision isn't cut and dried for me either. Just a bad, speculative article.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by cartman

Leon Lett didn't get a mention?

Yay!

[bbor]

Top ten dumb-assed articles....This is #1

[Cuckoo]

I thought the Leon Lett blunder was in a Thanksgiving game, not a Super Bowl.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

I thought the Leon Lett blunder was in a Thanksgiving game, not a Super Bowl.

He had both IIRC.

[JeeberD]

Yup

T-Day was the sleet game in which he went sliding into the ball and cost us the game. The SB was holding the ball out and letting Don Beebe knock it out of his hand, costing us a SB record for points scored...

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

I thought the Leon Lett blunder was in a Thanksgiving game, not a Super Bowl.

He made 2 blunders.

The Superbowl blunder was when he picked up a fumble and began celbrating as he ran towards the end zone, Don Bebe I believe came up from behind and knocked the ball out of his hand at about the 5 yard line.

The other one was on Thanksgiving day when the Cowbys blocked a last second Dolphins FG attempt. All the Cowboys had to do was leave the ball lay but for some reason good old Leon decided to fall on the ball, at which point the ball popped out from underneath him and it became a live ball. The Dolphins pounced on it, either in the endzone for a TD or at the 5 yard line or so setting up another FG attempt that they hit to win the game, I forget which.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

I thought the Leon Lett blunder was in a Thanksgiving game, not a Super Bowl.

Yeah, we need to be more specific when discussing Leon Lett blunders. This is his walking to the endzone and having Don Beebe knock the ball out of his hand blunder. Not to be confused with Lett's thanksgiving blunder against the Dolphins, when he tried to recover a blocked FG, then lost possession, and the dolphins kicked the game winner.

[JeeberD]

Sigh...because of those two things no one ever remembers how dominating a d-lineman he was. He stuffed the run so well, and I couldn't tell you how many FGs and XPs he blocked.

Sadly, he wasted his talent when he decided several times that getting high was better than playing football.

I feel sorry for the guy...

[TLK]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Yup

T-Day was the sleet game in which he went sliding into the ball and cost us the game. The SB was holding the ball out and letting Don Beebe knock it out of his hand, costing us a SB record for points scored...

but allowing me to hit on my square that year.... instantly making Don Beebe my favorite football player for a moment....

[Cuckoo]

Ahhh, that's right. I had blocked that one out.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Sigh...because of those two things no one ever remembers how dominating a d-lineman he was. He stuffed the run so well, and I couldn't tell you how many FGs and XPs he blocked.

Sadly, he wasted his talent when he decided several times that getting high was better than playing football.

I feel sorry for the guy...

I remember the guy vividly. One day while watching a Cowboys game Leon had a lot of perspiration on his backside, Madden is pointing this out using some of his patended Maddenisms "Thats how ya know he's been playin all day", "Ya never see a Quarterback with pants all wet like that", basicaly having a little bit of fun with Leon. My mom sees this and gets very upset, and starts talking about how rude it is to point out the fat mans ass sweat and why is he (Madden) making fun of the poor guy. I laughed nice and hard at my moms indignation over that one.

[ISiddiqui]

He had one in Thanksgiving and one in the SuperBowl.

Thanksgiving was against the Dolphins when he kicked the missed FG, and the SuperBowl was when he was showboating and Don Beebe, sprinting from the other end zone knocked it out of his hands and out of the endzone.