The 5 most stunning upsets in Super Bowl history

John Elway's Broncos lost in his first three Super Bowl appearances by a combined 96 points. The Broncos entered Super Bowl XXXII as 11-point underdogs to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, who had gone 15-3 in 1997 leading up to that point. However, the Broncos would overcome a three-touchdown game from Favre, riding a 157-yard rushing performance from Terrell Davis - who, along with Elway, combined for four rushing touchdowns - to a 31-24 victory. Elway's iconic helicopter run in the fourth quarter of the game helped to secure his long-awaited first Super Bowl title, part of back-to-back victories by the Broncos on the highest stage.

It's wild to think of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick as underdogs, but that's what they were in their first Super Bowl appearance together, with Kurt Warner and the St. Louis Rams entering as 14-point favorites. But after forcing Warner to throw two interceptions, Brady and the Patriots got the ball back on their own 17-yard line with 1:21 left in the fourth quarter. With the game tied at 17, John Madden, on the call with Pat Summerall, repeatedly encouraged the Patriots to run the clock out and play for overtime. Smartly, Belichick and Charlie Weis didn't take his advice, and Brady completed five passes to J.R. Redmond, Troy Brown and Jermaine Wiggins. This set up Adam Vinatieri to kick a 48-yard game-winning field goal as time expired, giving the Patriots their first of six Super Bowl titles.

Bud Grant's Minnesota Vikings went 12-2 during the 1969 regular season, riding an opportunistic defense to an NFL Championship win. At that stage, though, winning the NFL Championship wasn't the same as saying they won the Super Bowl. The Vikings won the NFL Championship, and had the face the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. While the Vikings would enter the game as 12-point favorites, the Chiefs would trounce them, as Hank Stram's squad forced two interceptions of Minnesota quarterback Joe Kapp. Super Bowl IV marked the second consecutive victory by an AFL team, once unthinkable.

In many senses, Super Bowl III is the most iconic in the history of the event. First of all, it was the first time that the event became known as the Super Bowl, rather than the AFL-NFL World Championship. Secondly, Jets quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory, a rather shocking prediction considering Johnny Unitas and the Colts were 18-point favorites. Namath made good on his end of the promise, throwing for 206 yards, as his defense held Unitas to 110 passing yards and an interception. As Namath ran off the field at the Orange Bowl, he held up his right index finger to signal that the Jets were the best team in the world, having defeated the mighty Colts, 16-7. After Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers had crushed the AFL representative in the first two Super Bowls, Namath's Jets became the first AFL team to win the event.

Even though they couldn't finish the job, some would still argue that the 2007 Patriots were the most dominant NFL team ever. After acquiring Randy Moss and Wes Welker in the offseason, Tom Brady and the Patriots finished the regular season with the first (and to this point, only) 16-0 record in NFL history, and a staggering +315 point differential. However, the Patriots had squeaked out a Week 17 win over the New York Giants, 38-35. A month later, the two sides met in the Super Bowl again with the Patriots as 12-point favorites, and Steve Spagnuolo put together a masterful defensive game-plan, sacking Brady five times and limiting the Patriots to just 14 points. Eli Manning's 255 passing yards were nearly equivalent to that of Brady's 266, and game-changing catches from David Tyree and Plaxico Burress helped Tom Coughlin's Giants to pull off a 17-14 upset.