The 10 Most Embarrassing Super Bowl Performances of All-Time

Super Bowl XXVIII 1994

The Super Bowl is where heroes are made and goats are lambasted. From Joe Montana’s late-game drive against the Cincinnati Bengals in January 1989 to Eli Manning’s stunning final drive against the New England Patriots six years ago, we’ve come to learn that some players are up for the biggest stage that the NFL has to offer.

Meanwhile, others take it upon themselves to underperform and don’t live up to expectations. Here are your 10 most embarrassing moments in Super Bowl history.

10. Craig Morton, Quarterback, Denver Broncos (Super Bowl XII)

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Morton, who played his first nine-plus NFL seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, was tasked with going up against his former team and the quarterback that he alternated plays with in The Big D, Roger Staubach. The results were atrocious.

The stark contrast in quarterbacking ability was evident from the outset. Morton completed 4-of-16 passes for 39 yards and was intercepted four times. Any time you have as many interceptions as completed passes, you are doing something wrong. Just to put this into perspective, the Broncos finished with more penalty yards (60) than net passing yards (35) in this game. Denver ended up turning the ball over eight times in the 27-10 loss.

At least Morton completed four more passes than his counterpart in New England, QB Tony Eason (more on him later).

9. Earl Morrall, Quarterback, Baltimore Colts (Super Bowl III)

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It had to take not only a great performance from Joe Namath and the New York Jets to pull off what is still the biggest upset in Super Bowl history, but an equally bad performance from the Colts. That is exactly what happened when the upstart Jets of the AFL defeated the NFL’s darlings 16-7.

With Johnny Unitas sidelined due to an elbow injury that he suffered in the preseason, Morrall was called on to take over for the now Hall of Famer. Morrall led the Colts to a 13-1 record and threw 26 touchdowns during the regular season. He then helped them overcome both the Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns to earn a trip in Super Bowl III.

It was all downhill from there, NFL’s regular season MVP completed just 6-of-17 passes for 71 yards with zero touchdowns and three interceptions.

His 9.3 rating remains one of the lowest for a starting quarterback in Super Bowl history.

8. Thurman Thomas, Running Back, Buffalo Bills (Super Bowls XXVI and XXVII)

Thomas finds himself on this list for two separate performances in back-to-back seasons. Any time a team loses four consecutive Super Bowls, a lot has to go wrong in each game for it to end up on the losing side of the ledger each time. Thomas, an inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame back in 2007, came up empty in his final three Super Bowl appearances.

Taking on a Washington Redskins defense that ranked second in points allowed and third against the run, Thomas struggled to get anything going. The 1991 NFL MVP complained prior to the game about not getting enough respect compared to the likes of Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders, per Sports Illustrated). He responded by putting up 13 yards on 10 rush attempts. This type of imbalance on the offensive side of the ball forced Bills quarterback  Jim Kelly to put the ball up 58 times in the 37-24 loss. Kelly ended up being intercepted four times by an elite Redskins defense.

The following Super Bowl didn’t really help Thomas’ hopes of gaining respect. After putting up over 2,100 total yards during the 1992 regular season, Thomas  couldn’t do anything right against a top-ranked Dallas Cowboys rush defense. Despite scoring a touchdown in his second consecutive Super Bowl, Thomas gained just 19 yards on 11 attempts in the Cowboys dominating 52-17 victory.

The epitome of a stud regular season running back, Thomas put up a combined 4,200 total yards and 24 touchdowns in 1991 and 1992. As you read above, he tallied just 32 yards on 21 attempts in Buffalo’s two Super Bowls during that span.

7. Denver Broncos Team (Super Bowl XXIV)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqclhDPZhoA]Denver finished the 1989 regular season with the No. 1 scoring defense in the league at 14.1 points per game. It gave up 10 points or less five different times and didn’t yield more than 28 points in a single game. Wade Phillips defense also finished third in the NFL in yards against at a tad over 275 per game. They were then tasked with their most difficult matchup of the season in the Super Bowl. The San Francisco 49ers ranked No. 1 in overall offense at nearly 400 total yards and put up nearly 28 points per game, which also led the league. Something had to give here… it was the Broncos defense.

Led by Joe Montana’s five touchdown passes, three of which went to Jerry Rice, San Francisco put up a Super Bowl record 55 points in what ended up being the worst blowout in the history of the Super Bowl.

The statistics in this one were about as lopsided as it comes.

Outside of four turnovers, two of which came on John Elway interceptions, Denver’s defense couldn’t do anything right. San Francisco punted a total of two times before it put up the last of its 55 points and decided to run the clock down with conservative calls. They even had the ball inside the Broncos 40-yard——————————— line twice in the fourth quarter and decided that enough was enough. In reality, the 49ers could have easily put up 70 in this game.

For his part, Elway was downright atrocious. He completed just 10-of-28 passes for 108 yards and those two touchdowns. He was also sacked six times by the onslaught of San Francisco’s defensive front. The 49ers were 13-point favorites in this game, a number that ended up being nothing more than history in the first quarter. This wasn’t only one of the most lopsided Super Bowls in NFL history, it was one of the biggest postseason blowouts in the history of the game.

6. Kerry Collins, Quarterback, New York Giants (Super Bowl XXXV)

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Facing one of the top defenses in the history of the NFL (Baltimore Ravens) back in Super Bowl XXXV, Collins simply wasn’t able to move the football with ease like in the regular season. The original first pick of the Panthers franchise, then a member of the New York Giants, absolutely crapped the bed on NFL’s biggest stage.

After throwing five touchdown passes against the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship Game two weeks before, Collins knew his task was going to be more difficult in the Super Bowl. Baltimore’s defense, led by the likes of Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson, yielded a modern NFL record-low 10.3 points per game in route to one of the best regular season performances in the history of the league.

Heading into the game, Collins wasn’t going to be asked to do too much. He just needed to control the clock, put up some points and avoid turnovers. This was only magnified by the fact that Trent Dilfer and the Ravens offense left a lot to be desired.

Collins couldn’t even do that, as he was intercepted four times and averaged 2.9 yards per attempt in the game. Baltimore committed nine penalties and recorded just 244 yards in the 34-7 victory. In what might go down as the worst Super Bowl ever played, Collins was the goat.

5. Neil O’Donnell, Quarterback, Pittsburgh Steelers ( Super Bowl XXX)

super-bowl-xxx-interception-oO’Donnell made Larry Brown famous. That’s pretty much all I need to say about his inclusion in this article. The pedestrian starting quarterback took over for Mike Tomczak four games into the regular season and “led” Pittsburgh to a 9-3 record and a first-round bye in the postseason.

Riding the two-headed running back monster of Bam Morris and Erric Pegram, who combined for nearly 1,600 total yards and 15 touchdowns, Pittsburgh finished the regular years as the fifth highest-scoring offense in the NFL.

After barely scratching by with two touchdowns and three interceptions in the playoffs against the Buffalo Bills and Indianapolis Colts, O’Donnell absolutely imploded against the Dallas Cowboys third-ranked defense.

Unlike the other quarterbacks on this list, his stat line wasn’t atrocious. O’Donnell completed 28 passes for 239 yards on the day.

It were the three interceptions, two of them to Brown, that sealed Pittsburgh’s fate in Super Bowl XXX. Down just 13-7 in the third quarter, O’Donnell threw what has to be considered the worst pass in the history of the big game.

In total, he threw two errant passes to Brown, who set up Dallas with great field position. These two passes ended up being the difference in Pittsburgh’s 27-17 loss.

4. Scott Norwood, Kicker, Buffalo Bills (XXV)

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A kicker makes this list. You have to be kidding, right? Well Scott Norwood is considered one of the biggest goats in playoff history. The scene was Super Bowl XXV in January 1991 in Tampa, Fla. The game featured two teams that went 13-3 during the regular season, much like what we will see on Sunday. Buffalo finished the regular season first in the NFL in both scoring offense and point differential. Meanwhile, the New York Giants finished first in the NFL in scoring defense and second in point differential. For all intents and purposes, it was the two best teams in the NFL going up against one another.

Then in the matter of an instant, a kicker decided the outcome.

Norwood, who had made a field goal from 23 yards out in the first quarter and was a Pro Bowler just two years before, came on to attempt a game-winning 47-yard field goal with eight seconds left. The kicked sailed wide right, giving New York a 20-19 win. It was the first of what would end up being four consecutive Super Bowl losses for Buffalo and Norwood was out of the league within a year.

Laces out!

3. Eugene Robinson, Safety, Atlanta Falcons (Super Bowl XXXIII)

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Let this be a warning. If you’re supposedly a religious man with deep ties to the community, don’t let a solicitation charge ruin your Super Bowl performance. Most Falcons fans didn’t care  about how Robinson’s off-field antics the night before Super Bowl XXXIII impacted his personal life, it was all about his disastrous performance on the football field the next day.

Short story, shorter. Robinson was arrested the night before the big game in a seedy part of Miami on soliciting an undercover for oral sex. Earlier that day, the free safety received the Bart Starr Award for his “high moral character.” Honestly, we can’t make this stuff up.

Robinson went on to give up an 80-yard touchdown catch to Rod Smith and another long pass down the field in Atlanta’s 34-19 loss to John Elway and the Denver Broncos. It remains to be seen just how much the events of the previous night played into Robinson’s struggles, but it’s important to note that he was a Pro Bowler during the regular season.

2. Tony Eason, Quarterback, New England Patriots ( Super Bowl XX)

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Eason did not complete a single pass in this game.

He started for New England against arguably the best defense in the history of the league, missing on all six of his passes before being replaced by Steve Grogan in the first half.

The only reason why Eason isn’t higher on this list is because he attempted six passes and was going up against the legendary Chicago Bears defense. Eason was sacked three times and fumbled once before eventually being replaced by Steve Grogan. In the end, Chicago took this game with ease,  46-10, and the game wasn’t even that close.

Eason remains the only starting quarterback in Super Bowl history to finish a game without as much as one completed pass.

1. David Woodley, Quarterback, Miami Dolphins (Super Bowl XVII)

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Arguably the worst starting quarterbacks in Super Bowl history, Woodley started all nine games during the strike-shortened 1982 season. He tallied just over 1,000 passing yards with five touchdowns and eight interceptions for a 63.5 rating during the regular year. Prior to making the start against the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVII, Woodley had thrown 31 touchdowns compared to 38 interceptions in 35 career NFL starts.

Even in Miami’s 14-0 win over the New York Jets in the AFC Championship game, Woodley completed 9-of-21 passes for 87 yards and three interceptions. It was the Dolphins defense, which held New York to 139 total yards, that enabled Don Shula’s team to advance to the Super Bowl.

Woodley followed up that pedestrian championship game performance by completing 4-of-14 passes for less than 100 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Interestingly enough, Miami opened up the scoring when Woodley hit Jimmy Cefalo for a 76-yard touchdown passes in the first quarter. He would complete just three more passes for 21 yards after that.

The one silver lining here for Dolphins fans is that this performance led them to select Dan Marino in the first round of the NFL draft a few months later. Woodley started 13 more games in his NFL career, none of them with the Dolphins.

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