The Super Bowl is the one game of the year everybody watches, and it owes nobody a good one. Super Bowl XXIV was 27-3 at halftime and finished 55-10, still the widest margin the game has produced. But a Super Bowl has been decided by an undrafted rookie jumping a slant at the goal line, by a tackle a yard short of the end zone as the clock ran out, and by a comeback from 25 points down in the first overtime the game ever needed. This ranks the best Super Bowls as football games - not the most important, not the biggest upsets, but the ten best to watch from kickoff to the final snap, on a method stated up front.
The Four Tests
Finish. Was the result still in doubt inside the final two minutes? This is a gate, not a score, and all ten games below pass it. It is why Super Bowl III, the most important one ever played, is not here: the Jets led 16-0 in the fourth quarter, and Baltimore's only touchdown came with 3:19 left.
Drama. How many times did the game turn? Lead changes, ties, comebacks, leads saved by one play.
Quality. Did both teams play well at the same time? A thrilling finish to a sloppy game is still a sloppy game. Baltimore won Super Bowl V on a field goal with five seconds left, but the teams combined for 11 turnovers. It passes the first test and fails this one.
Stakes. What rode on it beyond the trophy - a perfect season, a dynasty, a franchise's first title.
Drama and quality set the order, and stakes break the ties. Every round of the postseason is covered in the greatest NFL playoff games of all time; this list is the Super Bowl alone.
1. Super Bowl XLIX - Patriots 28, Seahawks 24
Finish: a goal-line interception with 20 seconds left. Drama: two ties, then a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit erased. Quality: the top seed from each conference, and a Super Bowl completions record at the time. Stakes: a Seattle repeat against a fourth New England title.
February 1, 2015, in Glendale, Arizona. The defending champions led 24-14 entering the fourth quarter, and until that night no team had won a Super Bowl after trailing by more than a touchdown in the final period. Tom Brady threw touchdowns to Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman, the second with 2:02 left, and finished 37 of 50.
Then Jermaine Kearse juggled a 33-yard catch on his back to reach the New England 5, on a ball Malcolm Butler had tipped. Marshawn Lynch was stopped at the 1. On second down Russell Wilson threw a slant for Ricardo Lockette, and Butler, an undrafted rookie, stepped in front of it.
No other game here comes as close to the top mark on all four tests.
2. Super Bowl XLII - Giants 17, Patriots 14
Finish: a touchdown with 35 seconds left. Drama: three lead changes in the fourth quarter, a Super Bowl record. Quality: a great pass rush against the highest-scoring offense the league had seen. Stakes: the only 19-0 season there would ever have been.
February 3, 2008, in the same Glendale stadium. New England had scored 589 points in the regular season, then an NFL record. The Giants held them to 14 and sacked Brady five times, twice through Justin Tuck.
The fourth quarter is what makes it a great game. The Giants went ahead 10-7, Randy Moss put New England back in front with 2:42 left, and Eli Manning's answer, with the Helmet Catch in the middle of it, is ranked first among the greatest game-winning drives in NFL history. It sits second because the most prolific offense of its era never arrived.
3. Super Bowl LI - Patriots 34, Falcons 28 (OT)
Finish: overtime, the first in Super Bowl history. Drama: 31 unanswered points from 28-3 down. Quality: one-sided for most of three quarters. Stakes: a fifth ring for Brady, a first title for Atlanta.
February 5, 2017, in Houston. Atlanta had the league MVP in Matt Ryan and the NFL's highest-scoring offense, and it led 28-3 with 8:31 left in the third quarter. The comeback itself ranks third in the greatest comebacks in NFL history.
What matters here are the plays that nearly stopped it. With 4:40 left and Atlanta up 28-20, Julio Jones made a sideline catch at the New England 22, a field goal from a two-score lead. A 12-yard Trey Flowers sack and a holding penalty pushed the Falcons out of range. James White's touchdown and a two-point conversion tied it with 57 seconds left, and White won it in overtime, finishing with 14 catches, still the Super Bowl record. Nothing beats it on drama and finish; for most of three quarters, though, only one team was playing.
4. Super Bowl XLIII - Steelers 27, Cardinals 23
Finish: a touchdown with 35 seconds left. Drama: a 14-point swing on the last play of the first half, then 16 straight Arizona points. Quality: 377 passing yards from Kurt Warner, and 258 receiving yards between Larry Fitzgerald and Santonio Holmes. Stakes: a record sixth title for Pittsburgh, against Arizona in its first Super Bowl.
February 1, 2009, in Tampa. Arizona was at the Pittsburgh 1 with 18 seconds left in the half, a touchdown from the lead. James Harrison, the league's Defensive Player of the Year, intercepted Warner at the goal line and ran it back 100 yards, a Super Bowl record.
Pittsburgh led 20-7 entering the fourth quarter. Arizona answered with a Fitzgerald touchdown, a safety on a holding call in the end zone, and a 64-yard Fitzgerald touchdown for its first lead with 2:37 left. Holmes caught the winner in the corner of the end zone and was named MVP. Few games have had two endings this good.
5. Super Bowl XXXIV - Rams 23, Titans 16
Finish: a tackle at the 1-yard line on the final play. Drama: 16-0 to 16-16, then a 73-yard touchdown 18 seconds later. Quality: 414 passing yards from Warner, a Super Bowl record at the time. Stakes: two franchises chasing their first Super Bowl title.
January 30, 2000, in Atlanta. St. Louis led 16-0 in the third quarter, and Tennessee scored 16 straight points, two Eddie George touchdowns and a field goal, to tie it with 2:12 left. Eighteen seconds of game clock later, Warner, the league MVP, hit Isaac Bruce for 73 yards and the lead.
Tennessee got the ball at its own 12 with 1:48 left and reached the St. Louis 10. With six seconds left, Steve McNair hit Kevin Dyson, and linebacker Mike Jones brought him down just short of the goal line as time ran out.
A footnote nobody could script: the Rams' previous championship, in 1951, was also won by a 73-yard touchdown pass, one that broke a 17-17 tie in the fourth quarter.
6. Super Bowl LII - Eagles 41, Patriots 33
Finish: a Hail Mary that fell incomplete on the final play. Drama: New England took its first lead with 9:22 left, and Philadelphia took it back with 2:21 left. Quality: 1,151 combined yards, the most in any NFL game. Stakes: Philadelphia's first Super Bowl title.
February 4, 2018, in Minneapolis: the best offensive Super Bowl ever played. The teams broke a yardage record that had stood since a 1950 game between the Rams and the New York Yanks, and punted once between them. Brady threw for 505 yards, the most in Super Bowl history, and lost.
New England came back from 29-19 to lead 33-32. Zach Ertz scored with 2:21 left, and 12 seconds later Brandon Graham strip-sacked Brady, the only sack of the night. The backup quarterback and the trick play are covered in the biggest Super Bowl upsets in NFL history. On quality it might be first; stakes keep it out of the top five.
7. Super Bowl XIII - Steelers 35, Cowboys 31
Finish: an onside kick recovered with 22 seconds left. Drama: Dallas trailed 35-17 with under seven minutes left and scored twice to get within four. Quality: 318 yards and four touchdown passes from Terry Bradshaw, both Super Bowl records at the time. Stakes: the first Super Bowl rematch, and the first chance for any team to win three.
January 21, 1979, at the Orange Bowl, three years after Pittsburgh beat Dallas in Super Bowl X. Dallas linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson had said Bradshaw "couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a.'" Bradshaw answered with four touchdown passes.
The play Dallas still talks about is a drop. On third down from the 10 in the third quarter, Jackie Smith, a Hall of Fame tight end, was alone in the end zone and the ball went off him. Dallas kicked a field goal and lost by four, after Roger Staubach's late rally ended with Rocky Bleier falling on the second onside kick. Both rosters are exactly the kind of franchise era the Era Draft wheel lands on.
8. Super Bowl XXIII - 49ers 20, Bengals 16
Finish: a touchdown with 34 seconds left. Drama: tied three times and never separated by more than seven points. Quality: Jerry Rice's 215 receiving yards, still the Super Bowl record. Stakes: Bill Walsh's last game, and a rematch of Super Bowl XVI.
January 22, 1989, in Miami. It went to halftime 3-3, the first halftime tie in Super Bowl history, and woke up late. Stanford Jennings returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, Rice answered with one of his own, and Jim Breech's field goal put Cincinnati up 16-13 with 3:20 left. Joe Montana's 92-yard reply is second on the same list of game-winning drives that puts Manning's first. It ranks eighth because three slow quarters cost it on drama.
9. Super Bowl LVII - Chiefs 38, Eagles 35
Finish: a field goal with eight seconds left. Drama: Kansas City came back from 24-14 at halftime, and it was tied 35-35 with 5:15 left. Quality: 73 points, the third-highest total in Super Bowl history. Stakes: a second title in four seasons for Kansas City.
February 12, 2023, back in Glendale. Jalen Hurts lost and was the best player on the field: 304 passing yards, 70 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns, a number no other quarterback has reached in a Super Bowl. Philadelphia's 35 points are the most ever scored by a losing team.
Patrick Mahomes reaggravated a high ankle sprain in the second quarter and kept playing. Kadarius Toney returned a punt 65 yards to the Philadelphia 5, the longest punt return in Super Bowl history. After Hurts tied it with a touchdown and a two-point run, a holding penalty on James Bradberry on third down let Kansas City run the clock down for Harrison Butker's 27-yard field goal.
10. Super Bowl XXXVIII - Patriots 32, Panthers 29
Finish: a 41-yard field goal with four seconds left. Drama: the lead changed twice in a fourth quarter worth 37 points, a Super Bowl record. Quality: 354 passing yards from Brady and 323 from Jake Delhomme. Stakes: a second title in three seasons for New England, against Carolina in its first Super Bowl.
February 1, 2004, in Houston. Nobody scored for the first 26:55, a Super Bowl record, and then the teams put up 24 points before halftime. Delhomme hit Muhsin Muhammad for 85 yards, the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history, for Carolina's first lead at 22-21. New England went back up 29-22, and Ricky Proehl tied it with 1:08 left.
Then John Kasay's kickoff went out of bounds, and Adam Vinatieri did the rest. It ranks tenth because its first 27 minutes were the dullest of any game here.
Honorable Mentions
Super Bowl XXV, Giants 20, Bills 19 - the only Super Bowl decided by one point, and the first in which neither team turned the ball over. The clean game around the famous missed kick is why it is here.
Super Bowl LVIII, Chiefs 25, 49ers 22 (OT) - the second Super Bowl to reach overtime, won by a Mecole Hardman touchdown three seconds before a second overtime period would have begun.
Super Bowl XXXVI, Patriots 20, Rams 17 - the first Super Bowl won on the final play.
What the Best Super Bowls Have in Common
The first thing is that the loser played well. Brady threw for 505 yards and lost. Hurts ran for three touchdowns and lost. In seven of the ten games the losing team scored at least 23 points. A Super Bowl stays in doubt to the end only when the team that loses would have made a worthy champion.
The second is Kurt Warner. He started three Super Bowls, and they produced three of the six highest passing totals in Super Bowl history - 414, 377 and 365 yards, the kind of numbers Higher Lower is built on. All three were decided in the final minute. Two are in the top ten and the third is an honorable mention. Only Brady appears more often on this page, and Brady played in ten Super Bowls to Warner's three.
The third is who lost. Atlanta, Arizona, Tennessee, Cincinnati and Carolina, half of the losers on this list, have never won a Super Bowl, and every one of them lost in the final minute or in overtime. New England is in five of the ten and won three of them by a combined 13 points, which is how thin the margins of a six-title dynasty were.
And a quirk of geography: Glendale, Arizona has hosted three Super Bowls, XLII, XLIX and LVII, and all three are on this list.
Related Reading
- The Biggest Super Bowl Upsets in NFL History, Ranked
- The Greatest NFL Playoff Games of All Time
- The Greatest Game-Winning Drives in NFL History, Ranked
- The Greatest Comebacks in NFL History, Ranked
The ten best Super Bowls span forty-four years, from the Orange Bowl in 1979 to Glendale in 2023. Spin the decades, draft ten and chase the perfect season in our daily Era Draft, or name everyone who touched the ball in a playoff game in Roll Call.