Kansas City joins Dolphins on unenviable list with Super Bowl flop

Super Bowl LV didn’t necessarily provide the showcase many were expecting. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will serve as the league champion on the heels of a 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs — once more a reminder of the greatness of Tom Brady. Brady is, thankfully, no longer the problem of the Miami Dolphins (although the two will meet in 2021). But also great on Sunday evening was the performance of the Tampa Bay defense, who put the clamps on a Chiefs’ offense that terrorized defenses across the league for every other game this season; including Miami in early December.

And with Tampa Bay’s dominant performance on defense, the Chiefs will be joining an unenviable list of franchises: teams to not score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. For a long, long time, the Miami Dolphins of 1971 were the sole member of such a list — but Sunday’s outcome helped grow the number of teams that failed to reach the end zone from to three.

The 1971 Miami Dolphins, led by Don Shula, were 10-3-1 that season before being held out of the end zone by the Dallas Cowboys for a 24-3 decision in Super Bowl VI. The aftermath, of course, spurred the Dolphins to perfection the following season, as they returned to the Super Bowl in 1972 on a mission and ultimately closed the season as undefeated world champions.

But the failure to reach the end zone in 1971 was the fine print to Miami’s perfect season the following year — and for nearly 50 years they were the only Super Bowl participant on the list. But now we’ve seen two teams in the last three seasons equal the 1971 Dolphins’ fate — high flying acts from Los Angeles in Super Bowl LIII (13-3 loss to New England) and last night’s 31-9 Kansas City loss to Tampa Bay.