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Whether you’re rooting for the Dallas Cowboys to prove the haters wrong, the Kansas City Chiefs to three-peat or the Houston Texans to win their first-ever Super Bowl, the NFL season is set to provide us with yet another polarizing season. Of course, that ultimately ends with the Super Bowl, and there is never a shortage of ways to break them down. One way is to look at the shortest Super Bowls ever, and that’s what we’ve done here.
Given that there have been just two Super Bowls to ever go into overtime, in terms of game clock, all other Super Bowls have run the 60 minutes. Therefore, when discussing the shortest Super Bowls ever, we’re talking in terms of real-time from the opening kickoff to the end of the game.
So, the fastest Super Bowl of all time took place on February 7, 2010, between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. Of course, it’s not famous just for lasting barely over three hours. This Super Bowl galvanized an entire city and state, as the Saints won their one and only Lombardi Trophy in franchise history the same season in which the tragic Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
It was also a game that featured both a kickoff and interception returned for touchdowns en route to the Saints 31-17 victory.
As for the other shortest Super Bowls ever, there are three tied with the same length of three hours and 23 minutes, just nine minutes longer than the fastest Super Bowl ever. The first of which we have listed shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the style of football the Baltimore Ravens displayed in the 2000-01 season and their blowout Super Bowl win.
Ray Lewis and the feared Ravens defense crushed the Giants 34-7 for their first of two Super Bowls in franchise history. It came just a handful of years after becoming a franchise in 1996, and their defense that season is considered one of the best in NFL history. Thanks to that and the elite rushing of rookie RB Jamal Lewis, the clock always seemed to churn away during their historic season.
Although the Giants were convincingly on the losing end against the Ravens, they’re also among the list of the shortest Super Bowls ever in a positive light. Better yet, this was the second of two Super Bowl victories against the New England Patriots dynasty.
Eli Manning was the kryptonite for Tom Brady, but no, this was not the Lombardi Trophy run that culminated in The Helmet Catch. We’ve shared our top five Super Bowl moments here, but for this quick matchup, it was the Giants taking it in 21-17 fashion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It began with a safety and featured very few explosive plays, which correlates to the time running off the clock quite rapidly.
Interestingly enough, the final game in our list of the shortest Super Bowls ever also began with a safety! That’s quite rare, but perhaps it correlates thanks to the Seahawks “Legion of Boom” defense. It’s one that was on par with the aforementioned 2001 Ravens defense, which is how they got in and out of games so quickly.
Unlike Eli Manning’s success against the Patriots, Peyton Manning was on the wrong end of the safety that began this game and the pick-six that occurred in the Colts loss in the fastest Super Bowl in NFL history. Another similarity between the Seahawks and Ravens is that Seattle also dominated this Super Bowl, routing the Broncos in 43-8 fashion. They would lose the next season’s Super Bowl to the Patriots in a matchup that featured the famous Malcolm Butler interception.
Mark has been a lifelong fan of all sports, and five years ago turned it into a profession, specializing in the NFL, NHL and MLB. He is a diehard Baltimore Ravens fan and has had his work published in sites such as Sports Illustrated, Pickswise and other top outlets.