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The NFL season is now coming up fast. It will be a different kind of a season,
Number 10 was the Eagles 2002 NFC Championship Game loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And personally, my first reaction on seeing this in the list was to wonder just what in the hell this loss was doing on the list. After all, it is more or less your average, run of the mill loss, with perhaps the one exception being that it was the last game to be played at the old Veterans Stadium. And yes, the Eagles seemed like the better team, and it was very cold, and Tampa Bay was not a very strong cold weather team.
Okay, got it. But after getting off to an explosive start with an early touchdown, Philly pretty much got dominated for the entire rest of the game. No last minute strange play or call or controversy. No massive collapse after taking a big lead. And the Eagles that year were hardly one of the dominant teams of the era. Sure, it was a disappointing loss, but so is every playoff loss for the team that loses. Maybe this one was more disappointing than most, but come on? Top ten most crushing defeats of all time? No, I don’t think so. Get this one off the list.
Number 9 was the Tuck Rule game. This was a devastating loss, and I can understand why this would be on here. After all, the Patriots dynasty started this season, and it might not have happened if they had lost. The Raiders should have won, but they did not, and it is largely because of that hugely controversial call that went in favor of the Patriots, but maybe should not have. I am not sure, and can see it either way. But in terms of just how devastating this loss was, yes, it was pretty much one of the most devastating losses for a team, and it is understandable and reasonable that this one should be on there.
Number 8 was actually two, but both involved Brett Favre bringing teams to NFC Championship Games, and having his team on the verge of the Super Bowl, only to throw a key pick at the most inopportune moment possible. I disagree with this one, for two reasons. First of all, this was particularly devastating for one man in particular, and that man had a Super Bowl ring already, and he already was assured his future as a Hall of Famer after a truly legendary career. Also, these two losses might have been crushing, but they were with two different teams. Not just two different teams, but two division rivals. So, while devastating, I just do not agree with this being in the top ten. Sorry.
Number 7 was the Music City Miracle, when the Titans shocked the Bills with a miracle touchdown on what was virtually the game’s final play. Yes, I can understand this one, because it was one of the most famous – or infamous from a Buffalo perspective – loss that any team suffered. We still hear about this game, and for good reason. It seemed like the Bills had this one wrapped up. And then, just like that, it was snatched away from them. Sure enough, the Bills would go nearly two decades without making it back to the postseason following this loss, so it really did hurt them quite a bit.
Number 6 should, frankly, have been much higher on the list. This one was the Houston Oilers, blowing a 35-3 lead over the Buffalo Bills, and losing the Wildcard Game in the 1992-93 season. Indeed, this one hurt, and hurt really badly. You can basically say that it ended the existence of a team known as the Houston Oilers. They had been a very talented and solid team for years prior to this, and they seemed to be ready to go much farther this season. They had just blown out the Bills in a very meaningful game the week before in Houston, and again, that 35-3 lead, when everything seemed to be going right for them.
Then, a collapse unlike anything that we had ever seen in the playoffs before. From everything going right, to nothing going right, and the team completely falling apart. I think that this list was made before Super Bowl LI, when the Falcons, in a similar fashion to these 1992 Houston Oilers, and improbably, just completely fell apart and blew a huge lead. That was the only comeback, even in the playoffs, that quite reached that level. I know that the Chiefs blew a 28-point lead – twice – to the Colts back in 2013, and the Giants blew a 24-pointlead to the Niners back in 2002. But neither of those completely destroyed the teams like the Falcons loss in Super Bowl LI (which was too recent for this video, I presume) and the one epic collapse that they did put, which was this Oilers loss to Buffalo.
Brutal.
Number 5 was Super Bowl XLIX, when the Seahawks appeared to be on the verge of winning their second straight Super Bowl title.
This one also should be higher on the list for me, and possibly much higher. At least number three, and possibly number two. After all, it was a Super Bowl, and Seattle seemed to be an emerging dynasty. This was going to cement them as the real deal, with back-to-back titles. And all of that ended with that humiliating, and truly devastating loss that centered on a single play: the 2nd and 1 interception that many people, myself included, feels qualifies as the worst call in at least NFL history, and possibly sports history, under the circumstances. True, the Seahawks kind of lucked out to even be in that position, with a miracle catch just a couple of plays earlier. But that just kind of makes the devastation of this loss all the more punishing.
Number four was Super Bowl XLIII, when the Cardinals lost in the final minute to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Okay, I see how this is devastating. But worse than the Seahawks losing a dynasty on that 2nd and 1? Worse than the Houston Oilers losing that game after enjoying a 35-3 lead?
No, sorry, I don’t think so. And that is why I just cannot really enjoy these lists, because they always seem to get these things wrong. The logic behind it is that the Cardinals as a franchise had not really achieved much, and to come that close, only to fall short? Okay, got it. But that is the case with a lot of teams that lose playoff games, and even Super Bowls.
True, the Cardinals franchise had gone a very long time without doing much of anything. Then, just like that, they are in the Super Bowl. But they frankly did not feel like the better team, and they came back from a fairly large deficit to almost win the big game. But once the Steelers got going with that drive at the end, there was just this feeling that they were going to win. And while I was pulling for the Cardinals, I nevertheless felt that the better team won. Also, the Cards could appreciate just how successful their season had been, since again, they really had not accomplished much of anything in a long, long time.
Frankly, I am not sure that this one belongs in the top ten list of most disappointing losses, either. Although maybe at the time, before the Falcons Super Bowl collapse, I could see it still on this list.
Number three was Super Bowl XXV. This one I can understand. After all, this one set the Buffalo Bills back in a big way. Hardly anyone ever remembers anymore how the Bills players were basically suggested that they would be the team of the decade in the 90’s. People have gotten so used to making jokes about how the Bills could not win a Super Bowl, going so far as to muse if BILLS stood for Boy, I Love Losing Super Bowls.
But in 1990, the Bills had not lost a Super Bowl yet. And that team was so devastatingly good, that you pretty much knew shortly after midseason that they would represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. They went 13-2 before dropping what was to them a meaningless game in the regular season finale, then crushed Miami and the Raiders in the AFC playoffs, putting up a combined 95 points in those two games.
In the Super Bowl, they played the Giants, a team they had beaten at Giants Stadium just six or seven weeks earlier. Their offense looked unstoppable, and their defense was as solid as they would be during that era. That was the season where it seemed like they should win, the best of the Bills Super Bowl teams of the 90’s. And then the Giants managed to keep that explosive offense off the field for most of the game, and exhausted the defense. Yet still, Buffalo had a chance to win it right at the end, only to have to endure Norwood’s now infamous wide right. I am a Giants fan, but I always felt that Norwood handled himself with dignity, and that the city of Buffalo was a class act in cheering Norwood upon his return to that city.
Still, that set up the obviously crushing streak for a Buffalo Bills team that should be remembered for the great things that they did in the early nineties, including a record four straight Super Bowl appearances. Instead, the only thing that people seem to remember is them losing all four. And that one, obviously, was the closest of the lot. Crushing.
Number two is actually two games, like the Brett Favre interceptions. But this one makes more sense, because it happened to one NFL franchise. Yes, it was the Cleveland Browns back in the eighties, when they went to three AFC Championship Games in a four year span, and were damn close to winning not just once, but twice.
One guy made a good point: the Browns had two games with nicknames that served as devastating and humiliating loss. The first was the first of two straight AFC title game meetings against John Elway and the Denver Broncos. It will forever be remembered as “The Drive,” because Elway orchestrated a brilliant drive in the final minutes, when it seemed hopeless for Denver. But the tying touchdown forced overtime, and the Broncos would win it.
Then, the rematch the next season. The Broncos took a huge lead early, though, taking a 21-3 lead into the locker room at halftime.
But the Browns came back. Ernest Byner had a monster game. Indeed, it looked like he was unstoppable, and that the Browns really could and even would win it. Then, just like that, Byner fumbled the ball, and the Super Bowl hopes for an entire city, for a second straight year.
Indeed those were some devastating losses by Cleveland, and both times, by the same losing team to the same winning team. One of the guys commentating mentioned that the two losses can and should be combined into one, since they kind of mesh, as he suggested, into the same snow blizzard leading to disaster. On top of it, they would lose to Denver yet again two years later in the AFC Championship Game, making it three times in a four year span that the Browns lost to the Broncos, which led to perhaps the other huge, crushing disappointment for Browns fans just a few years later, which some fan aptly nicknamed “The Betrayal.” That was when the Browns decided to leave town, and became the Baltimore Ravens. At first, Cleveland looked like they had lost their NFL franchise altogether, although they would get their team back, eventually, in 1999. If you mention those disappointments by Cleveland, then this ranking does make sense, as it came to define not just the football team, but Cleveland’s rough sports history – not to mention the rough patch that the city more generally suffered during that same time period - in general, from 1964 until 2016, when the Cavaliers finally won a sports title for the city again.
Number one is Super Bowl XLII. This one I can actually see and understand. After all, while the Patriots may have been a dynasty already, and knew what it was to win Super Bowls, it nevertheless had to be incredibly devastating to have enjoyed the kind of dominant, even unprecedented season that New England enjoyed that season, going undefeated and winning more generally like no team had ever won before, only to fall short in the final seconds of the biggest game of them all. In an incredibly short period of time, the Patriots from being known as the “greatest team in NFL history” to the “greatest choke in NFL history.”
So I agree with this one, even if the Pats had won three Super Bowls before this, and would eventually win three more during the Belichick-Brady era. I still believe that this was the most devastating loss in Super Bowl history, at least prior to the Falcons collapse after taking that 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl against this same Belichick-Brady era New England Patriots franchise.
If it were up to me, at least two, and quite possibly three of those losses would be removed from the list.
What would they be replaced with?
Well, as already mentioned, Atlanta’s truly stunning Super Bowl collapse after taking that 28-3 lead comes to mind. So, too, does the NFC Championship Game loss by the 1998 Minnesota Vikings to the Atlanta Falcons, after an unbelievable 15-1 season, in which the Vikings became the first of the so-called “video game” offenses. I would have to think about other losses that maybe could be up here, but one would be the Rams losing to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI, which seemed to end what was then an emerging dynasty for the Rams, who were then known as the “Greatest Show on Turf.” Or how about when the Packers blew a 16-point, fourth quarter lead in a game that they had been completely dominating up to that point, ultimately losing to the Seahawks in overtime? They could have been - should have been - in the Super Bowl. Instead, they go home as also rans.
Plus, there are others, as well. The Titans coming agonizingly close to tying the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV would be another great example. Personally, I also would think that the Broncos continually losing Super Bowls in the 1980's was devastating, especially the last one, when many Denver players scoffed at how strongly favored San Francisco was, and claimed that the real upset would be if the Broncos did not win. Then, they went out and got humiliated, 55-10, and that team would not recover for many years later. Or how about the Vikings of the 1970's, who kept reaching Super Bowls, only to continually lose and fall short?
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