The 10 Biggest Upsets in Super Bowl History

The biggest upset in Super Bowl history is Super Bowl III, when the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16-7 on January 12, 1969 as roughly 18-point underdogs — still the largest point spread any Super Bowl winner has overcome. Second is Super Bowl XLII, where the New York Giants beat the 18-0 New England Patriots 17-14. No underdog has ever faced longer odds than Joe Namath's Jets.

Below is the full top 10, ranked on a blend of how the game was viewed beforehand and how much the result rewrote the sport. Point spreads appear here only as a historical measure of expectation.

The 10 Biggest Super Bowl Upsets at a Glance

Spread figures vary slightly between contemporary sources, which is why several are given as approximations. The scores and dates are exact.

1. Super Bowl III: Jets 16, Colts 7

The Colts came into the Miami Orange Bowl on January 12, 1969 having lost once all year, with a defense that had shut out four opponents. The AFL had lost the first two Super Bowls by a combined 33 points, and the general assumption was that the Jets would lose by four touchdowns. Three days before kickoff, Joe Namath answered a heckler at the Miami Touchdown Club by saying the Jets would win — "I guarantee it."

They won because of the run and the defense, not the guarantee. Matt Snell carried 30 times for 121 yards and scored the game's only touchdown, a four-yard run in the second quarter. George Sauer Jr. caught eight passes for 133 yards. Baltimore's Earl Morrall threw three interceptions before halftime and was pulled for an aging Johnny Unitas in the fourth quarter, too late to matter. The Jets led 16-0 before Baltimore scored.

Namath won MVP without throwing a touchdown pass, the first player to do so. More consequentially, the result legitimized the AFL a year before the merger and turned the Super Bowl from an exhibition into the biggest event in American sports.

2. Super Bowl XLII: Giants 17, Patriots 14

New England arrived in Glendale at 18-0, having scored an NFL-record 589 points. The Giants were a wild-card team that had won three straight playoff road games. New England was favored by around 12 points, and most of the pregame conversation was about whether the Patriots would finish the first 19-0 season in league history.

The Giants opened with a drive lasting 9:59, the longest in Super Bowl history, and their pass rush spent the night hitting Tom Brady. Trailing 14-10 with 2:39 left, Eli Manning faced third-and-5 from his own 44, escaped what looked like a certain sack, and threw deep to David Tyree, who pinned the ball against his own helmet as he fell — a 32-yard gain that has been replayed more than any other snap in the game's history. Plaxico Burress caught the winning 13-yard touchdown with 35 seconds left.

Why not first? The margin of expectation was smaller than in Super Bowl III, and the Giants had beaten New England close in Week 17. But nothing else on this list ended a perfect season, which is why the argument for flipping the top two is a real one.

3. Super Bowl XXXVI: Patriots 20, Rams 17

St. Louis was a 14-point favorite, the largest spread in a Super Bowl since Super Bowl III. The "Greatest Show on Turf" had scored 500-plus points in three straight seasons. New England's starting quarterback was a second-year sixth-round pick, Tom Brady, who had taken over in Week 3 when Drew Bledsoe was injured.

New England was refused individual introductions and came out as a team, which set the tone. The defense hit Rams receivers at the line all night and turned two Kurt Warner mistakes into 14 points, including Ty Law's 47-yard interception return. St. Louis tied it 17-17 with 1:30 left, and John Madden said on the broadcast that New England should run out the clock and play for overtime.

Bill Belichick let Brady throw. Short completions to J.R. Redmond and Troy Brown moved the ball to the Rams' 30, and Adam Vinatieri hit a 48-yard field goal as time expired — the first Super Bowl decided on the final play. It launched the most successful dynasty of the modern era.

4. Super Bowl IV: Chiefs 23, Vikings 7

Minnesota came into New Orleans on January 11, 1970 with the NFL's best record and a defense — the Purple People Eaters — that had allowed 133 points all season. Kansas City was listed anywhere from 12 to 13.5 points behind, and the assumption after Super Bowl III was that the Jets had been a fluke.

Hank Stram's Chiefs never trailed. Jan Stenerud kicked three first-half field goals, one from 48 yards, then a Vikings fumble on the kickoff set up Mike Garrett's five-yard touchdown on the "65 Toss Power Trap," a call Stram narrated on a sideline microphone that has been quoted ever since. Kansas City led 16-0 at half. Otis Taylor's 46-yard catch-and-run in the third quarter ended it.

The Chiefs' defense forced five turnovers — three interceptions and two fumbles. This was the last game before the AFL-NFL merger took effect, and it squared the interleague series at 2-2, which retroactively made the AFL's case far better than one Jets win ever could.

5. Super Bowl XXXII: Broncos 31, Packers 24

Green Bay was the defending champion and about an 11-point favorite. More to the point, the AFC had lost 13 consecutive Super Bowls, and John Elway had lost three of them himself by an average of 32 points. Almost nobody expected the streak to end.

Terrell Davis was the difference: 157 rushing yards and three touchdowns, all the more remarkable because a migraine cost him most of the second quarter and blurred his vision until he took medication at halftime. The signature image, though, belongs to Elway. On third-and-6 in the third quarter, the 37-year-old scrambled, took hits from three Packers at once, and spun sideways in the air for the first down — "The Helicopter."

Denver's defense stopped Green Bay on the final possession. Elway finally had a ring, the AFC's losing streak was over, and Davis became the last running back to win Super Bowl MVP until Kenneth Walker III did it in Super Bowl LX after the 2025 season.

6. Super Bowl XXV: Giants 20, Bills 19

Buffalo's no-huddle K-Gun offense had just scored 51 points in the AFC Championship Game, and the Bills were seven-point favorites. The Giants were starting backup quarterback Jeff Hostetler and had a coordinator, Bill Belichick, who decided the only way to beat Buffalo was to keep Jim Kelly off the field entirely.

It worked almost exactly as drawn up. New York held the ball for 40:33, then a Super Bowl record, including a 14-play, 75-yard third-quarter drive that ate 9:29. Ottis Anderson ran 21 times for 102 yards and won MVP. Belichick's game plan is on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It came down to Scott Norwood's 47-yard attempt with eight seconds left, which sailed wide right by less than a yard. The Bills went on to lose four straight Super Bowls; the Giants won the closest one ever played, by a single point.

7. Super Bowl XLVIII: Seahawks 43, Broncos 8

Denver was only about a two-point favorite, so this barely registers as an upset on paper. It belongs here because of what actually happened. Peyton Manning had just thrown for a then-record 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns, and the 2013 Broncos scored 606 points, the most by any team in NFL history.

Seattle held them to eight. The tone was set 12 seconds in, when a snap sailed past Manning as he audibled and Denver was tackled in its own end zone for a safety — the fastest score in Super Bowl history. Malcolm Smith returned an interception 69 yards for a touchdown to make it 22-0, and Percy Harvin took the second-half kickoff 87 yards, again 12 seconds into the half, for 29-0.

The 35-point margin is tied for the third largest in Super Bowl history. No modern favorite has been dismantled more completely.

8. Super Bowl LII: Eagles 41, Patriots 33

Philadelphia lost MVP candidate Carson Wentz to a torn ACL in December and went into Minneapolis with backup Nick Foles, about five points behind a New England team playing in its third Super Bowl in four years.

Doug Pederson coached like a man with nothing to protect. On fourth-and-goal from the 1 in the final minute of the half, Foles lined up as a receiver, Corey Clement took a direct snap and pitched to tight end Trey Burton, who threw back to Foles for a touchdown. The "Philly Special" made Foles the first quarterback to catch a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.

Foles finished 28 of 43 for 373 yards and three touchdowns; Brady threw for a Super Bowl-record 505 yards and lost. The teams combined for 1,151 yards, the most in any NFL game, regular season or playoff. Brandon Graham's strip-sack of Brady with 2:09 left was the game's only turnover, and it delivered Philadelphia's first championship since 1960.

9. Super Bowl XVIII: Raiders 38, Washington 9

Washington entered 14-2, had scored an NFL-record 541 points, and was a three-point favorite over an LA Raiders team it had already beaten during the regular season. The point spread badly understated how the game was viewed — this was supposed to be a coronation.

The Raiders scored on a blocked punt in the first quarter. Then, with seven seconds left in the half and Washington at its own 12, Joe Theismann threw a screen that Jack Squirek intercepted and returned five yards for a touchdown and a 21-3 lead. Marcus Allen's 74-yard third-quarter touchdown run, on which he reversed field entirely, was then the longest run in Super Bowl history and won him MVP. The 29-point margin is still one of the largest ever, and the Raiders became the first team to score offensive, defensive and special-teams touchdowns in the same Super Bowl.

10. Super Bowl XLIV: Saints 31, Colts 17

Indianapolis was about a five-point favorite with Peyton Manning at the peak of his career. New Orleans had never won a playoff game before the 2000 season and had spent 2005 homeless after Hurricane Katrina.

Sean Payton opened the second half with an onside kick — the first attempted before the fourth quarter in Super Bowl history — and the Saints recovered at the Colts' 42. They scored on the drive and never gave the lead back for long. Drew Brees completed 32 of 39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns, tying a Super Bowl record for completions.

Tracy Porter sealed it with 3:12 left, jumping a route to Reggie Wayne and returning the interception 74 yards. It was the first major professional championship for any New Orleans team, and it remains the Saints' only Super Bowl title.

Games That Felt Like Upsets but Weren't

Super Bowl XLIX (Feb 1, 2015). New England's 28-24 win over Seattle is remembered as a shock because of Malcolm Butler's goal-line interception with 26 seconds left, and because the Patriots trailed 24-14 entering the fourth quarter. But the game was viewed as a coin flip beforehand — the line opened with Seattle favored by 2.5 and moved to roughly even by kickoff. It is one of the great finishes, and it turns up in The 10 Greatest Comebacks in NFL History discussion for the fourth quarter alone, but it is not one of the great upsets.

Super Bowl XLVI (Feb 5, 2012) and Super Bowl LV (Feb 7, 2021) are similar cases. Super Bowl LX (Feb 8, 2026) produced the most improbable matchup in decades, with Seattle and New England both long shots in preseason forecasts, but Seattle was the NFC's No. 1 seed by kickoff and its 29-13 win was not an upset.

FAQ

What is the biggest upset in Super Bowl history? Super Bowl III, when the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16-7 on January 12, 1969. The Jets were roughly 18-point underdogs, the largest gap any Super Bowl winner has closed, and Joe Namath had publicly guaranteed the win three days earlier.

Was Super Bowl XLII a bigger upset than Super Bowl III? By expectation, no — the Giants were about 12-point underdogs, the Jets about 18. By stakes, the argument is closer, because New England was 18-0 and three quarters away from the first perfect 19-0 season. Most historians still rank Super Bowl III first.

Has an undefeated team ever lost the Super Bowl? Yes, once. The 2007 Patriots went 18-0 and lost Super Bowl XLII to the Giants 17-14. The 1972 Dolphins remain the only team to finish a season perfect, at 17-0.

Which Super Bowl had the largest point spread? Super Bowl III and Super Bowl XXIX both featured spreads of about 18 points. The Jets won as underdogs in Super Bowl III; the 49ers won as favorites in Super Bowl XXIX, beating San Diego 49-26.

Who is the biggest underdog to win a Super Bowl MVP award? Joe Namath in Super Bowl III, by expectation. He was also the first Super Bowl MVP who neither scored nor threw a touchdown. The complete list is in Every Super Bowl MVP Winner in NFL History.

How often does the underdog win the Super Bowl? It is not rare. Roughly one Super Bowl in three through Super Bowl LX has been won outright by the team that was not favored, and several of those came in the 2020s. Most were small margins of expectation rather than genuine shocks, which is why only a handful make this list.

Do upsets happen more in the Super Bowl or earlier rounds? Earlier rounds. A No. 1 seed is protected by a bye and home field, while the Super Bowl is played at a neutral site between two conference champions who are usually close in quality. The structure is explained in NFL Playoff Seeding and Bracket Format, Explained.

Which teams have never gotten the chance to pull one of these off? Four franchises have never reached a Super Bowl at all, and 12 have never won one. See Which NFL Teams Have Never Won a Super Bowl.

This page is reviewed each February after the Super Bowl, and updated whenever a new result changes the ranking.