25 Interesting Super Bowl Facts

We’re now just FOUR days from the Big Game, so we combed through the Internet and came up with 25 Interesting Super Bowl Facts for you to suck down.  Here they are:

1.  Tom Brady has thrown 18 touchdown passes in Super Bowls, which is by far the most in NFL history.  The only other quarterback with double-digit touchdown passes is Joe Montana, who had 11.  Brady has already played in eight Super Bowls . . . twice as many as Montana, who was in four.

The QB with the second most Super Bowl appearances is John Elway with five.

2.  No quarterback has more combined rushing yards in the Super Bowl than Joe Montana, who has 105.

3.  Emmitt Smith is the only player in NFL history to score multiple rushing touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls, with two.  In three Super Bowl appearances, he had 11 total catches, for over 300 yards, and five rushing touchdowns for the Dallas Cowboys.

Side note:  Can you believe it’s been 23 years since Dallas was in the Super Bowl?

4.  Emmitt, former “American Gladiators” analyst Larry Csonka, and Terrell Davis are the only running backs in Super Bowl history to rush for 100-plus yards in multiple Super Bowls.  They each did it twice.

5.  Davis is the only player in Super Bowl history to rush for three touchdowns in a single game.  He did it when the Broncos defeated the Packers, 31-24 in 1998.

6.  Jerry Rice had 589 career receiving yards in Super Bowls, the most in NFL history.  The next closest receiver is Lynn Swann with 364.  That’s 225 fewer yards than Rice.

7.  Jerry Rice is the only player in NFL history to have 100-plus receiving yards in three different Super Bowls.  Deion Branch, Antonio Freeman, John Stallworth, and Lynn Swann have done it twice.

8.  Former Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri has made the most field goals in Super Bowl history with seven.  However, the current Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski could tie or break that record this Sunday.  He has five.

9.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Super Bowl Sunday is America’s “second-largest food consumption day.”  Only Thanksgiving Day beats it.

10.  Peyton Manning is the only starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl with two different teams:  The Indianapolis Colts in 2007, and the Denver Broncos in 2016.

11.  Ever wonder why players shout that they’re going to Disney World after the Super Bowl?  It started back in 1987 when Phil Simms was paid $75,000 to shout “I’m going to Disney World” on the field moments after the New York Giants won.

12.  The New England Patriots are going to their 11th Super Bowl, more than any other team.  But believe it or not, they have NOT won the most.  That distinction belongs to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have won six.  The Patriots have won five.

So, obviously they could tie the Steelers record this weekend.

13.  The priciest tickets to the first Super Bowl, which was played in 1967, only cost $12. Adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent of about $89 today.  And even at that bargain price, the event still didn’t sell out.

Tickets for this year’s Super Bowl ARE still available on the secondary market . . . but they’ll cost you almost $3,000 apiece.

14.  In 1980, the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first Super Bowl-winning team to visit the White House.  They visited with Jimmy Carter in a joint ceremony with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who’d won the 1979 World Series.

15.  If you didn’t know, in odd-numbered Super Bowls, the NFC team is the designated ‘home’ team while AFC teams enjoy that honor during the even-numbered Super Bowls.  So this year, the Rams are the ‘home’ team.  Of course, the game is played at a neutral site . . . this year it’s in Atlanta.

16.  Although the Baltimore Colts beat Dallas in Super Bowl 5 in 1971, Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley was named the game’s MVP.  He’s the ONLY player in history to earn this honor as a member of the LOSING team.

17.  A new Vince Lombardi Trophy is handed out every year, and they’re made by  Tiffany & Co. out of sterling silver.  Each one weighs seven pounds.

18.  There’s never been a shutout in the Super Bowl.  The Miami Dolphins hold the record for fewest points scored in one.  In 1972, they lost to Dallas, 24-3.

19.  The 2017 Super Bowl was the first one to ever go into overtime.  That was the wild game where the Patriots came back to defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28.

20.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Cleveland is the ONLY current NFL city that has neither hosted a Super Bowl nor seen its own team, the Browns, make an appearance in one.

21.  From 1985 to 1997, the NFC won 13 straight Super Bowls.  During that streak, the NFC clubs outscored their AFC opponents by a cumulative score of 490-219.

22.  On San Francisco’s Super Bowl game-winning drive in 1989, Joe Montana saw a celebrity spectator . . . in mid-huddle, he nonchalantly asked his teammates, “Hey, isn’t that John Candy over there?”  (Here’s Montana talking about it.)

23.  Despite all Brady’s accolades, he can’t beat this:  Montana not only won all four of his Super Bowl appearances, he did it without throwing a single interception in any of those games.

24.  During the 1995-1996 season, some proxy servers blocked the Super Bowl website . . . because it was Super Bowl 30, written as:  “Super Bowl XXX.”

25.  The coldest Super Bowl took place in New Orleans in 1972.  The Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins battled 39-degree temperatures.  Atlanta is being hit with a winter storm this week, but by game-time on Sunday, they’re expecting temperatures in the mid-50s.

(Pro-Football-Reference.com, Wikipedia, NFL.com, MentalFloss.com, Good Housekeeping, CNN)