Top 10 Super Bowl Moments of the Last 10 Years

Top 10 Super Bowl Moments of the Last 10 Years

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With Super Bowl 47 odds gaining steam for Peyton and the Broncos, we wanted to share our top-10 super moments of the last 10 Super Bowls. This is a list of “moments” not “performances” so for a variety of reasons you won’t see things like Aaron Rodgers’ incredible 304-yard game with 3 touchdowns to win Super Bowl 45 or Terrell Owens catching 9 passes for 122 yards on a barely healed broken leg.

I tried my best to really determine what the top 10 Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years were on the football field. That made existential elements like “Gruden vs. Raiders” from Super Bowl 37 a tough one to omit. It also means that I’m not going to care about wardrobe malfunctions, or Prince’s awesome fallacy symbol from half-time shows.

Obviously I spent too much time thinking about this so I’m just going to get to it. If you would be so kind as to bang off a drumroll before you hit the list, I’d appreciate it. Enjoy.

An interesting turn of events occurred in the two championship football games in 2007: Tedd Ginn Jr. of the Ohio State Buckeyes had a blistering, 92-yard kick-off return in the BCS Championship Game in a losing effort to Florida. A month later, Devin Hester returned a 92-yard kick-off in the Super Bowl in another losing effort.

What’s remarkable about the play is that the initial phase of Hester’s incredible return went right up the middle of the field, gashing Indianapolis’s special teams for the opening score of the game. It was the first – and only – opening kick-off touchdown return in Super Bowl history and remains one of the top 10 Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years, if not of all time.

I know I said that I’d try and isolate specific moments in Super Bowl history for this list, but this is the most confusing 57-seconds I’ve ever seen in a big game. It may not in your personal top 10 Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years, but it’s worth noting for how much it impacted Philadelphia as a franchise and how it also handed New England their second championship.

Did McNabb puke or was he just winded? Did he run out of gas? It’s the most confusing series of events in the final minute of any Super Bowl. What the hell was taking him so long? Why was he throwing up the middle of the field with no time-outs? Why was he burning so much time off the clock trying to set up a play? Why did he bother checking down to Westbrook on first down?

These questions were never answered and McNabb, being the dink that he is, never took full blame for the debacle of that last minute. Instead he vilified Owens, which caused the destructive duo to be broken up. McNabb and the Eagles never went to the Super Bowl since, while New England became the dynasty we all love and hate today.

Manning-to-Manningham in Super Bowl 46 was one of the greatest pass and catches in the Super Bowl and deflated New England as it reminded them of another unbelievable catch. The play saw Manningham streak up the sidelines in to double coverage and Eli tossed a perfect 38-yard throw that

Manningham caught over his shoulder as he tippy-toed to remain inbounds. The play kept the Giants alive in a tightly fought Super Bowl, and set up Bradshaw’s adorable “I didn’t mean to score!” rushing touchdown that iced the game.

Get used to seeing Super Bowl 38 on this list of top 10 Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years. In a record setting play, James Harrison picked off Kurt Warner in buy viagra the endzone and rumbled down the sideline for the longest interception return in Super Bowl history. We’re talking about a 6-foot, 250-pound man here! Harrison seemingly avoids six tackles during his exhausting sprint downfield that cemented his place in history.

With the surging Cardinals down 16-20 with just under three minutes left in the final quarter, Warner connected with Fitzgerald on a short slant route. Sixty-four yards later, Fitzgerald had torn up the middle of the field leaving three Steelers in his dust for

his second score of the game in front of his sports writer father who was forced to silently cheer in the press box (where no cheering is allowed). The touchdown gave the Cardinals the lead with only a few precious minutes left on the clock. It’s the closest moment this fledgling franchise has ever come to winning the big one, and also helped Larry secure the most receiving yards in NFL playoff history.

A walk-off field goal doesn’t have the same ring to it as a homerun of a similar nature in baseball, but Vinatieri cemented his legacy as one of the all-time greatest kickers when he booted a 48-yard beauty to silence the Panthers in one of the greatest Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years. Kickers are often remembered for their failures (read: Norwood, Scott), stupidity (read: Vanderjagt, Idiot Kicker) or buffoonery (read: Gramatica brothers). Vinatieri is remembered for being a hero. And he’s a kicker who’s never made a tackle or taken a hit in a full contact sport.

The city of New Orleans needed a win after Katrina. That much we all knew, and the Saints ended up being the emotional savior of a city that felt hopeless. Drew Brees and company marched in to Super Bowl 44 against Peyton Manning’s mighty Colts and battled their way to a 24-17 lead. Problem was that Manning had the ball with over five minutes left. The Colts began pressing, but Manning threw an errant pass to Reggie Wayne which was picked off by Tracy Porter and returned for a 74-yard touchdown. Unless you had money on that game, you could feel the joy bursting out of New Orleans as Porter ran down the field and in to the endzone. It was a nationally cathartic moment for a city that desperately needed something to celebrate.

A lot of people will remember Super Bowl 40 for Roethlisberger’s passer rating, the refs screwing up a bunch of calls or Jeramy Stevens dropping all the passes. It’s a shame really, because this game had one of the most entertaining and memorable plays of all time.

The play was insane: a pitch from Roethlisberger to Willie Parker, who handed off an end-around to Randle El who continued to the right hash and unleashed a 43-yard bomb to a wide open Hines Ward in the endzone. It gave the Steelers a 21-10 lead which would be the final score of this game. Every major, offensive Steeler who had an impact on that game touched that ball in one play and Big Ben even threw a huge block that gave Randle-El time to find Ward deep down the field. When we talk about the top-10 Super bowl moments of the last 10 years, this play is often forgotten or omitted and I don’t understand why. Trickery, I suppose, doesn’t receive as much love as it should.

Wait…what?! This play is probably the most famous catch in Super Bowl history and is arguably the greatest Super Bowl moment of the last 10 years, but I’ll beg to differ in a paragraph or two.

The Patriots broke in to the backfield with three defenders getting their hands on Eli Manning, who spun and scampered his way to safety to throw a 32-yard pass down the middle of the field. David Tyree, a career special teams player, jumped up with one hand reaching for the heavens and brought the ball down as he was being molested by Rodney Harrison and pinned the ball against his skull to retain possession and give the Giants life in the final minute of the game. Four plays later, Manning lofted a perfect pass to a wide open Plaxico Burress in the endzone for the final score of the game and a Super Bowl victory that murdered Vegas since the Patriots had been 14-point favorites.

This play is substantial for a lot of reasons. The Patriots were undefeated heading in to Super Bowl 42 and that single play gave the Giants a chance to fatally wound their immortality as a team. This play also denied Brady and Belichik the chance to match Montana and Walsh with their fourth Super Bowl. It’s hard to argue that this isn’t the greatest Super Bowl moment of the last 10 years – if not ever – but I’m going to try.

Super Bowl 43 was the most exhilarating and fun championship game in the history of the league. Kurt Warner submitted one his all-time greatest performances with 377 yards and 3 touchdowns, carrying his team with Larry Fitzgerald who obliterated playoff records for receivers that year. The Steelers had just moved on from Bill Cowher to Mike Tomlin, and were matched up against two of their former coaches in Ken Wisenhunt and Russ Grimm who had bolted Pittsburgh after being overlooked for the head coaching job that Cowher left a couple seasons earlier.

This was a slobberknocker kind of game that had everything you could ask for.  But the final two drives of the game left fans on the edge of their seats. Kurt Warner connected with Larry Fitzgerald for the aforementioned 64-yard touchdown that gave the Cardinals the lead with two minutes and thirty-seven seconds left. Pittsburgh took over, and Big Ben connected with Santonio Holmes on a series of passes that put them six-yards away from the endzone.

Roethlisberger lobbed up a pass to Santonio Holmes in the corner ,who was covered by three Cardinals. The ball barely sailed over the tips of their fingers as it landed in Holmes outstretched hands. Dragging his toes inbounds, Holmes fell to the ground with the ball, a touchdown and a Super Bowl victory firmly in his two handed grasp.

That’s. Drama.

That reception was not only off-the-charts difficult, it won the Super Bowl. That’s the main difference between the Holmes catch and the Helmet Catch. Tyree’s effort kept a drive alive, and if Ellis Hobbs hadn’t fallen over trying to cover Plaxico in an unfair mismatch, the Helmet Catch wouldn’t have the same relevance in history as it does today. Keeping a drive alive and winning the Super Bowl are two very different things.

Of course, this is up for debate as is the entire list. This is just one writer’s opinion. Hopefully Super Bowl 47 will be just as exciting as some of the matchups we’ve enjoyed in the last decade. It remains to be seen if any instance from the upcoming championship matchup will have the historic impact that these moments did.

Are we going to have another Helmet Catch or Santonio-Roethlisberger connection on the final drive of the big game? All I know is that someone’s going to have to do something beyond spectacular in Super Bowl 47 to crack the top 10 Super Bowl moments of the last 10 years.