In this Jan. 28, 1990, file photo, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice raises his fist in celebration after scoring his second touchdown of the day with 34 seconds left in the second quarter against the Denver Broncos, in New Orleans, during Super Bowl XXIV.(Photo: AP)
Mississippi has a population of about 3 million, or roughly the same as Chicago.
Yet when 92 football players gather every year on Super Bowl Sunday to decide the NFL championship, native Mississippians or those with strong Mississippi ties can usually be found among them.
Such will be the case today when Seattle plays New England in Super Bowl XLIX at 5:30 p.m. in Glendale, Arizona.
Among the participants: Steven Gostkowski, a former star athlete at Madison Central, will kick for the Patriots. Joining him will be running back Brandon Bolden (Ole Miss) and linebacker Jamie Collins (Southern Miss). For the Seahawks, K.J. Wright (Mississippi State) plays physical and fast at linebacker.
But Mississippians have been known to do much more than show up. They often steal the show — most of the time in good fashion, though not always. Exhibit A: Leon Lett
So here we go with our choices of the Top 10 Memorable Mississippi Moments in Super Bowl History.
1. Eli Manning leads Giants to 17-14 upset of unbeaten Patriots
He lived in the shadow of his father, Archie, as a quarterback at Ole Miss. He was known as Peyton's little brother in the NFL.
Until this improbable night.
The Patriots had won 18 consecutive games entering Super Bowl XLII in Glendaleand led 14-10 when the Giants got the ball at their own 17 with 2:38 left in the game.
Eli moved the Giants to their 44. On third-and-five with 1:09 left, the Patriots swarmed the 27-year-old quarterback. Referee Mike Carey ran toward the pile to blow the play dead. "But they just grabbed me," Eli explained the next day at the Most Valuable Player award press conference. "Nobody pulled me down."
He escaped. And then he did what quarterbacks are taught not to do — throw the ball late down the middle of the field. His target was David Tyree, who had dropped nearly every pass thrown to him in practice two days earlier.
Tyree went up, pinned the ball to his helmet with his right hand as Patriots Pro Bowl safety Rodney Harrison wrestled him for it all the way to the ground. Somehow, Tyree held on for a 32-yard gain to the Patriots' 24.
Four plays later, Eli threw to Plaxico Burris in the left corner of the end zone for a 24-yard, game-winning touchdown.
In the playoffs, Eli led the Giants to road victories against Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay, where temperatures dipped below zero during the game. He did not throw an interception in the postseason. He did, however, escape the shadows.
2. Brett Favre wins Super Bowl XXXI 58 miles from his hometown of Kiln
Only one Division I football team, USM, wanted Brett Favre. One year after drafting him in the second round, the Atlanta Falcons gave up on Favre. The Packers acquired him for a first-round draft choice.
Bad decision, Falcons. Favre became a three-time MVP and was voted to 11 Pro Bowls. And he will forever be remembered in Green Bay as the first quarterback to deliver a championship to Titletown, USA, since Bart Starr in 1968, 29 years earlier. Favre threw a 54-yard touchdown pass to Andre Rison on the Packers' second play. Favre passed for 247 yards and two touchdowns, no interceptions, and the Packers beat New England 35-21 at the New Orleans Superdome.
Favre led Green Bay to the Super Bowl again the next season. Denver beat the Packers, 31-24.
3. Larry Grantham of Crystal Springs helps alter NFL history
Ignore what the game programs said. Larry Grantham never weighed more than 193 pounds, yet the linebacker out of Ole Miss quickly became known as one of the toughest, smartest players on the New York Jets.
The Jets were the 1968 champions of the American Football League, which had lost the first two Super Bowls to Green Bay, a member of the long-established NFL.
Grantham, who called the Jets' defensive alignments, said he knew a power shift was about to take place, despite the Jets being 20-point underdogs. "I looked at the film," he said, "and I knew we were better than Baltimore."
Joe Namath guaranteed it publicly, then helped deliver a 16-7 win at Miami's Orange Bowl that played a major role in the 1970 merger of the NFL and the AFL.
The Colts ran away from Grantham's side most of the game. Playing alongside Grantham — the undisputed leader of the Jets' defense — was VerlonBiggs, a defensive end out of Jackson State. Biggs caused a fumble on the Colts' first play of the second half.
4. Jerry Rice plays through pain to help the 49ers whip San Diego.
He had the flu before the game. By the end of it, Jerry Rice had a separated shoulder and a nasty gash on his left wrist.
Rice never blinked. He caught 10 passes for 149 yards and three touchdowns in a 49-26 blowout of the Chargers in Miami. Quarterback Steve Young threw six touchdown passes and won MVP honors in Super Bowl XXIX.
Rice, the former Mississippi Valley State star who grew up the son of a brick mason in Crawford, won two other NFL titles and was MVP of Super Bowl XXIII, a 20-16 win over Cincinnati in Miami. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010.
5. Shufflin' Chicago Bears rout Patriots in Super Bowl XX
Make no mistake: The 1985 Chicago Bears' defense is the greatest of all time, and this 46-10 rout served as the official video. While posting a 15-1 record, the Bears allowed only 198 points. The confidence of this team was demonstrated the morning after losing its only game — 38-24 in Week 13 at Miami — when players recorded a music video to the tune "Super Bowl Shuffle."
On the Patriots' first 16 plays, they gained yardage only once — a 3-yard run. The Bears held the Patriots to 7 yards rushing and had seven sacks.
Mississippi had two key players on defense — end Tyrone Keys (Jackson, Mississippi State) and cornerback Leslie Frazier (Columbus, Alcorn State). Frazier led the Bears with six interceptions entering the game, but suffered a career-ending, non-contact knee injury in the second quarter on a trick play — a reverse on a punt return.
Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton, who grew up in Columbia and starred at Jackson State, rushed 22 times for 61 yards. He earned a championship ring, but he didn't get one thing he craved — a Super Bowl touchdown. When the Bears reached the Patriots' 1-yard line in the third quarter, head coach Mike Ditka sent in William "Refrigerator" Perry — a 340-pound rookie defensive lineman — to score on a dive play. Payton was visibly disappointed on the sideline though he said little about Ditka's decision postgame.
He retired in 1987 with 16,726 yards rushing — then an NFL record. He also had more than 4,000 receiving yards.
After Payton died in 1999 at age 46 of complications from a rare liver disorder, Ditka apologized numerous times. "I didn't know scoring a touchdown meant that much to him," Ditka said.
6. Giants edge Buffalo, 20-19, during war time
Whitney Houston was right on key. Bills kicker Scott Norwood was about three feet off. That's how Super Bowl XXV in Tampa, Florida, began and ended.
Houston, in her white jumpsuit and white headband, delivered one of the most memorable renditions of the national anthem in the history of sporting events — and at the height of the Gulf War. What followed was the methodical, old-school New York Giants battling a Buffalo Bills team that thrived on an up-tempo offense.
Mississippi had stars on both sides.
Kent Hull (Greenwood, Mississippi State) was the Bills' center and on his way to becoming one of the most beloved players in franchise history. Don Smith (Hamilton, MSU), a converted quarterback, rushed for a touchdown in the game. Leon Seals (New Orleans, JSU) was a mainstay along the Buffalo defensive front. Johnie Cooks (Leland, MSU) played linebacker for the Giants.
Scott Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal on the game's final play.
Because of the Bills' frenetic offensive pace and the muggy Florida weather, both teams were exhausted afterward. NFL Films captured Cooks and Hull — former MSU teammates — wearily embracing as they headed to the locker room.
In interviews a decade later, neither remembered Houston singing the national anthem.
7. Size, speed and 'Hollywood' help dispose of Cowboys
L.C. Greenwood, born and raised in Canton, grew up to be 6-foot-6, 245 pounds. He could run a 4.7 40-yard dash. He was full of style and flare, wearing gold cleats and always carrying a suitcase so he could "leave for Hollywood whenever they want me," he would laugh and say.
Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach realized Greenwood also had a knack for sacking quarterbacks during Super Bowl X in Miami. Greenwood got him four times in a 21-17 Steelers victory on Jan. 18, 1976. It was the first of four Super Bowl victories Greenwood played in.
8. Branch: No touchdowns, but who cares?
Deion Branch of Albany, Georgia, caught 107 passes and scored 14 touchdowns in two seasons (1997-98) for Jones County Junior College.
He became the first receiver to earn Super Bowl MVP honors when he grabbed 11 passes from Tom Brady for 133 yards to help New England edge Philadelphia 24-21 in Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Florida.
9. McNair drives Titans to within 1 yard of possible overtime
It is hard to fault Mount Olive's Steve McNair — who rewrote the record books at Alcorn State and finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1994 — for the Tennessee Titans' 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV, played in Atlanta's Georgia Dome.
He led his team from its 12-yard line to the Rams' 10 with 6 seconds remaining. He completed 5 of 8 passes for 61 on the drive to that point and rushed for eight more. On the final play, he delivered a strike to Kevin Dyson on a slant route. It appeared certain he would score, but Rams linebacker Mike Jones wrapped up Dyson, who desperately stretched the ball just short of the goal line as time expired.
McNair, a league co-MVP in 2003, passed for 31,304 yards in 13 NFL seasons. One more yard on the final play of the Super Bowl could have significantly changed his football legacy.
10. Iconic film, a boneheaded play and the impossible happens
We couldn't leave out these three, so we will group them as No. 10-A-B-C:
Oakland's Willie Brown, who grew up in Yazoo City, picked off a Fran Tarkenton pass and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown in Super Bowl XI. The Raiders beat Minnesota 32-14 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. NFL Films captured every step in slow motion, his helmet shifting, his jaws bouncing with every stride. Brown played 16 seasons, was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1984 and named one of the Top 100 players of all-time (50th) in 1999 by The Sporting News.
Defensive end Leon Lett made 141 tackles in two seasons (1987-88) at Hinds Community College and won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys. But he will forever be known for his 63-yard fumble return in Dallas' 52-14 win over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVII. The problem was, he needed 64 yards for a touchdown. At the 1, a hustling Bills receiver — Don Beebe — stripped Lett when the smooth 290-pounder stuck the ball out with his right hand in celebration. The ball went through the end zone for a touchback. To this day, no player wants to "pull a Lett."
And forever remembered will be Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, 2010, in Miami. Saints 31, Colts and Peyton Manning 17. Mississippi's adopted team had finally won a Super Bowl after dishing out tons of heartache since joining the NFL in 1967.
Contact Billy Watkins at (769) 257-3079 or bwatkins@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @BillyWatkins11 on Twitter.
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