The 5 worst NFL teams to ever play in a Super Bowl

Before winning six Super Bowls under head coach Bill Belichick, the New England Patriots were not a well-run franchise in their first three decades of existence. One outlier year for the formerly inherently dysfunctional organization came in 1985. Despite finishing in third place in the AFC East, it was the Patriots who won the right to be slaughtered by the 15-1 1985 Chicago Bears.

Though they had eight Pro Bowlers, including two future Pro Football Hall of Famers in guard John Hannah and linebacker Andre Tippett, just getting to Super Bowl XX in New Orleans was an accomplishment. As the last team to make the AFC playoff field in 1985, the Patriots beat the division rival New York Jets, the Los Angeles Raiders and the Miami Dolphins to win the AFC.

This is notable because the Patriots had one of the six first-round quarterbacks from the 1983 NFL Draft in Tony Eason. The slender signal-caller beat Pro Bowler Ken O’Brien of Gang Green in the Wild Card round, beat the Raiders in Los Angeles two years removed from a Super Bowl win and Dan Marino‘s Dolphins in Miami a year after he won NFL MVP and got to the Super Bowl.

The Bears’ only loss that season was to Marino’s Dolphins. Had they beaten the Patriots, maybe Marino would be a Super Bowl champion? Instead, the Patriots were 10-point underdogs to the 1985 Bears in Super Bowl XX and lost by 36 points in one of the worst Super Bowls ever. Sadly, this was Hannah’s last game of his illustrious NFL career, the second-greatest Patriot to Brady.