A History of the Safety in the Super Bowl
The 2-point play, not the defensive back
The safety stands as one of the most underrepresented ways to score in a football game. It’s a novel experience to witness the team with possession of the ball brought down behind its own goal line, scoring two points for the defense. Indeed, a safety prompts the referee to make an infrequently seen motion with palms joined above his head, giving the vague impression he or she is doing an exotic dance. What’s more, safeties occasion a free kick from the surrendering team’s 20-yard line, making the whole scenario even more uncanny. To date, only nine safeties have graced the Super Bowl, the world’s paramount sporting spectacle.
It took eight Super Bowls before the safety made its debut. In the second quarter of Super Bowl IX on January 12, 1975, in front of 81,000 onlookers at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings were locked in a scoreless tie. At his own ten-yard line, Minnesota quarterback Fran Tarkenton handed off to running back Dave Osborn, only to have Osborn fumble. The ball rolled backward into the endzone, where Tarkenton fell upon it. Pittsburgh defensive end Dwight White then downed Tarkenton in the end zone for the safety, giving the Steelers a 2–0 lead. Fittingly, it was the defense that opened the scoring in a veritable defensive struggle. The Steelers never looked back. The 2–0 margin held until the third, when Pittsburgh scored a touchdown, enroute to a 16–6 victory over the Vikings and their first Super Bowl championship.
After that coming out party, the safety made a repeat appearance the very next year in Super Bowl X, again for the Pittsburgh Steelers. With the Dallas Cowboys clinging to a 10–7 lead in the fourth quarter, their offense was stopped deep in their own territory. When punter Mitch Hoopes stepped up to kick the ball away, Pittsburgh’s Reggie Harrison (now Kamal Ali Salaam-El) blocked the punt. This sent the ball through the back of the endzone, netting two points for the Steelers. This safety turned the tide. Pittsburgh returned the free kick for quality field position, setting up a Roy Gerela field goal to give the Steelers their first lead of the game. After another field goal on their next possession, the Steelers reclaimed the ball and quarterback Terry Bradshaw hit Lynn Swann for a 64-yard TD. Now it was 21–10, and the boys from Blitzburg held on to win 21–17. That made it two in a row for the Steelers and the safety.
But then the safety went on a decade-long drought. It was not until Super Bowl XX in New Orleans when it would reemerge from statistical oblivion. Suitably, it was the insurmountable 1985 Chicago Bears defense that made it happen. With the game at a lopsided 44–10 for the Bears over the New England Patriots in the concluding stages of the game, Chicago returned an interception to their opponents’ five-yard line. The Bears’ theretofore potent offense proceeded to turn the ball over on downs. When New England repossessed the ball, Bears’ defensive lineman Henry Waechter tackled Patriots’ backup quarterback Steve Grogan in the endzone for two points. This safety served as the perfect defensive capstone for the best defense of all time, and it was the last score recorded in that monumental Bears season, with the game ending 46–10.
Just like in Super Bowls IX and X, the safety would go back-to-back all over again in Super Bowl XXI. With the Denver Broncos leading the New York Giants 10–7 late in the second quarter, more than 103,000 people packed into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena watched as the Manhattanites’ pass rush hemmed Elway into the endzone on third down. Defensive lineman George Martin wrapped up Elway for the sack and the safety. The teams went into the locker room with the score 10–9. The Giants came out and scored a touchdown to start the second half, giving them the lead. They were unstoppable from that point, running up the score to 33–10 before the Broncos answered back with a meek field goal. The second-quarter safety marked the first of 26 unanswered New York points. The Giants ended up winning convincingly, 39–20.
Four years later, Super Bowl XXV turned out to be one of the most riveting games of all time, and the safety was there to get in on the action. This time, it was the New York Giants who were the victims. In the second quarter, with the Buffalo Bills leading the Giants 10–3, New York found themselves in the shadow of their own goalposts thanks to a coffin-corner punt from one Rick Tuten. Buffalo defensive end Bruce Smith felled quarterback Jeff Hostetler in his own endzone for the safety, stretching the lead to 12–3. Things didn’t bode well for the Giants, given that no team surrendering a safety in the Super Bowl had managed to win thus far. But Hostetler’s Giants rallied their troops and stormed back, taking the lead and then trading it with the Bills in a seesaw affair. A field goal at the midway point of the fourth gave the Giants a 20–19 lead, and they held on to win. The Bills became the first team to score a Super Bowl safety and then lose.
Then the safety went on its longest-recorded Super Bowl absence. It was not until Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, 18 years later, that the safety showed up again on the biggest stage. With Pittsburgh leading the Arizona Cardinals 20–14 in the late stages of the fourth quarter, a masterful Ben Graham punt pinned the Steelers at their own 1-yard line. Two plays later, Pittsburgh pivot Ben Roethlisberger completed an apparent first-down pass to Santonio Holmes, but the referees dinged Steelers’ center Justin Hartwig with a holding penalty in the endzone. The rules dictate that that’s an automatic safety. And so, the Steelers’ lead was trimmed to 20–16 and Arizona got the ball back via free kick. Arizona rode the momentum and would follow up with the next score, a touchdown, giving them the lead. But the Steelers put the ball in the endzone with 35 seconds left to pick up a dramatic 27–23 win. For two safeties in a row, the two-point scoring team had not gone on to win the Super Bowl.
Three years later at Super Bowl XLVI, in a callback to IX, the safety opened the scoring. Midway through the first quarter, New England’s Tom Brady, the greatest of all time, made a not-so-great decision to throw the ball away whilst being pursued in his own endzone by New York Giants’ defensive end Justin Tuck. Since there was no receiver in the vicinity of Brady’s toss, the referees flagged him for intentional grounding, once again engendering a safety by default. This gave the Giants a 2–0 lead, and the franchise’s second Super Bowl safety. Upon receiving the free kick, New York drove almost 80 yards and scored on an Eli Manning touchdown pass to Victor Cruz to make it 9–0. In what became a back-and-forth battle, the Giants eventually prevailed over the Patriots by a score of 21–17.
The safety was right back in the big game the next year at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans. Late in the fourth quarter, the Baltimore Ravens were leading the San Francisco 49ers 34–29 and had possession of the ball deep within their zone, but they couldn’t succeed in running out the clock. On 4th down, a dozen seconds remained in the game. Taking a knee was not an option, nor did the Ravens want to risk a blocked punt, which could lead to a 49ers’ touchdown. Thus, Ravens’ coach John Harbaugh deployed the safety in the most literal sense of the term — that is, taking the safe route. His punter Sam Koch was instructed to receive the snap but not punt the ball, instead surrendering a safety after killing off as much time as he could. Koch fielded the snap, ambled about for 8 seconds, and then exited the side of the endzone to escape the onrushing 49ers. This marked the first fully intentional safety in Super Bowl history. This made it 34–31 for the Ravens with 4 seconds left. That would be the final score, as the 49ers could only advance the free-kicked ball to midfield, getting stopped as time expired.
The safety completed a threepeat in Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014 between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This time, it took place on the very first play from scrimmage. With the Broncos lined up on offense, center Manny Ramirez executed the snap prematurely as quarterback Peyton Manning moved forward from a shotgun formation, sending the ball all the way back into the endzone. Broncos’ running back Knowshon Moreno recovered the ball and was downed by Cliff Avril, notching two points for the Seahawks at the 12 second mark, the quickest scoring play in Super Bowl history. This also marked two safeties on consecutive plays from scrimmage in the Super Bowl. This safety almost proved to be the deciding score of the game, as the Seahawks amassed a 36–0 lead by the third quarter and seemed poised for a shutout. With no time left on the clock in the third, Manning managed to throw a touchdown pass to break the goose egg and then succeeded on a 2-point convert. The Seahawks scored again in the fourth quarter to win by the odd-looking score of 43–8.
Eleven years have passed since that curious night in New Jersey, and a safety has not been seen at a Super Bowl since. Perhaps this strange and marginalized form of scoring has not been missed by the viewing masses. But the safety, when it does happen in a Super Bowl, is usually impactful. Most of the time, it’s recorded by the winning team. On the nine occasions it has transpired, the team scoring the safety has won the game six times, for a solid 66% win-rate. In several instances, the safety has been a turning point in the Super Bowl, as was the case in X and XXI, and arguably in IX and XLVIII, where it marked the critical first points scored. In XLIII, a safety set in motion a series of events that caused the Steelers to lose the lead, forcing them to fight back for a nail-biting victory. All told, safeties would appear to provide a confidence boost for the scoring team and a morale crusher for the team surrendering them. That latter point is especially crucial. After all, the safety involves an attack in sacralized territory — an invasion on the inner sanctum. To see that sacred ground violated is something some teams can’t come back from.
Will we see a safety in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans? With only 9 having occurred in 58 previous games, it’s not exactly a safe bet. But that means long odds — specifically 14–1, according to Pickswise, for this year’s tilt between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. Plunking down a five or a ten, then, could make for a nice little payoff. So why not put a tiny bit of money on it? It’s not the most unsafe thing you could do. After all, New Orleans has borne witness to three Super Bowl safeties already (IX, XX, and XLVII), including the very first, so we might just be lucky enough to see number ten in the Big Easy come Sunday.
