Super Bowl XXXIV, 2000: St. Louis Rams 23 Tennessee 16

Super Bowl XXXIV was an American football game played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 30, 2000, to determine the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1999 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion St. Louis Rams defeated the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Tennessee Titans 23–16 to claim their first Super Bowl win and first NFL championship since 1951. To date, it is the most recent NFL championship in which both teams were seeking their first Super Bowl title.

The game featured teams both returning to the postseason after a period of struggles and relocation. Led by The Greatest Show on Turf offense, the Rams entered their second Super Bowl appearance with an NFC-best 13–3 regular season record. Their season marked the franchise's first playoff run since 1989 and first since relocating from Los Angeles to St. Louis. The Titans also finished the regular season with a 13–3 record and advanced to their Super Bowl debut as a wild card. In their first season after retiring the franchise's original Oilers name, the Titans were making their first playoff run since 1993 and first since relocating from Houston to Tennessee.

Largely a defensive battle during the first half, the Rams converted three field goals by halftime and scored a third quarter touchdown to take a 16–0 lead. The Titans responded by scoring 16 straight points to tie the game near the end of regulation, the then-largest deficit to be erased in a Super Bowl and first greater than 10 points. On their ensuing drive, the Rams regained the lead off wide receiver Isaac Bruce's 73-yard touchdown. Super Bowl XXXIV became best remembered for its final play, in which the Titans reached St. Louis' 10-yard line with six seconds remaining, but linebacker Mike Jones tackled wide receiver Kevin Dyson one yard short of the goal line to prevent a potential game-tying touchdown. The play became known as "One Yard Short" and "The Tackle". Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, who was the first undrafted quarterback and first first-year starter to win a Super Bowl, was named Super Bowl MVP after setting the Super Bowl records for passing yards and pass attempts without an interception. He became the sixth player to win both Super Bowl MVP and NFL MVP during the same season and was the last to do so for the next 23 seasons.

The game has been referred to as the "Dot-com Super Bowl" due to the large amount of advertisements purchased by dot-com companies. Regarded as one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time, it was featured on NFL's Greatest Games as "The Longest Yard".

Game summary
First half
The two teams' defenses seemed to dominate most of the first half. The Rams started the game out strong by taking the opening kickoff and marching to the Tennessee 17-yard line. But on third down, safety Blaine Bishop pressured quarterback Kurt Warner to throw an incomplete pass. Then the ensuing field goal attempt failed when punter/holder Mike Horan fumbled the snap. The Titans responded by moving the ball to the St. Louis 29-yard line, aided with running back Eddie George's 32-yard reception. However, they also came up empty after kicker Al Del Greco missed a 47-yard field goal attempt.

For the rest of the half, the Titans were forced to punt on all of their possessions. In contrast, the Rams were able to reach inside the Tennessee 20-yard line on all four of their remaining drives before halftime, but on each one, the Titans' defense forced St. Louis to settle for field goal attempts from kicker Jeff Wilkins, who was successful in making three of them, but missed one attempt from 34 yards. The Rams ended up leading at halftime, 9–0, but their scoring margin over the Titans seemed somewhat small, considering they drove into scoring range on every one of their first-half possessions and outgained Tennessee in total yards, 294–89.

Third quarter
Both teams' offenses started to get going in the second half. The Titans took the opening kickoff of the 3rd quarter and drove 43 yards to the St. Louis 29-yard line. But Tennessee remained scoreless after defensive back Todd Lyght blocked Del Greco's 47-yard field goal attempt. After that, Warner converted a third down situation with a completion to Marshall Faulk, then on the next two plays threw a 31-yard strike to wide receiver Isaac Bruce and a 16-yard completion to tight end Ernie Conwell before finishing the 68-yard drive with a 9-yard touchdown pass to Torry Holt, giving St. Louis a 16–0 lead. On the completion to Conwell, Bishop combined to make the tackle, but suffered a spinal injury and had to leave the game. The game was delayed for several minutes while Bishop was being treated.

Tennessee wide receiver Derrick Mason returned the ensuing kickoff 35 yards to the 34-yard line. From there, five runs by George good for 24 yards, three completions from quarterback Steve McNair to tight end Frank Wycheck for 15 yards and a run by McNair for two advanced the ball to the St. Louis 25-yard line. Then McNair scrambled 23 yards to the 2-yard line, setting up a 1-yard touchdown run by George two plays later. The touchdown cut the Titans' deficit to 16–6 after McNair's pass to Wycheck on the two-point conversion attempt fell incomplete.

Fourth quarter
The Titans' first score sparked them to rally. After forcing the Rams to punt on their ensuing possession, a pair of 21-yard completions from McNair to tight end Jackie Harris and wide receiver Isaac Byrd aided a 13-play, 79-yard drive that was capped by George's 2-yard touchdown run to make the score 16–13. The Tennessee defense then forced the Rams to a three-and-out, and Horan's 30-yard punt gave the Titans the ball back at their 47-yard line. The Titans' offense then drove only 28 yards on their ensuing possession, but it was close enough for Del Greco to attempt a 43-yard field goal. This time, Del Greco's kick was good, tying the score at 16–16 with just 2:12 left in the game. The 16-point deficit was the largest deficit to be erased in a Super Bowl and the first greater than 10 points. It was also the first time in any Super Bowl a team down double digits in the 4th quarter had tied the game.

Then on the Rams' first play of their ensuing drive, Warner threw a long pass that was caught at the Titans' 38-yard line by Bruce, who then ran it all the way into the end zone for a 73-yard touchdown to give St. Louis a 23–16 lead. Likewise, in the 1951 NFL Championship Game, quarterback Norm Van Brocklin's 73-yard game-winning touchdown pass to wide receiver Tom Fears broke a 17–17 tie in the fourth quarter and gave the Rams a seven-point victory to win the NFL title. Warner's touchdown pass to Bruce was his only completion of the 4th quarter.

The Titans took over the ball at their own 12-yard line with 1:48 left in the game after committing a holding penalty on the ensuing kickoff. McNair started out the drive with a pair of completions to Mason and Wycheck for gains of 9 and 7 yards to reach the 28-yard line. After an incomplete pass, defensive back Dré Bly's 15-yard face-mask penalty while tackling McNair on a 12-yard scramble gave the Titans a 1st down at the St. Louis 45-yard line. On the next play, St. Louis was penalized 5 yards for being offside, moving the ball to the 40-yard line with 59 seconds left. McNair ran for 2 yards, then threw a 7-yard completion to wide receiver Kevin Dyson. On the next play, Tennessee nearly lost the ball when Bly stepped in front of a pass intended for Mason, only to have it go right through his arms. Two plays later, with the Titans facing 3rd down and 5, McNair was hit by two Rams defenders, but he escaped and completed a 16-yard pass to Dyson to gain a 1st down at the Rams' 10-yard line. Tennessee then used up their final timeout with just six seconds left, giving them a chance for one last play to tie the game.

Final play
The game's final play from the Rams' 10-yard line has gone down in NFL history as "The Tackle" or "One Yard Short". Tennessee's plan was to use Wycheck as a decoy. The tight end would run straight up the field on the right side, to lure linebacker Mike Jones away from receiver Kevin Dyson. Dyson would then slant left through the middle of the field. With Wychek occupying Jones, McNair would pass the ball to Dyson, who would be open from about five yards out to run in for the score.

Jones, who was the Rams' defensive signal-caller, called a 77 Blast, a combination coverage that can be altered as the offense lines up. When the Titans came to the line, Rams safety Billy Jenkins called for three Rams players — he, Jones, and cornerback Dexter McCleon — to play zone coverage against Wychek and Dyson.

As the play began, everything appeared to go as planned. Jones initially ran with Wycheck up the field. But as the Rams linebacker reached the goal line, he glanced over his left shoulder and noticed an open Dyson catching the ball. Jones switched directions and wrapped up Dyson's legs about two and a half yards short of the end zone.

Both players went into a rolling motion as Dyson stretched his hand with the football towards the end zone, attempting to break the plane of the goal line and score. As the rolling motion came to an end with Jones on top of Dyson's legs, the receiver's shoulder touched the ground, making him down by contact with the ball just inches short of the goal line. At this point, there were 2 seconds left on the clock, but with no timeouts remaining, the Titans could not run another play before time expired and, therefore, the game was over. Had Dyson scored and the extra point been converted, it would have been the first Super Bowl to go into overtime. Alternatively, had Dyson scored, the Titans could have attempted a 2-point conversion for the outright win on the final play of the game.

Because the game had already seen the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, "The Tackle" is considered one of the greatest and most exciting game-ending plays in modern NFL history. The image of Dyson stretching the ball to the goal line with Jones wrapped around him has become a staple of NFL highlights. ESPN.com ranked "The Tackle" as the 35th-greatest moment of the past 25 years in sports (as of 2007). NFL.com ranked the tackle as the fourth-greatest clutch moment in Super Bowl history. Fox Sports ranked it as the Greatest Clutch Play in Super Bowl History (as of 2007). Like Dallas Cowboys cornerback Larry Brown, Jones was included on the NFL Network's "Top 10 One-Hit Wonders" list (Jones was #10, Brown was #3), Jones also mirrored Brown in his solid if unspectacular career outside of his Super Bowl heroics.

After the game
After the game, many sports writers commented on Warner's rise from an unknown backup to a Super Bowl MVP, but Warner himself wasn't impressed by it. "How can you be in awe of something that you expect yourself to do?" Warner pointed out. "People think this season is the first time I touched a football; they don't realize I've been doing this for years – just not on this level, because I never got the chance. Sure, I had my tough times, but you don't sit there and say, 'Wow, I was stocking groceries five years ago, and look at me now.' You don't think about it, and when you do achieve something, you know luck has nothing to do with it."

However, he later told The New York Times "I guess it is sort of a storybook ending. When you think about where I was and where I am now, it seems pretty incredible."

The game, including via archived footage from the broadcast, also features in the ending of Warner's 2021 biopic American Underdog, which stars Zachary Levi as Warner, Dennis Quaid as Vermeil and Chance Kelly as Mike Martz.

Wikipedia