Super Bowl XLVII — 2012 Season

Result

Super Bowl MVP

Joe Flacco, QB, Baltimore Ravens

Starting lineups

Starting offense

Starting defense

Note: Neither team fielded a traditional in-line starting TE that game in the traditional sense — Baltimore ran 3-WR personnel with rotational TEs (Pitta/Ed Dickson), and San Francisco used a 2-TE grouping (Davis + Walker) — reported as run, not force-fit into a single-TE slot.

Box score

Passing

Rushing

Receiving

Game context

Super Bowl XLVII, the first Super Bowl matching brothers as opposing head coaches — Baltimore's John Harbaugh against San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh, dubbed the "Har-Bowl" — is remembered as much for a bizarre stadium malfunction as for the football played. Baltimore dominated the first half and part of the third quarter, with Jacoby Jones's Super Bowl-record 108-yard opening-kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half pushing the Ravens' lead to a commanding 28-6. But moments later, roughly 34 minutes into the third quarter, a partial power outage struck the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, plunging half the stadium into darkness and halting play for 34 minutes while stadium officials scrambled to restore electricity. When play resumed, the 49ers looked like a different team. San Francisco reeled off 17 unanswered points, cutting Baltimore's lead to 28-23 as Colin Kaepernick — in his first full season as San Francisco's starter — carved up the Ravens' defense with his legs and arm, finishing with 302 passing yards and a rushing touchdown. Baltimore steadied itself, with Justin Tucker's field goals stretching the lead back to 34-29 in the fourth quarter. San Francisco drove deep into Baltimore territory late, reaching the Ravens' 5-yard line with a chance to take the lead, but four consecutive incomplete or stopped plays — including a non-call on a potential pass-interference penalty against Jimmy Smith that remains debated to this day — turned the ball over on downs. Baltimore ran out the clock, conceding a safety on a intentional near-safety in the final seconds rather than risk a blocked punt, for a 34-31 final. Joe Flacco, who threw for 287 yards and three first-half touchdowns and was famously never intercepted across the entire 2012 postseason, was named Super Bowl MVP, a performance that helped him secure a record-setting contract extension that offseason. The win capped an emotional farewell season for Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, the heart of Baltimore's defense for 17 seasons, who retired immediately after the game with a championship in his final appearance. For San Francisco, the near-miss — despite the furious comeback — began a stretch of near-misses for the Harbaugh-Kaepernick 49ers, who reached the Super Bowl again the following season only in the NFC playoffs, not the title game itself, before the core dispersed. The blackout remains one of the strangest occurrences in Super Bowl history and prompted stadium infrastructure reviews across the league, while the game itself, played before 71,024 fans, is remembered as one of the most eventful and controversial finishes of the 2010s.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Super Bowl XLVII
• Pro-Football-Reference: Super Bowl XLVII box score