BroBible
Every team that wins a Super Bowl heads into the following season on a quest to defend its title, but that’s easier said than done. Only nine franchises have managed to win The Big Game on back-to-back occasions, and there’s a sizeable percentage that’s not only missed the playoffs but failed to finish the year over .500.
As things currently stand, there are 17 teams that won a Super Bowl that found themselves on the outside looking in when the playoffs rolled around the following season.
Around a third of them finished with a fairly respectable record that still wasn’t good enough to punch their ticket to the postseason, but there are some others that had an objectively disappointing campaign after winning it all.
For the purpose of this list, I’m going to start with the teams that ended up at .500 and work my way back while ranking them by the worst overall winning percentage.
We have three teams that were the definition of average after winning the Super Bowl, and I’m going to start with the most recent.
The Ravens went 10-6 before carving their way through the AFC and handing the 49ers a 34-31 loss in Super Bowl XLVII. That was Ray Lewis’ final NFL game, and he was one of eight starters who were no longer on the roster when Baltimore got underway in 2013.
Those losses were firmly felt, as the Ravens got off to a 4-6 start before rallying to win their next four games. However, that surge ended up being all for naught, as they lost their last two contests of the season to finish at 8-8.
The Steelers sort of came out of nowhere to win Super Bowl XL. They were 11-5 in 2005, but that was only good enough for a six-seed that required them to win three games on the road before they capped off the run with a 21-10 win over the Seahawks.
Jerome Bettis retired after getting his first and only ring, and while that departure wasn’t as dramatic as the ones the Ravens felt, the team did suffer a setback after Ben Roethlisberger was injured in a motorcycle accident in the offseason.
He was poised to return in time for their first game before undergoing an appendectomy, and his health was certainly a reason Pittsburgh started the season with a 2-6 record. They were able to salvage things by closing the year out at 6-2, but it wasn’t enough to make the playoffs.
The Giants also suffered a pretty significant loss after beating the Bills in Super Bowl XXV to hand Buffalo the first of what ended up being four straight losses in The Big Game. However, it was not a player but rather their head coach, as Bill...
