Biggest upsets in Super Bowl history
Everyone loves a good underdog story and a National Football League upset, especially in the Super Bowl. Whether your childhood team can win outright over a seemingly predetermined champion, you placed a wager on the underdog, or you seek a form of rooting interest for your private apathy toward the Big Game, there's a certain pleasure in watching the favorite go down. And throughout Super Bowl history, the underdog has taken home the title 17 times.
How do we quantify the biggest upsets in the Super Bowl? Emotion plays an indelible role in the leadup to Super Bowl Sunday—as you'll see with a 25-year-old Joe Namath—and passion undeniably pulses through halftime locker rooms as teams look to mount comebacks or pull trick plays to swing momentum. But for this list we'll check our clichés at the door and consider the odds alone using data from Vegas Insider to rank them from lowest to highest point spread.
For instance, recency bias and the improbability of a backup quarterback beating Tom Brady has many recalling the Eagles' surprise 2018 victory over the Patriots. But gamblers will tell you that oddsmakers set Philadelphia as just four-point underdogs, so the result was hardly shocking. If you go back to 2002, however, you'll find a title game when a younger Brady and New England—both without a Super Bowl win at that point—sprung a huge upset as massive 14-point underdogs against the high-flying Rams.
For several other examples, check out this list covering NFL upsets and highlight-reel moments from the 1960s through the 2010s. From immaculate MVP performances to painfully infamous missed field goals and defensive plays that changed the outcome of both games and franchise histories, there is plenty below to reminisce about or learn for the first time.
