Super Bowl XXII — 1987 Season

Result

Super Bowl MVP

Doug Williams (QB, Washington Redskins)

Starting lineups

Starting offense

Starting defense

Box score

Passing

Rushing

Receiving

Game context

Super Bowl XXII opened poorly for Washington, which fell behind 10-0 after the first quarter as John Elway and the Broncos, back in the championship game for the second straight year, moved the ball at will early. Then came one of the most explosive quarters in football history. In the second period, Washington scored 35 unanswered points, still the most any team has scored in a single quarter of a Super Bowl, and Doug Williams was at the center of it, throwing four of his four touchdown passes in that stretch alone. Washington took a 35-10 lead into halftime and coasted from there, eventually winning 42-10 as Denver's offense stalled and its defense could not slow Washington's ground-and-air attack. Williams finished 18 of 29 for 340 yards and four touchdowns, both then-Super Bowl records for passing yards and touchdown passes in a single half, and he did it after briefly leaving the game with a knee injury on Washington's opening series. His performance made him the first Black starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl and be named its MVP, a historic milestone given professional football's long and troubled history of steering Black quarterbacks toward other positions. Complementing Williams was an equally record-shattering rushing performance from Timmy Smith, a rookie running back making his first career start in place of an injured Kelvin Bryant, who rushed for 204 yards, still the most rushing yards by any player in a Super Bowl. Wide receiver Ricky Sanders caught nine passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns, including a long touchdown strike from Williams during the second-quarter blitz. Washington finished with 280 rushing yards as a team against Denver's 97, and Elway, sacked five times and intercepted three, could not overcome Washington's dominance after the hot start. The game marked a low point for Denver, which had now lost consecutive Super Bowls by a combined score of 81-30 (39-20 the year before and 42-10 in this one), a stretch that would eventually extend the Broncos' championship-game losing streak to four before Elway finally broke through a decade later. For Washington, the win was the franchise's second title in six years under coach Joe Gibbs, part of a run that would produce a third championship in 1991 behind yet another different starting quarterback, cementing Gibbs' reputation for winning titles regardless of who was under center. Off the field, the game carried broader cultural significance. NFL field judge Johnny Grier worked Super Bowl XXII and was promoted the following season to become the league's first Black referee, part of a wave of milestones connected to this game. Williams' performance, delivered on the sport's biggest stage after years of skepticism about Black quarterbacks' readiness for such moments, is still cited as one of the most consequential individual games in NFL history, both for its record-setting statistics and for what it represented in breaking down a long-standing barrier in the sport.

Sources

• Pro-Football-Reference: Super Bowl Index
• Wikipedia: Super Bowl XXII