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When you think of great Super Bowl memories over the years, it helps when your favorite team wins the Super Bowl.
Yet, it cannot happen every year. And you should be able to enjoy some great athletic feats, team strategies, or sudden, perhaps even unexpected, brilliant individual performances.
In that spirit, one of my personal favorite memories from Super Bowl Sunday back when I was a kid was in Super Bowl XXII. Washington qualified to represent the NFC for the big game, and they were playing Denver, the team that the Giants had beaten in the Super Bowl one year earlier. Elway and the Broncos looked good that season, and were in fact expected to win.
After one quarter of play, it sure seemed obvious why they were the favorites. They jumped out to an early 10-0 lead, and just seemed to own an advantage in virtually every facet of the game. The defense was pitching an early shut out, and the Washington offense just looked ineffective. Quarterback Doug Williams was trying to become the first black quarterback to ever win the big game, but he sustained a knee injury and looked uncertain for the rest of the game at one point. Meanwhile, Elway and the Denver offense looked hot. Up by 10 already, one more touchdown might just have put the game away.
Indeed, at that point, it sure seemed like Denver was on their way to a win. Williams concedes that things looked pretty grim at that point:
“We had a bad first quarter. We were dropping some passing and the were blitzing us. But at the same time, the Washington Redskins have been know was a team that gets behind but hangs in there.”
However, there was still plenty of football left to be played. At least that was the case for Washington. And they played their best - their very best single quarter in franchise history, arguably - in the second quarter. That was when they took over the entire game.
The second quarter was very memorable for that game. Possibly, it was the most memorable single quarter that I can remember of any Super Bowl, and certainly, it was the most memorable single quarter of a first half. That was because it was one of the most extreme examples of a radical change of momentum that I can remember for any game. As mentioned, Denver began the quarter seemingly dominating, and closing in on the Super Bowl title. By the end of that quarter, Washington had pretty much clinched the title, and Denver looked like the completely beaten, exhausted team that simply had no answers for what Washington was doing to them.
Williams recalls it now, more than three decades later:
“I think that second quarter was probably the greatest quarter I’ve ever been around. After we scored 35 points in the second quarter, the way the defense was playing, I thought the most important thing was to keep Elway in the pocket.”
Broncos linebacker Karl Mecklenburg obviously recalls it very differently. He still has a hard time understanding how exactly his team simply collapsed so completely in that one single quarter:
"I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t think it was a collapse. They just got one guy on one guy and made the big plays. Their great players made the big plays. Our great players didn’t.”
Yes, that quarter was amazing. Doug Williams believes it was the greatest quarter that he was ever around in his storied NFL career. He completed 9 of 11 passes for 228 yards and threw four touchdown passes, all of that just in that single quarter. The defense stepped up in a big way, too, clamping down on Denver's dangerous offense, and the biggest threat, of course, Elway himself. He threw an interception, and the Broncos simply could not get anything going. Meanwhile, the Broncos simply could not stop, or even slow down, a Washington offense running on all cylinders. They scored five unanswered touchdowns to put the game away well before halftime, seemingly erasing a 10-0 deficit with ease, and then building up a 35-10 lead, as well as a breathtaking shift in momentum, that proved simply too much for the Broncos. They never even came close to making a game of it again.
In the end, Washington beat Denver, 42-10. Williams was named Super Bowl MVP, and made history that day.
Recently, Williams reflected on that day, which occurred nearly three and a half decades ago. Here is some of what he said in a recent interview with PIX11 News:
“You look at yourself in the mirror and you say, ‘you’re part of Black history. You really don’t look at it, but then the older you get, I think, you really realize that I did something that can never be done again.”
Yet at the time, Williams downplayed that particular storyline:
“All the talk about Elway wasn’t as much motivation for me as it was for the team.”
“I didn’t come here to be the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl. I came here to be the Washington Redskins quarterback. I came here to win it.”
Well, he got to be both, winning the MVP honors to boot. Now, he can reflect on having made history on that memorable day.
A movie is going to be made about this historic occasion. Williams believes that his son could and perhaps should play the part. But failing that, he would not mind Jamie Foxx playing the part.
Below are the links to this story from two sources, from which I obtained the quotes used above:
Super Bowl XXII: In 2nd quarter, Redskins score five TDs vs. Broncos By JOSEPH SANCHEZ | The Denver Post January 27, 2014:
https://www.denverpost.com/2014/01/27/super-bowl-xxii-in-2nd-quarter-redskins-score-five-tds-vs-broncos/
Super Bowl legend Doug Williams talks biopic, reflects on making NFL history by Justin Walters, Feb 9, 2022:
https://pix11.com/the-big-game/super-bowl-legend-doug-williams-making-football-history-new-film/?fbclid=IwAR1hozjQFGvEphgX5L4S6W04C9QXiejNdT84Z9BgUgem0cvgAw0Fnezl2JI
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