All-time Super Bowl power rankings: Which game was the best?
By James Dudko
46. Super Bowl VIII: Miami Dolphins 24, Minnesota Vikings 7
How do you win a Super Bowl when your quarterback throws only seven passes? It was the sole interesting question to emerge from the eighth edition of Super Sunday after the Miami Dolphins had worn down a Minnesota Vikings team cowed by the spotlight.
The answer proved to be a simple one. Dolphins quarterback Bob Griese only had to air it out seven times because battering ram-style fullback Larry Csonka ran the ball 33 times for 145 yards and two touchdowns.
Csonka got the Lion’s share of Miami’s mammoth 53 rushing attempts. The numbers are impressive, but smash mouth football only looks good when scored with the old NFL Films music and narrated by John Facenda’s elegiac voice.
45. Super Bowl VI: Dallas Cowboys 24, Miami Dolphins 3
The Cowboys were so determined to erase the memory of the ‘Blunder Bowl’ they delivered a performance so precise and efficient it rendered the sixth Super Bowl a forgettable spectacle.
Don Shula’s young Dolphins team wasn’t quite ready for the big stage immediately after the ’71 season. Not when Cowboys coach Tom Landry and the first incarnation of the ‘Doomsday’ defense were already treading the boards.
The abiding image of this game was Cowboys defensive tackle Bob Lilly chasing down Dolphins passer Griese for what proved to be an epic 29-yard loss.
When a loss is the standout memory from a game, it says nothing good about the rest of it.