[PICS] These Corvettes Were Brand New When Your NFL Team Last Won the Super Bowl

Well, we are officially three days away from Super Bowl LVI, and NFL fans and gambling addicts across the globe will be scouring the net for content to keep them entertained and/or give them an edge during the final days of the 2021-22 NFL Season! Well, weary travelers, look no further, because this intrepid, single-model car website has the hard-hitting postseason content that you’ve been relentlessly thrusting for! It gets even better from there, too! Your team doesn’t have to be involved in the big game for you to enjoy this list! Prepare for the ultimate visual aide of how successful each NFL team has been throughout the years!

CorvetteBlogger proudly presents a gallery of the Corvette that was sitting in showrooms the last time each franchise hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, by the date of the game, and corresponding model year, then we will throw in the ‘Vette Vintages that make up the collection of each team’s previous SB triumphs for good measure!

Super Bowl Champions

Baltimore Ravens – 2013 (2001)
Unsurprisingly, we kick off our list, with Joe Flacco and Trent Dilfer. With more than a little help from Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs, the former brought Baltimore its second Super Bowl championship after an incredible and improbable playoff run that included road wins against Manning’s Broncos and Brady’s Patriots during the final year of C6 Corvette production (though MVP, Flacco was presented with a pre-production C7 after the game, with a real car to follow).

Dilfer, also assisted by Ray Lewis, brought the newly relocated Ravens their first title, and Shannon Sharpe his third in four seasons. Meanwhile Bowling Green was pumping out first-year 385-horse C5 Z06s.

Chicago Bears – 1986
Hurricane Ditka made landfall in 1985, culminating in a dominant 15-1 season, a win against the Patriots in the 1986 Superdome Super Bowl, and a legion of superfans that are still unrivaled in any sport. Vette-side, ’86 was a milestone year as well. While “Da” Bears claimed their only Super Bowl victory, Chevrolet brought back the convertible body style that had been absent from the lineup since 1975. To celebrate, they had (another) American hero, Chuck Yeager, pilot a drop-top C4 around Indy as the official pace car of the 500.

Dallas Cowboys – 1996 (1994, 1993, 1978, 1972)
America’s Team hasn’t won the last game of the season since the fourth-generation of America’s Sports Car was still on sale. The ‘Boys capped off a mythical ’90s Aikman, Smith, and Irvin-fueled run with a third championship in three years. Tom Landry and Rodger Staubach led the Cowboys to four Super Bowl appearances in the C3 ’70s, finishing 2-2 in the big game. In Corvetteland, the main attraction during the Cowboy’s last title run was the limited-to-1000 Grand Sport model that ushered out the C4-generation in style with a historic livery and an all-new 330-horse small block.

Denver Broncos – 2016 (1998, 1999)
Homer Simpson’s annoyance at being gifted the Broncos has never been more well-founded than in the last six seasons, but as a life-long Coloradoan and “Donkey” fan, this list reminds your author that we’re pretty spoiled in the Mile High City! Shortly after Homer “took over,” Denver went back-to-back on the arm of John Elway and the legs of Terrell Davis. Elway, as GM, proceeded to land Peyton Manning in 2012, and a third Championship followed suit after the 2015 season. Three titles since the C5-Corvette turned two-years-old is better than any team not named the Patriots; not too shabby!

Green Bay Packers – 2011 (1997, 1968, 1967)
The Packers lay claim to our favorite pair of bookend Super Bowl Corvettes. After Super Bowl I, MVP Bart Starr was given a gorgeous ’67 Corvette, complete with factory side pipes! When Aaron Rodgers captained the Pack to their most recent world championship in 2011, the unendingly cool, and also 427-powered Z06 Carbon was terrorizing exotics at tracks around the globe! Between the two are first-year examples from the C3 and C5 generations, compliments of Starr and a guy named Favre.

Indianapolis Colts – 2007 (1971 (as the Baltimore Colts)
Baltimore is the only city that has enjoyed Super Bowl wins by two different franchises. Johnny Unitas and the Colts took home top honors in Super Bowl V before the team moved to Indianapolis in ’84 (mostly to reserve seats to see Yeager at the Indy 500 two years later!). 2007 was the year that the Colts finally got over the hump again, bringing joy to their second home after Manning led the team back from a 21-3 first half deficit against the Patriots in the AFC Championship en route to a 29-17 victory over the Brian Urlacher-led Bears. The most recent championship came during year-three of C6 production, while Maryland’s Colts captured the AFC’s third SB the same year that Zora pushed his last of his legendary factory racing specials out of GM’s back doors in the form of the LS6 ZR2.

Kansas City Chiefs – 2020 (1970)
Only two teams on this list have won it all in the Corvette’s C8 era. Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes brought Kansas City their first championship in 50 years when they defeated the ‘9ers at Hard Rock Stadium two seasons ago. Prior to that, they evened the record at two-a-piece in the last pre-merger AFL/NFL Super Bowl. Their two-car championship garage of LT-1 and 2020 Stingray makes for the perfect blend of old and Corvettes!

Las Vegas Raiders – 1984 (as LA Raiders; 1981, 1977 as Oakland Raiders)
The late, great John Madden took Oakland/LA/Vegas to four straight AFC Championship games, and finally broke through to the Super Bowl in the ’76 season, where they beat the Vikings in front of more than 103,000 fans in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. Tom Flores would take the reins in ’79 and bring another pair of titles to the traveling franchise, including their most recent triumph that coincided with the inaugural C4 Corvette receiving the coveted Motor Trend Car of the Year award.

Los Angeles Rams – 2000 (as St. Louis Rams)
It is one of the NFL’s greatest stories; former grocery store worker, Kurt Warner improbably lands an NFL QB job and, along with Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, and Torry Holt, leads “The Greatest Show on Turf” to a record-setting offensive season (spurred by an underrated, turnover machine of a defense) and a world championship win over the equally feel-good “Music City Miricle” Titans. At the same the C5 Corvette was enjoying the third of seven-straight years with more than 30,000 individual sales. Just like the Bucs of a year ago, the Rams have a chance to win the big game in their home building and add a C8 to their championship collection if Stafford can outduel Burrow next Sunday!

Miami Dolphins – 1974 (1973)
The ‘Fins might not have added the ultimate prize to their trophy case since 1974, but the three-year stretch leading up to that last Super Bowl victory is one of the best in NFL history. In 1971, second-year head coach, Don Shula kicked off a stretch that would see the Dolphins achieve an incredible 36-5-1 record that included the only undefeated season in league history, and back-to-back wins in SB VII and VIII. Sadly, for the Dolphins (and the Raiders), their postseason success seems to have an inverse relationship with the speed, power, and long-term desirability of America’s Sports Car, and Chevy’s halo car doesn’t seem to be taking any steps back in the foreseeable future.

New England Patriots – 2019 (2017, 2015, 2005, 2004, 2002)
During their incredible run, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick brought Super Bowls to Boston from two C5 production years, three C7 vintages, and, thanks to Eli Manning, just one year during the C6’s eight-year run. The most recent of these was 2019, Brady’s final year in Bean Town, and one of the best years the Corvette has ever seen. The Pat’s NFL record sixth title came the same year as the front-engine Corvette’s 755-horse, 212-mph swansong.

New Orleans Saints – 2010
The ten-year stretch between the Patriots’ third and fourth titles was an exciting one that saw seven different teams dump Gatorade on their coach in early February. During that decade of SBs, we witnessed historic teams returning to prominence (Steelers/Packers), first-time winners (Seahawks), and the Saints, a team that many thought would never get over the hump. After 43 years of wearing bags over their heads at games, Saints fans finally got a taste of Super Bowl success, at the expense of Peyton Manning and the Colts. Statistically, the year leading up to his crowning achievement was very middle-of-the-road for Saints MVP, Drew Brees. His 4,388 yards were only the 11th best mark of his storied carrier, he had five seasons with more TDs, and his 109.6 QB Rating in ’09 doesn’t even make his individual podium, showing that football, more than almost any other sport, is all about having a strong supporting cast, which is exactly what the Corvette lineup added in that year with the return of the mid-grade Grand Sport!

New York Giants – 2012 (2008, 1991, 1987)
Speaking of the Grand Sport, that is exactly what Eli Manning received along with an MVP award the last time the Giants took home the NFL’s top honors in 2012. That last championship was notable as it marked the second time the Giants had derailed the Patriots juggernaut in the big game in a four-year span, and they did so as the only team to ever even reach the Super Bowl with a negative point differential on the season (they had given up 400 points in 2011 vs 394 points scored!). Previous titles came in Lawrence Taylor’s (and the C4 Corvette’s) prime (1991 and 1987) against the Bills and the Broncos, respectively.

New York Jets – 1969
The New York Football J-E-T-S (Jets, Jets, Jets!) of East Rutherford, New Jersey join the Saints as the only teams in the Super Bowl era with a 1-0 record on the biggest stage in sports. They might not get there often, but when they do, they come away with a W! “Broadway” Joe Namath famously guaranteed that his Jets would get the underdog AFL’s first victory in Super Bowl III, then backed up his claim to become a cultural icon that your narrator’s 89-year-old grandma still regularly, and fondly remembers when she’s grumbling about “players these days.” Now, that has to be the definition of legendary, just like the car that was favored by Apollo astronauts!

Philadelphia Eagles – 2018
The fighting city of Philadelphia was treated to an all-timer in early 2018, when Doug Pederson led their 85-year-old NFL franchise to its first Super Bowl victory (they previously won the NFL title in 1960) with a back-up QB under center! When the confetti fell at the end of SB LII, the Eagles had scored 41 points on the Patriots while holding Brady and Co. to just 33. While the Eagles were dazzling the sports world with the “Philly Special,” the big news in Corvette circles was the introduction of the Carbon 65 Edition Z06 and Grand Sport that celebrated 65-years of Corvette greatness.

Pittsburgh Steelers – 2009 (2006, 1980, 1979, 1976, 1975)
The Steelers might be tied for most Super Bowl wins in NFL history, but it wasn’t until Hines Ward, the only on-field survivor of Bane’s 2012 terrorist attack on the Gotham v. Rapid City regular season match-up, hauled in five passes for 123 and a score in Super Bowl XL that they were able to leave the Raiders and Dolphins behind on the “malaise” Corvette titles list to add some serious performance hardware to their stable. Now, they’ve got a first-year example of both C6 “Z” variants cozied up next to their four C3s. Fun facts: The 2006 Z06 and 2009 ZR1 from Pittsburgh’s modern triumphs combine to make 1,143 horsepower. If you add up the outputs of the most powerful ‘Vettes from each of the Steelers’ four previous championship seasons, you’d have just 870 ponies. If you stick with base cars, the four oldies can only muster 720 HP, while base C6s from ’06 and ’09, respectively add up to 836 raging horses from their combination of LS2 and LS3 muscle, talk about an unbeatable present day “Steel Curtain!”

San Francisco 49ers – 1995 (1990, 1989, 1985, 1982)
From the early ’80s to the mid ’90s, San Francisco was a football mecca. No matter what year between the years of 1979 and 1996 you steer your hot tub time machine to, you would be able to go to Candlestick Park witness a first-ballot Hall of Fame Quarterback being coached by another Hall of Famer (or, at least, someone who deserves to be one), with Joe Montana, Bill Walsh, Steve Young, and George Seifert. And if you hop in that window post-’85, you’d also get the added bonus of feasting your eyes on the greatest wide receiver in the history of the game, Jerry Rice. While their Corvette cabinet isn’t quite as prestigious at first glance, they do lay claim to bookend model years of the most interesting Corvette in history; the King of the Hill C4 ZR-1 that put American performance back on the international consciousness after nearly two decades of being relinquished to the shadows.

Seattle Seahawks – 2014
As you might guess, as a Broncos fan, I don’t really like talking about this one. My team has suffered some brutal defeats in the big game (39-20 in ’87, 42-10 in ’88, and 55-10 in ’89), but this is the only one I remember, and Pete Carrol and Dan Quinn’s “Legion of Boom” starring Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, and Richard Sherman didn’t just steal Denver’s lunch money on national TV, they completely changed the way that this city approached the game of football. It would have been poetic if GM’s philosophical change to sports cars had moved the Corvette’s engine amidship a generation sooner, as originally planned, but a bankruptcy led to a (beautifully) reheated C6 taking Chevrolet’s halo car reigns in 2014 as the seventh-generation Corvette. Looking back though, the Broncos benefitted greatly from the defensive lessons they learned in ’13, and Corvette fans are extremely thankful to have had an extra six years of “original recipe” cars to enjoy!

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 2021 (2003)
Corvette Blogger HQ is just down the road from Raymond James Stadium, so, needless to say, our founder has had a pretty outstanding couple of years with the debut of the C8 content machine, back-to-back Stanley Cup wins by the Lightning, an AL pennant for the Rays, and the Bucs signing Tom Brady and immediately hitting SB paydirt. Prior to ’21 “Champa Bay” hadn’t heard anyone in the organization yell “we’re going to Disney World” since Jon Gruden and Warren Sapp in the year of the C5’s 50th anniversary spectacular. Only two teams on this list have had recent enough success to have a picture of the current rendition of America’s Sports Car by their name, and the Buccaneers are one of them, enough said.

Washington Redskins/Football Team – 1992 (1988, 1983)
Washington might not have a team name currently (uninspired rebrand coming in 2022!), but they do have three Super Bowl Championships under their belt. In Corvette parlance, the trifecta of victories all (almost) came during the C4 administration. And, like Ron Burgundy’s unchanging annual parties, in no way is that a bad thing, in fact, the ‘Skins have planted championship banners on some of the most interesting years in Corvette history. Of course, 1983 is notable as the only year since the Corvette went on sale in the early 1950s that didn’t get an official model run. There is only one 1983 Corvette in the entire world, and it was built just to keep the ‘Vette’s production streak alive before the early batch of first-run 1984 C4s left the plant in Bowling Green. 1988 is noteworthy because of RPO B2K, the GM factory-authorized Callaway Twin-Turbo conversion that bumped the anemic L98 V8 from 245 HP all the way to 382, more than any US-spec vehicle sold by Ferrari or Porsche at the time. The WFT’s last Super Bowl win came in the heart of the production run of the C4 ZR-1 that we’ve already gushed about.

Pre-Super Bowl Champions

If your team has never brought home the precious Tiffany & Co. designed Vince Lombardi Trophy that Tom Brady likes to haphazardly toss over water like a child feeding geese at the park, don’t fret; America’s Sports Car predates the Super Bowl game by fourteen years, so you can still make the list!

Arizona Cardinals – NFL (pre-Corvette 1947, 1925, as the Chicago Cardinals)
Unfortunately, the last championship won by Cardinals that came to AZ by way of Chicago and St. Louis was won six rotations around the sun before the Corvette made its debut at the Waldorf-Astoria GM Motorama on January 17, 1953. The Card’s only other NFL title came in 1925, when there was no championship game, and the team with the best regular-season winning percentage was hailed as the champ; at 11-2 they edged out the (and this isn’t a joke) 10-2 Pottsville Maroons that were cost a win by a contentious ruling from the commissioner, Joseph Carr.

Buffalo Bills – AFL 1965 (1964)
The greatest dynastic feat in American professional sports history that didn’t end in a single championship is the four-consecutive Super Bowl trips that the Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas-led Buffalo Bills made in the ’90s. With the length of careers, the one-two punch of a salary cap and free-agency, and relentless competition, four straight appearances is absolutely incredible! The Patriots only ever mustered three-in-a-row before they needed to retool for a year or two, the Packers (went two-straight times, twice), 9ers (back-to-back just one time), Cowboys (went to two SBs on three separate occasions, with a best run of three out of four), and Steelers (two straight x2) that dominated their eras also failed to make it to the Super Bowl in back-to-back-to-back-to-back seasons. Back to the “back-to-back” Bills; they might not have ever won the SB, but they did win the AFL title in 1964 and 1965 (the last year before the Champ punched a ticket to play the NFL’s winner in SB I). That last taste of success came the same year that Chevrolet started installing big block V8s in the Corvette with the awe-inspiring 425-horse 396!

Cleveland Browns – NFL 1964 (1955, 1954 (and 1950))
“The Land” fans have had a tough go of it since the AFL NFL merger. Not only are they Super Bowl-less, but they had to go without a team for three years, after Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore, just to come back as a lowly expansion franchise the same year that the old crew finally reached the promised land. With a roster full of top-five draft picks, they seem to be headed in the right direction, maybe, but, prior to the merger, the Browns were one of the headline acts of the NFL. They won their first league championship in 1950, predating the Corvette by three years, and proceeded to park two C1s and a Midyear in their trophy case, with the most recent victory coming in the second year of C2 production; ’64.

Detroit Lions – NFL 1957 (1953, 1952 (and 1935))
Aside from some all-time talents like Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson, the Motor City’s Lions haven’t exactly been associated with greatness much in the past few decades, last making the playoffs in 2016 and last winning a playoff game in 1991. In the ’50s though, they steamrolled the rest of the league on their way to three titles between 1952 and ’57, the last of which coincides with the release of our Best Corvette of the ’50s.

Los Angeles Chargers – AFL 1963 (as the San Diego Chargers)
The team hosting Super Bowl LVI in their gorgeous monstrosity of a new stadium has never won the big game themselves. In fact, the Chargers have only been Super Bowling one time, in 1995, when the 49ers hung their namesake worth of points on Junior Seau and the AFC West Champion defense. Their trophy case isn’t just full of cobwebs and dust, though, and when you are doing this SB/Corvette exercise, they just might have picked the single best year out there for team success. The San Diego “Super” Chargers were the cream of the AFL in 1963, just in time for the arrival of the most beautiful American car in history, the 1963 Corvette, to hit the scene. If you are going to get a ‘Vette for each title, you could do a lot worse than the Chargers!

Minnesota Vikings – NFL 1970
“So close!” Is the story of the proud Purple People-eating franchise. In 1998, their kicker, Gary Anderson made history as the only person at that position to ever convert every field goal and PAT that he attempted in the regular season, and what a regular season it was! The Vikes went into the playoffs as the #1 seed with the league’s most prolific offense; the one-two punch of a first-year Randy Moss and Hall of Famer Cris Carter was unstoppable, scoring a league record 556 points on their way to a 15-1 mark. What happened in the NFC title game is a horror story that is still passed down to young residents of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Anderson recorded his first miss of the season on a FG try that would have put Minnesota up 10 late in the game, leaving the door open for the Falcons to send the game to OT where they would win on their own game-winning field goal. In the 70s, the Norsemen were also within sniffing distance of becoming an honest-to-God dynasty. They went to four Super Bowls between 1970 and ’77 but came up short each time. The silver lining for one of the most dedicated fan bases in sports is that they were the last team to earn the title “NFL Champions” before the merger, later in 1970, and with the first appearance of legendary RPOs LT1 and ZR1, that isn’t too shabby of a Corvette year to be associated with, either!

Tennessee Titans – AFL 1961 (1960, as the Houston Oilers)
The last of our champions, but not quite champions section is the Titans/Oilers who pulled a “Green Bay” and went back-to-back in the first two renditions of an annual championship game. The Houston Oilers rang in the first ever AFL league year as champions and then backed up their claim to the throne in 1961, giving them a nice pair of late first-gen Corvettes! They returned to the AFL’s biggest game in ’62 but were bested by the Dallas Texans (which would become the KC Chiefs two years later). 1967 was the last time they made it all the way in the AFL, though they fell to the Raiders that season. Since going through a relocation/rebrand of their own, the “Tennessee Titans” have appeared in a lone Super Bowl in 2000, where they had an ill-fated date with a historically-great Rams team. They earned a 1-seed in the AFC this year, but were upset at home by Joe Burrow and the Bengals.

Still Waiting

Five NFL teams have never won a Super Bowl, and even more depressingly, don’t lay claim to any model years of the Plastic Fantastic.

Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons were founded in the summer of 1965 and have appeared in a pair of Super Bowls. After stunning the Vikings in the ’99 NFC Championship, they were unable to repeat the feat against John Elway in Miami. Matt Ryan and Friends then missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at a World Championship in 2017 when they gave up the biggest comeback in NFL history.

Carolina Panthers
Since their inception in 1993 (the first season wasn’t until 1995), the Panthers have been to the NFL’s premier event twice. The first was under John Fox in 2003 when a fresh-faced Tom Brady took them for his second of seven rings. Most recently, league MVP Cam Newton led the squad to SB 50 where Von Miller gifted Peyton Manning HIS second Super Bowl.

Cincinnati Bengals
This is it; the chance of a lifetime! It is hard to even type, but the Bengals are one game away from jumping from the worst part of this list, all the way up to the “champions” section, parking a C8 in their trophy case in the meantime. Their last taste of success came in the ’80s, when Quarterbacks Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason lead their respective residents of the Jungle to the ’82 and ’89 Super Bowls where they both were unfortunate enough to run into the woodchipper that was the San Francisco 49ers.

Houston Texans
After the departure of the Oilers, Houston was awarded an expansion franchise in 1999. They adopted the Chiefs’ retired “Texans” moniker and played their first season in 2002. Despite employing some all-time individual talents like Andre Johnson and JJ Watt, the league’s youngest team has yet to make the Super Bowl, though they do have six division championship banners hanging from the rafters of the NFL’s first retractable-roof stadium (a facility that absolutely dwarfs the adjacent “8th wonder of the world” Astro Dome!).

Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jags debuted in 1995, and had near-instant success under coach Tom Coughlin, knocking off the #1 seed and reaching the AFC Championship in season 2, and returning to the playoffs the next three years, culminating in another trip to the AFC title game in 1999. In the time since Jax has only won three total playoff games and is about to select their second-straight number-one overall draft pick after finishing an NFL-worst 3-14 this season. If last year’s pick, Trevor Lawrence lives up to his considerable talent, the Jaguars’ time in the League’s basement should be coming to an abrupt end, hopefully, it is in time to put a C8 ZR1 in their championship garage!

The official CorvetteBlogger 2022 Super Bowl pick is Rams 35 – Bengals 23. Corvette Nation and first-time visitors enjoy the game! Stay tuned for more of your regularly scheduled Plastic and Fantastic reporting!

Source:
Photos by Chevrolet

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