The Super Bowl is hands down the biggest single sporting event in all sports. The summit of the whole NFL season usually happens in early February, following the Pro Bowl (American football’s All-Star Match) Game. The winners of each conference (NFL and AFC) take on each other in the season-ending affair to determine the best American football team in the world for that year.
We all know how popular American football is in the United States but it has become more and more appealing across the ocean as well since the NFL‘s number of European fans has increased significantly over the last couple of decades. In the United States, everything else stops and becomes irrelevant on the Super Bowl weekend. The game takes the center of the attention, but you have the super-interesting and funny commercials, the choice of the national anthem singer for the occasion, as well as the highly-popular half-time show surrounding the entire event. Click here to find out more information on the NFL.
The avid NFL fans certainly already have their favorites in terms of the most exciting Super Bowl clashes ever, but we have decided to create a top-four list of those that left the biggest impression on us. Stay tuned and enjoy the blissful memories.
4 – Pittsburgh Steelers vs Arizona Cardinals, 2009
The Steelers spectacularly won the Super Bowl XLIII in 2009. Pittsburgh have been struggling to stop the Cardinals’ wideout Larry Fitzgerald who has put up a super-dominant single-player performance on the occasion.
The momentum swung back and forth throughout the game that witnessed a shocking 100-yard interception return. The Cardinals looked to be right on the way to win it when their best player Fitzgerald caught an amazing 64-yard touchdown with less than three minutes on the clock. However, Ben Roethlisberger and company did not give up as receiver Santonio Holmes had the final word with a touchdown 35 seconds before the final whistle. The Steelers have won their sixth Super Bowl on the occasion.
3– New York Giants vs New England Patriots, 2012
Four years after the Giants’ win over the Pats in the 2008 Super Bowl (17-14), Tom Brady and his teammates were ready for revenge. However, the Giants were not going to give away anything and they showed it right from the get-go, forcing Tom Brady to make intentional grounding in his own end zone, The Giants thus had a two-point head start after the safety.
New York backed up the initial safety points with a touchdown, going on a 9-0 lead early on. It was only then when New England Patriots started playing as they got some momentum going with as many as 17 unanswered points. Interestingly, they haven’t been able to get on the scoresheet since as the Giants’ rock-solid defense took over to create another shocking comeback. New York managed to cut the gap down to two points after a couple of successful field-goal attempts.
Eli Manning then had the ball in his hands at a 12-yard-line of his team’s end zone with four minutes left to play. The inaugural pass of that action was 40 yards long as Mario Manningham caught the most important ball of his life on the occasion. Three minutes later, Ahmad Bradshaw bags the winning touchdown to secure another Super Bowl for the Giants, once again against the Patriots whose fans had to go through déjà vu of the scenario from four years ago.
2– New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks, 2015
The Patriots returned to Glendale where they had lost the aforementioned Super Bowl XLII to the Giants (the first of their two defeats to the Giants). They were up against the defending champions Seattle Seahawks in 2015 final. Their fans were skeptical as the Giants’ demons hunted them throughout the whole course of the game. Now, the match itself brought a spectacular finish to add to the entire story surrounding the Patriots’ connection with Glendale, Arizona.
We’ve entered the final two minutes of the affair at a 28-24 lead for the Patriots. The Seahawks had the ball and the Pats’ fans went through a shocking sequence of events after Russell Wilson’s successful pass for Jermaine Kearse.
The Hawks were in the red zone in the dying minutes of the contest. They weren’t at any position in the end zone. They were one yard shy of the touchdown that would grant them the Super Bowl title. You can simply hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch and finish the job, game over for the Patriots. Wilson had other plans as his pass to Ricardo Lockette was intercepted as New England claimed the title after one of the most spectacular finishes ever.
1– New York Giants vs New England Patriots, 2008
We’ve already written a lot about this game above in the article. It well deserves to be at the top spot because it probably contained one of the most spectacular plays in the history of the Super Bowl.
New England Patriots entered the game hoping to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to win a Super Bowl without being defeated at all in the season. The Pats went 18-0 on the season and reached the Super Bowl without too many problems. They were big favorites against the Giants, but things did not go smoothly for them. The real drama started in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl when the teams exchanged touchdowns for a 14-10 scoreline in the favor of the Patriots.
We’ve now come to one of the most spectacular plays ever in Super Bowl affairs. The Giants seem lost on a third-down for five yards when Manning found himself surrounded by three Patriots in a snap. Two of them had a hand on the Giants’ quarterback. Just when everyone thought it was game over for New York, Manning somehow manages to throw a deep ball out of misery. David Tyree then makes a sensational catch with one hand, securing a new first down for his team. It was a play that turned the game around as the momentum entirely switched towards the Giants’ favor.
The Giants quarterback Eli Manning then found Plaxico Burress in the red zone to score a touchdown and deny the Patriots in their quest for the impeccable season.