Super Bowl moments that still make us cringe

The Cowboys were leading, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII when Leon Lett recovered a Buffalo fumble and headed for the end zone that was 65 yards away. Seeing no one in front of him, Lett stretched out the ball and began to celebrate as he crossed the 10-yard line. However, Bills receiver Don Beebe sprinted back and managed to knock the ball out of the back of the end zone before Lett could score. The touchdown-turned-touchback didn’t cost Dallas the game...only the record for most points in a Super Bowl. Still, it’s hard to watch Lett watching himself on the Jumbotron but still failing to see the tiny receiver charging from behind.

Trailing 28-24 in Super Bowl XLIX, Russell Wilson completed a miracle 33-yard pass to Jermaine Kearse. The ball was tipped multiple times and even went off Kearse’s leg, but he caught it. One play later, Seattle was on the 1-yard line, at which point coach Pete Carroll apparently forgot Marshawn Lynch was on his team. Lynch had taken the ball inches away from the goal line on the previous play, but Carroll inexplicably called a pass. Malcolm Butler picked it off, the Patriots won and Carroll had another improbable collapse to ponder. 

Early in Super Bowl XXIII, Bengals nose tackle Tim Krumrie went to tackle Roger Craig and suffered the most gruesome injury in Super Bowl history. He planted his foot awkwardly, and his lower leg simply snapped. Horrified viewers saw his left foot spin around. (Don’t click if you’re squeamish!) Krumrie broke his ankle, tibia and fibula, and after being carted off the field, he got a 15-inch titanium rod implanted in his leg. Somehow he came back and played six more seasons after that.

By 2010, Charles Woodson had a college national championship, a Heisman Trophy, a Defensive Player of the Year Award and seven Pro Bowl appearances. However, in his career, Woodson had never won a Super Bowl. When he finally had his shot, he was anguished when he dove to defend a pass in Super Bowl XLV and broke his collarbone. Woodson left the game, but the remaining Green Bay defenders managed to hold off the Steelers enough to preserve a 31-25 win. After the game, Woodson had one arm in a sling — and the Lombardi Trophy in the other.

The Miami Dolphins are the only 17-0 team in NFL history, and they nearly finished the season with a 17-0 Super Bowl VII win. With just over two minutes left, leading 14-0, coach Don Shula sent in Garo Yepremian to kick a field goal. The kick was blocked, but instead of falling on the loose ball, Yepremian tried to pass. The ball slipped out of his hands, and the kicker batted the ball in the air — right into the hands of a Washington cornerback. He ran it in for a touchdown, and suddenly the Dolphins had to sweat out a one-possession lead. They held on, so Garo didn’t have to face his teammates’ wrath for long.

In a wildly exciting fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXXVIII, the Carolina Panthers scored 19 points, the last coming on a game-tying touchdown with 1:08 to go. The game appeared bound for overtime until John Kasay blasted the kickoff out of bounds . That penalty gave New England the ball at the 40, barely out of field-goal range, and Adam Vinatieri kicked the game-winner 64 seconds later.

Before the 2002 season, the Raiders traded their coach, Jon Gruden, to Tampa Bay for four high draft picks. When Bill Callahan took over, he didn’t bother to change all the signals, which proved unfortunate when the Raiders took on their former coach in Super Bowl XXXVII. The Buccaneers picked off MVP Rich Gannon five times and returned three picks for touchdowns, probably in part because they knew what was coming. Callahan went 4-12 the next year, and Al Davis sent a clear signal by firing him.

Trailing 20-19 in Super Bowl XXV, the Buffalo Bills marched down the field to the New York Giants 29, setting themselves up for a game-winning field goal. Unfortunately for Buffalo fans, kicker Scott Norwood pushed the ball a yard wide of the goalposts, and the Bills lost the first of four straight Super Bowls. If that first one had gone the other way, perhaps things could have been different for Buffalo as a city and a franchise. Maybe we’d talk about Jim Kelly like he was Tom Brady, maybe the Sabres don’t get hosed by Brett Hull’s skate being in the crease and maybe Vincent Gallo never makes "Buffalo 66."

On the first play of Super Bowl XLVIII, Peyton Manning ran up to the line for one of his trademark audibles, but before he could bark out “Omaha!” six or seven times, the center snapped the ball. It went over his head and out of the end zone for a safety, the first mistake in a disaster of a game for the Broncos. With the final score, 43-8, in favor of the Seahawks, the only happy people in Denver were the ones who bet the long shot odds that the first score would be a safety.

Carolina was trailing Denver 16-10 in Super Bowl 50 when Von Miller forced his second Cam Newton fumble of the game. Newton looked to have the best shot of grabbing the loose ball, but instead of diving immediately, he hesitated. Denver took possession at the 4-yard line and put the game away with a touchdown.

Baltimore was on its way to a blowout in Super Bowl XLVII until the third quarter was interrupted by a blackout. Some blamed a faulty relay device, while some credited the power of Beyonce’s halftime performance for knocking out the lights. Regardless, it caused a 34-minute delay, after which the energized 49ers scored 17 straight points. It could have been a momentum shift, but the Ravens hung on for the 34-31 victory, as older brother John beat younger brother Jim in the battle of the Harbaughs.

The two biggest surprises of Super Bowl XXXVIII were Jake Delhomme’s competent quarterback play and Janet Jackson’s nipple. The moment when Justin Timberlake ripped off part of her costume revolutionized live broadcasting forever, with a standard delay built in to all live broadcasts, sometimes as long as five minutes. Jackson was blackballed after the incident, but JT pretty much skated and was back performing at halftime of Super Bowl LII.

We all remember the “Helmet Catch,” where David Tyree pinned the ball against his helmet, the defining play of the Giants’ upset win over New England in Super Bowl XLII. However, one play earlier, Eli Manning misfired on a pass to Tyree, and the ball went straight to cornerback Asante Samuel. It almost appeared that Samuel was spooked by the interception being too easy, letting the ball go right through his hands. Instead of sealing the game with a turnover, the Patriots gave up a 32-yard pass to Tyree and eventually the game-winning score just 35 seconds away from a perfect season.

Steve Wallace has a prominent place in "The Blind Side" book, but his first Super Bowl lasted only three plays. A victim of the same Joe Robbie Stadium turf that got Tim Krumrie, Wallace broke his ankle when Joe Montana fell into him in Super Bowl XXIII. He was replaced at left tackle by Bubba Paris, which we bring up only so you remember there once was a player with that name.

The NFL got a coup for Super Bowl XLIII, landing Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band to do the halftime show. They had a killer set, right up to the moment in “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” when Bruce decided to do a knee slide. Unfortunately for the cameraman, that meant Bruce slammed into his lens, crotch-first. The poor guy was traumatized, both physically and psychologically. The teams managed only a field goal in the third quarter, suggesting that the Boss’ crotch might have shook up the players as well.

The Cowboys were driving to tie the game in the third quarter of Super Bowl XIII when Roger Staubach found Jackie Smith wide open in the end zone. With no one around him, Smith seemed to lose his footing reaching for the soft pass, and the ball bounced right off his hands. Dallas ultimately settled for three instead of seven — and lost the game by four points. 

Sean Payton shocked the Colts — specifically receiver Hank Baskett — by calling for an onside kick to open the second half of Super Bowl XLIV. The play caught Indianapolis by surprise, but Baskett was still in position to grab the ball. It went off his hands, and New Orleans took over in a huge momentum swing that the Saints rode to a 31-17 victory. Baskett would catch only one more ball the remainder of his NFL career. 

Peyton Manning is a Hall of fame QB, but he’s had some really cringe-worthy Super Bowl plays. None was as bad as the pick-six he threw to Tracy Porter of the Saints, giving them a 14-point lead and effectively ending Super Bowl XLIV. Porter jumped the route, picked off the pass and was immediately on a dead sprint to the end zone. To add to the ignominy, Manning was the only Colt with a prayer of tackling Porter, and he was unceremoniously shoved to the ground before he could even try. That said, his jingle went, “The football gods aren’t on your side.”

With 12 seconds left in the first half of Super Bowl XVIII, Washington had the ball on their own 12-yard line. Rather than run out the clock, Joe Gibbs called for the “Rocket Screen,” which did not fool the Raiders at all. Joe Theismann floated a soft pass that linebacker Jack Squirek snatched out the air and ran in for a score. No surprise it was picked off: Theismann was backing up and throwing across his body, the worst mistake he made since changing the pronunciation of his last name for a Heisman Trophy campaign.

In his career, Neil O’Donnell was one of the least-intercepted quarterbacks in history, but in Super Bowl XXX, he just couldn’t stop throwing the ball to the Cowboys’ Larry Brown. In both the third and fourth quarters, O’Donnell fired directly to Brown, with no Steelers receiver in sight. Brown was so open he had plenty of space for returns, and the Cowboys scored easy touchdowns after each pick. Pittsburgh outgained Dallas and had 10 more first downs, but thanks to O’Donnell, Barry Switzer got a Super Bowl ring and Brown got a giant contract from Al Davis.

Donovan McNabb got the ball back with just under six minutes to go in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXXIX and proceeded to huddle up for the entirety of the Eagles drive. Philadelphia scored a touchdown but left only 1:48 on the clock. Some teammates explained that’s because McNabb vomited in the huddle, though others claim he was coughing or dry-heaving. Whether it was heat, conditioning or hard hits from Patriots defenders, McNabb simply couldn’t hurry up on that drive. Speaking of coughing, he also coughed up three interceptions, which didn’t help.

Jeremy Lane had a rough time of it in Super Bowl XLIX. In the first quarter, he intercepted the great Tom Brady, only to severely injure himself after a tackle from Julian Edelman on his return. He broke his wrist landing on his arm and later learned he’d also torn his ACL on the play. Lane had surgery during the game and regained consciousness in the fourth quarter with the Seahawks on the 1-yard line. He fell asleep thinking he was a Super Bowl champ and didn’t learn the truth until the next day. Oh, and he also got a staph infection in his arm afterward.

Randy White was the co-MVP of Super Bowl XII and a tough football player. That’s why he played Super Bowl XIII with a cast on his broken hand. That became a problem when the Steelers accidentally booted a squib kick on a kickoff — right at White and his cast. Instead of falling on the ball, White tried to advance it, and when future Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy tackled him, the ball popped out. Pittsburgh would go on to score the game-winning touchdown after the gaffe.

When Craig Morton’s Broncos reached Super Bowl XII, they faced his old team, the Dallas Cowboys, and Roger Staubach, the QB who had beaten him out. Maybe it was the pressure or maybe it was the Doomsday Defense, but Morton was a wreck. He threw four first-half interceptions and got benched when he almost threw a fifth in the third quarter. Denver also lost all four of its fumbles in a sloppy game in which the teams had 10 combined. It wasn’t completely Morton’s fault, but the Cowboys had to feel pretty good about how they settled their quarterback controversy.

Three times the Minnesota Vikings had reached the Super Bowl, and three times they had lost. There was a glimmer of hope to reverse that trend before Fran Tarkenton hit Raiders CB Willie Brown in stride in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XI. Brown took it 75 yards for a TD, the Raiders locked up the game, and afterward the Vikings decided they’d stop going to the Super Bowl at all.