After Brett Favre’s final pass had fallen incomplete, the Denver Broncos’ celebration began with 28 seconds left on the Qualcomm Stadium scoreboard clock. As quarterback John Elway and his teammates were overcome with joy, Favre’s intended receiver, Mark Chmura, lay face down on the turf in disbelief. The Packers had just lost Super Bowl XXXII—and their chance at ascending into some rarefied NFL air. “The disappointment of a loss like that,” Chmura admitted nearly two decades after that last pass, “it never goes away.”
In the annals of NFL history, Super Bowl XXXII is recalled as Elway’s first championship after three disappointing, lopsided Super Bowl losses earlier in his career. It is remembered for his iconic, helicopter-style spin near the goal line after a crucial scramble, for owner Pat Bowlen’s “This one’s for John!” proclamation while hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and for game MVP Terrell Davis playing through a migraine while the Broncos’ defense gave Favre nothing but headaches all game long.
And although the league would put out a DVD—a technology still in its infancy at the time—of the game entitled “The Best One Ever,” honoring it as an unforgettable back-and-forth game that had delivered the kind of drama the Super Bowl had lacked for many of the prior years, for the Packers it was a night they wished they could forget. “We’re more shocked and more stunned than anything,” Packers linebacker Seth Joyner said immediately after the game. “I don’t think anybody thought that things would turn out this way. We were playing on such a high note as of late, playing some really good defense and offense, and the special teams were starting to come on. We didn’t really think that this is the type of game we would play.”
General manager Ron Wolf, who’d brought the once-proud franchise back from the dead and assembled the rosters that had won Super Bowl XXXI and gotten the team back to the big game the following season, was more succinct. “We’re a one-year wonder,” Wolf said, “just a fart in the wind.”
The Packers had been vying to become the seventh team to win back-to-back Super Bowls. Instead, they became the third to lose in a repeat bid and victims of the second biggest upset in Super Bowl history—surpassed only by the Baltimore Colts’ stunning loss to Broadway Joe Namath and the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. “All those questions over the last umpteen years makes this all the more sweet,” said Elway, who completed just 12-of-22 passes for 123 yards and an interception.
Added Broncos left tackle Gary Zimmerman: “When you hear it for two weeks, it builds a fire under you. We had to sit quiet and bite our tongues for two weeks. [But] we’re pretty good ourselves.”
The Packers, meanwhile, had been undone by their own overconfidence against a 12-point underdog—and by coach Mike Holmgren inexplicably losing track of the downs late in the fourth quarter, telling the defense to allow Davis to score on a one-yard touchdown plunge with one minute, 45 seconds remaining so the offense could get the ball back with a chance to tie the game.
The Packers rallied from deficits of 10 and seven points during the game, tying it at 24–24. But on their final drive, they stalled at the Denver 32-yard line, and when Favre, under constant blitz pressure all game long, couldn’t connect with Chmura on his fourth-down pass, it was over. “We got behind early and battled back,” Holmgren said. “We used so much energy coming back and at the end we fell short.”
Favre, who won his third consecutive NFL MVP award in 1997, would complete 25-of-42 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns in the game, leading the Packers’ rallies. But he also put the team in those holes to begin with, throwing an interception that led to one Denver touchdown and losing a fumble that let to a Broncos field goal. “We didn’t make the plays when we had the chance,” Favre said. “We turned the ball over and gave them 10 points. You can’t give a good team points like that—especially in a game like that.”
Added Holmgren: “Brett plays the game the way he plays the game. As far as emotion, he knew what he had to do for us. He got us back in the game and almost won it for us at the end.”
Holmgren, meanwhile, came under scrutiny for his decision to let Davis score the deciding touchdown. The thought process had merit since Holmgren was concerned that even if the Packers defense kept the Broncos out of the end zone, Denver would be able to eat up most of the clock and then kick a game-winning, chip-shot field goal while leaving the Packers offense little time to answer. But Holmgren had lost track of the downs—and admitted as much the day after the game—and realized after the fact that had the defense held the Broncos to a field goal, Favre & Co. would have had ample time to tie the game or perhaps win it with a touchdown. “It was a strategy I felt was our only chance to win the football game,” Holmgren had said after the game, “because if they kick that field goal, there would have only been about 10 or 15 seconds left.”
By letting Davis score, the Packers had two timeouts and 1:45 worth of clock to work with in search of the tying touchdown. But the Packers had more time than Holmgren had thought. Davis scored his touchdown on a second-and-1 play. It became apparent that Holmgren had thought it was a first down when Davis ran 17 yards down to the Green Bay 1-yard line, but the previous play had actually been first and goal from the Green Bay 18 because of a Shannon Sharpe holding penalty. Had the Packers instead stopped Davis short of the end zone, Holmgren could have used the first of his two remaining timeouts with about 1:40 left. Had they stopped the Broncos again on third down, the Packers could have used their final timeout with about 1:35 left and forced a Denver field goal.
Although that would have left Favre with no timeouts, he also wouldn’t have had to score a touchdown to force the first overtime in Super Bowl history. Even if the Broncos scored a touchdown, the Packers still would have had about 1:30 left, though no timeouts, for Favre to work his magic. “We did a heck of a job blocking [on the touchdown], but obviously, as I understand it, they really let us score,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said the day after the game. “That was one of the bigger holes I’ve seen for a while. I thought our offensive line really knocked them off the ball, but after looking at the replay, I could see I was wrong.”
Doing the math quickly in his head, Shanahan calculated that the Packers would have had “a minute, 1:15, 1:20” had they not let Davis score and used their timeouts. “I’m not ever one to second-guess,” he said. “I’m just glad it turned out in our favor.”
Just as the game had—to the Packers’ undying surprise. After 13 straight victories by the NFC representative, Super Bowl XXXII belonged to the Broncos, Elway, and the AFC. “I didn’t think it could happen,” star safety LeRoy Butler said, “not in a game that meant this much. That hurts.”