My love for American football has led me, over the years, to read tons of articles of all kinds, although the type of article that I have come across most assiduously is undoubtedly the power ranking: gentlemen, these Americans love to try to give an order to things because it is well known that assigning a number to a cereal is the best way to feel safe before the disintegration of the fabric of society... FOOTBALL, let's talk about football.
Americans love power rankings so much that, over the years, they have been able to plagiarize me to the point of making me a power ranking addict.
Speaking of compensation attempts, to make up for the first Sunday without football since September - don't worry, in a while this will become the norm - I decided to try my hand at creating a power ranking of the Super Bowls played in this century: I won't go any further because I don't think I have the objectivity needed to make a meaningful comparison between Super Bowl VI and Super Bowl LI, a comparison that would allow me to explain the reasons for my choices.
It goes without saying, a game fought and dragged to the last second for obvious reasons will be higher in the standings than a monologue resulted in a drubbing with more than twenty points.
PS: there will be just a little bit of New England Patriots.
20) Super Bowl XXXV
Final result: Baltimore Ravens 34 - New York Giants 7
Worth remembering because: for Ravens fans only.
Throughout the game millions and millions of casual fans all over the world wondered if the Super Bowl was just a training session with a halftime show or a hyper-competitive game between what on paper were the best teams during the regular season: had it not been for at least half a dozen interceptions blatantly dropped by Baltimore, the final score would have been even more humiliating for the Giants.
Read more : Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl wins
19) Super Bowl XLVIII
Final result: Seattle Seahawks 43 - Denver Broncos 8
To be remembered because: Joe Namath's furlough during the coin toss.
That it wasn't the Broncos' day was understood almost immediately when starting center Manny Ramirez, in a fit of mythomania a la Elon Musk, decided to colonize Mars by sending us the first football via the first snap of the game: if nothing else, even the Martians will be able to enjoy playing this magnificent sport.
It's funny to think that those were the same Broncos that in the regular season had pulverized every imaginable record on offense.
In honor of his 71st birthday today, we give you Joe Namath at Super Bowl XLVIII in a fur coat. pic.twitter.com/Stw9hpIw0V
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) June 1, 2014
18) Super Bowl XXXVII
Final result: Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48 - Oakland Raiders 21
To be remembered because: the shots on Gruden to justify the title of Gruden Bowl.
The game itself was certainly not boring or poorly contested, it's just that you're unlikely to win a Super Bowl by throwing five interceptions.
In fact, such a Super Bowl will most likely not even be particularly close.
Read Also : Buccaneers Super Bowl Win Over Raiders
17) Super Bowl 50
Final result: Denver Broncos 24 - Carolina Panthers 10
Worth remembering because: Halftime Show with Coldplay, I hate Coldplay.
Let's forget about a boring game for long stretches decided by a couple of by Von Miller that led more or less directly to 15 of the 24 points scored by Denver, if a Super Bowl is polluted by Coldplay the fact that this Super Bowl does not occupy the last place of any ranking is the greatest proof that finally, after years of more or less hard work, your beloved Mattia is beginning to mature as a person.
16) Super Bowl XLI
Final result: Indianapolis Colts 29 - Chicago Bears 17
Worth remembering because: Rex Grossman played in the Super Bowl, can your favorite quarterback say the same?
Devin Hester had deceived us that a team led by Rex Grossman could blow the Lombardi to a team led by Peyton Manning, but unfortunately for them after fifteen minutes the first quarter is over.
Not a bad game, in fact, simply not the most exciting.
15) Super Bowl LIII
Final result: New England Patriots 13 - Los Angeles Rams 3
Worth remembering because: punters are people too.
The 53rd Super Bowl was...interesting, shall we say.
Hated by the horde of casuals who remember the existence of this league/discipline only once a year because of the abnormal amount of punts and defensive stops, in my opinion it was an excellent clash between two extremely well coached teams that actually gave life to a very long chess game between two crazy coaches who were diametrically different in every way: in one night we learned, perhaps, to definitely appreciate punters, heroes whose contribution is too often taken for granted.
Here’s what Ryan Allen did in Super Bowl LIII. Four punts inside the 25 and three inside the 10. pic.twitter.com/jri3psO2aq
— Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) March 19, 2019
14) Super Bowl XL
Final result: Pittsburgh Steelers 21 - Seattle Seahawks 10
To be remembered because: who doesn't like a trick play?
In my opinion, the Super Bowl was a bit anonymous, but it was enlivened by Randle El's beautiful trick play.
It was made special by Jerome Bettis, a native of Detroit, who retired after winning his first ring at Ford Field in Detroit.
13) Super Bowl XLII
Final result: New York Giants 17 - New England Patriots 14
Worth remembering because: 18-1.
If we were to put all the Super Bowls played so far in order of importance, this one would almost certainly end up in the top five because it has all the necessary ingredients for a great American story to be converted one day into a movie: Americans, who are grabby by nature, for some strange reason love the David versus Goliath narrative.
The whole world and the NFL would be profoundly different places if Eli Manning hadn't found a way to stop the New England Patriots from becoming the second team in National Football League history to finish the season undefeated.
12) Super Bowl XLVI
Final result: New York Giants 21 - New England Patriots 17
Worth remembering because: Eli Manning officially becoming Tom Brady's kryptonite. Eli Manning.
A few years later, out of nowhere, New York pulled off another Super Bowl run culminating in a resounding - though less so than the previous one - victory over the New England Patriots that definitely allowed Eli Manning to become my favorite quarterback since Joe Flacco.
More on that shortly.
11) Super Bowl LIV
Final result: Kansas City Chiefs 31 - San Francisco 49ers 20
To be remembered because: the criticism on social for Jennifer Lopez and Shakira's outfits.
Great game, great comeback, but we've seen better.
To understand the importance or beauty of a certain Super Bowl, in my opinion, it is necessary that a lot of time has passed since the final whistle so I do not exclude that in a few years I may have changed my mind about the first triumph of the Chiefs of Mahomes: yes, I wrote first for very specific reasons.
10) Super Bowl XXXIX
Final result: New England Patriots 24 - Philadelphia Eagles 21
To be remembered because: vomit, broken legs and the Patriots officially becoming a dynasty, more than Super Bowl this is a horror movie.
I'm not a New England Patriots fan, you know that, but it's a fact that their Super Bowls tend to be fun, hard-fought and memorable: among their victories, obviously after the one in Los Angeles, this is the least spectacular one, since New England has "limited" itself to managing the ten-point lead it accumulated thanks to two consecutive scoring drives in the last period of the game.
Get ready, dear readers, from here to the end it will be a Patriots monologue.
🗣️ @36westbrook tells the story of how Terrell Owens overcame a broken leg to play in the Super Bowl 💪
— PFF (@PFF) December 23, 2020
Presented by @DraftKings pic.twitter.com/IJzWaO1AP3
9) Super Bowl XLIV
Final result: New Orleans Saints 31 - Indianapolis Colts 17
To be remembered because: Brees' son becoming the most famous infant since the one on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind.
At first glance, the two-touchdown gap would lead us to think of a clear victory for the Saints: nothing could be further from the truth, as half of that gap came thanks to a fundamental pick six by Tracy Porter that cut short Indianapolis' potential tying drive.
Witnessing a head-to-head between two quarterbacks of the caliber of Manning and Brees certainly helps.
8) Super Bowl XXXVI
Final result: New England Patriots 20 - Saint Louis Rams 17
To be remembered because: the day it all began.
Is it more impressive that Belichick was able to jam the perfect mechanism that was the Saint Louis Rams' offensive department or because of Tom Brady's last drive?
Let's focus on Tom Brady's last drive: Bill Belichick trusts a young Tom Brady who, without any timeout, all he has to do is gain fifty yards in just over a minute to allow his kicker Adam Vinatieri to take home a Lombardi that on paper seemed to be precluded by the legendary superiority of the Rams.
Brady, even if at the time we didn't know it, proved to have ice in his veins and blah blah blah, the Patriots' first Super Bowl and so much goodbye...
Or maybe not.
Read Also : Rams Super Bowl losses
7) Super Bowl XLV
Final result: Green Bay Packers 31 - Pittsburgh Steelers 25
To be remembered because: the day Rodgers gave us the illusion of being able to win the same number of Super Bowls that Tom Brady would later win.
Great Super Bowl, little to say.
Pittsburgh has been able to respond to a first half of the game dominated by the Packers by embarking on a very good comeback stopped by the now legendary fumble by Clay Matthews arrived following the desperate request of the late Kevin Greene: first and so far only Super Bowl won by Rodgers who, poor guy, in the twenty-first century has won half of the Super Bowls won by Eli Manning.
Makes you think.
Such a powerful moment during Super Bowl XLV, as Kevin Greene (then the Packers OLB coach) implores Clay Matthews to step up and rally the defense with Charles Woodson out of the game and the Packers down by four: "It's time. It is time." RIP to a football legend. pic.twitter.com/EvItIDHWML
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) December 21, 2020
6) Super Bowl XXXVIII
Final result: New England Patriots 32 - Carolina Panthers 29
To be remembered because: so many points in so little time, so few points in so much time and like it or not Janet Jackson.
- Points scored by both teams in the first quarter: zero.
- Points scored by both teams in the second quarter: twenty-four.
- Points scored by both teams in the third quarter: zero.
- Points scored by both teams in the fourth quarter: thirty-seven.
A game of rare beauty also this time decided by Adam Vinatieri and his cold right foot, although unfortunately for many this Super Bowl will be remembered for the incident that involved Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake: if you want more information in this case you will have to make do because I am not going to talk about women's breasts, for that there are already football pages on Facebook.
Oops.
5) Super Bowl LII
Final result: Philadelphia Eagles 41 - New England Patriots 33
To be remembered because: this win took away any reason for the loquacious Eagles fans to finally stop complaining. For a couple of months.
4) Super Bowl XLVII
Final result: Baltimore Ravens 34 - San Francisco 49ers 31
To be remembered because: Joe Flacco who, after four games in which he forgot his name was Joe Flacco, became a millionaire.
Bias? Probably yes, but I don't care.
Come on, in three seconds think of a stranger Super Bowl than the one staged in New Orleans between the Ravens and the Niners, a Super Bowl in which the two coaches were brothers, a Super Bowl in which Joe instead of Flacco was Montana, a Super Bowl paused for a good half hour by a blackout.
In addition to what has been listed so far, what makes it unique is the fact that it's as if we had lived two games in one: in the pre-blackout Baltimore was annihilating San Francisco from every point of view while once the lights came back on the Niners came this close to completing the comeback, which died as a result of a heroic and controversial goal line stand by the Ravens.
Was it pass interference? Don't ask me, the only thing that matters is that Ray Lewis retired in the most epic way possible.
More info : 49ers Super Bowl lose against Ravens
A power outage during Super Bowl XLVII caused a 34-minute delay, making it the longest #SuperBowl in history, at 4 hours and 14 minutes. pic.twitter.com/jcQlDhaLlw
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) February 4, 2019
3) Super Bowl XLIII
Final result: Pittsburgh Steelers 27 - Arizona Cardinals 23
To be remembered because: the Super Bowl with the most big plays ever.
This Super Bowl has given us one of the greatest sliding door moments in sports epics, James Harrison's interception: if we subtract the seven points brought about by the absurd individual effort of the pass rusher with the number 92 from Pittsburgh's total of twenty-seven, Arizona would be the winner.
Let's try to add another three points, the ones the Cardinals could have used to close out the first half of the game with a banal kick that before the pick six would have made the fans snort: it's impossible to talk about this game without throwing ourselves into the wildest speculation.
Speaking of individual efforts, what about Santonio Holmes' game-winning touchdown?
2) Super Bowl LI
Final result: New England Patriots 34 - Atlanta Falcons 28
Worth remembering because: 28-3.
The greatest comeback I've ever seen in the most important game ever.
1) Super Bowl XLIX
Final result: New England Patriots 28 - Seattle Seahawks 24
To be remembered because: after enne years we are still discussing the fact that maybe Carroll should have run Lynch.
The victory was certainly not as resounding as the one against the Falcons, but I decided to award the 49th Super Bowl for the importance that Butler's interception has in our collective imagination: the comeback was undoubtedly exciting, but I think none of us has ever felt an emotion as intense as the one experienced in that half-second in which we managed to realize that the Patriots' undrafted free agent cornerback had actually blown the ball to the soft Lockette.
All of this, however, came after an extre mely spectacular game in which we physically didn't have a chance to relax for a second.
Read More: Super Bowl LV Game Summary
That's All Super Bowl power rankings of the 21st century.