These are the worst Super Bowl matchups of all time

The epicenter of American sports is the Super Bowl. The biggest performance in music every year isn’t at the Grammys. It’s in between grown men in pads smashing into each other. Good luck Rihanna. And just because it’s two of the best teams in the NFL every year competing for a championship doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be a good game. There have been several examples of the opposite.

Whether it’s a blowout or a snoozer, more than a few Super Bowls haven’t lived up to their main-event billing. We’re looking at which championship games have left most of the audience wanting more. The NFL has been lucky that this list doesn’t include most Super Bowls but it’s far from a perfect record. Speaking of perfect …

This championship game is largely remembered for being the coronation of the only perfect season in Super Bowl history. Most forget how boring this game was, a 14-7, three-touchdown game where the eventual winner, Miami, was shut out completely in the second half. Both defenses were great and that deserves its kudos. But Washington’s only score in the game happened right before the two-minute warning on a special-teams touchdown. Boring.

Another loss for Washington on this list. This time, it was a blowout for the then-Los Angeles Raiders, who haven’t won a championship since this game in 1984 and have moved their franchise twice since. A 38-9 win for the Raiders was highlighted by five touchdowns in the game’s first three quarters, while holding the Redskins to only one touchdown. Marcus Allen had 20 carries for 191 yards and two touchdowns to win the game’s MVP award.

The first play from scrimmage of this game was a safety. And things didn’t get better for the Broncos. Absolute domination from Seattle’s defense, headlined by the Legion of Boom, took down Peyton Manning’s crew 43-8. The game took place in East Rutherford, New Jersey, making it a rare cold-stadium championship game for the NFL. Denver had four turnovers in the game compared to the Seahawks’ zero. That’s usually a sign of a blowout.

Unfortunately for Denver, it’s on the losing end of many of the Super Bowl’s worst blowouts of all time. In 1990, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice unloaded for arguably the most impressive offensive performance ever seen in a championship game. It was a 55-10 drubbing, with San Francisco scoring two touchdowns in every quarter for a dominant, consistent performance. This game was truly over before the end of the first quarter.

This one got so out of hand that a kitchen appliance scored a touchdown. William “The Refrigerator” Perry, who is better known as a menacing defensive tackle instead of a punishing running back, scored on a 1-yard run to put Chicago over the 40-point threshold in the third quarter. The game ended up a lopsided 46-10 Bears victory as the Patriots’ offense was completely muted.

This will forever be the most boring Super Bowl of all time, with the only redeeming quality being Big Boi’s appearance during the halftime show. Maroon 5 sucked, Tom Brady sucked, Jared Goff sucked even more and the unenviable people of St. Louis had to sit through watching a franchise that deserted its town lose to the biggest villains in sports in a game worthy of winning Worst Picture at the Razzies. The only touchdown was a Sony Michel 2-yard run midway through the fourth quarter in a 13-3 New England win.

Ahh, the pandemic-era Super Bowl. Instead of having a stadium full of fans, Raymond James Stadium was barely a third full. Tampa Bay played this championship game from its home venue and it showed. And if Patrick Mahomes had a healthy offensive line, this might’ve been a different result, but the daunted Kansas City offense looked anything but in the 2021 Super Bowl, losing to Tom Brady 31-9.

Denver led 10-0 at the end of the first quarter. That’s all it scored. Five second-quarter touchdowns for Washington brought any thoughts of the Broncos winning this 1988 championship game to rest by halftime. John Elway threw three interceptions, while Doug Williams threw four touchdown passes in the 42-10 win. This would be the second of three championships for Washington in a decade span. And the Redskins haven’t even made it to a conference championship game since 1992.

Dallas played the role of the likely winner of this 1993 championship game. Three fourth-quarter touchdowns to pull away from Buffalo made this correctly look like a blowout. The Cowboys’ 52 points are one of only two occasions in which a team has scored more than 50 in a Super Bowl, alongside the 49ers’ dominant win over the Broncos three years earlier. The Super Bowl was contested between the Bills and Cowboys in 1994 as well with a closer game, but the same result.

One of the best defenses of all time, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, put on a display for the ages in this championship game. New York’s only touchdown came in the third quarter. Baltimore scored 18 seconds later on a Jermaine Lewis 84-yard kickoff return touchdown. One of the weirder Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks of all time, Trent Dilfer, lifted the trophy here and only threw one touchdown pass in the game.