As the lone surefire Hall of Fame skill position player slated to take the field for Super Bowl 57 on Sunday night, the odds and history are on the side of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — whose anytime touchdown odds of -135 are the shortest on the board at DraftKings — finding the end zone.
Of the 271 offensive touchdowns scored in Super Bowl history, 60 have been scored by Hall of Famers. Fourteen Hall of Famers have scored multiple touchdowns, led by Jerry Rice (eight). Kelce has 16 catches but just one touchdown in his first two Super Bowls, suggesting there’s a real possibility of positive regression Sunday.
Odds and history also suggest the next tier of star players are going to have the opportunity to spike the ball with hundreds of millions of people watching. The next seven players with anytime touchdown odds of +200 or shorter combined to account for 72 of the 116 rushing or receiving touchdowns scored this season by the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
- Jalen Hurts -115
- Miles Sanders -105
- A.J. Brown +105
- Isiah Pacheco +110
- Dallas Goedert +145
- DeVonta Smith +150
- Jerick McKinnon +180
But the Super Bowl is also known for the lesser-known players emerging and getting an unforgettable moment or two on the biggest stage.
Those of us of a certain age began learning about the Super Bowl by reading about the exploits of Max McGee, the 34-year-old Green Bay Packers wide receiver who took the field for Super Bowl I with a hangover but caught two touchdown passes — including the one to open the scoring — and finished with seven catches for 138 yards.
McGee may be the only player to ever score in the Super Bowl while nursing a pounding headache from the night before. But he’s far from the only previously anonymous player to vault himself into big game lore with a well-timed touchdown or two.
Here’s a look at some candidates to score a long-shot touchdown Sunday night, followed by a trip down memory lane with some of the more surprising players to score a touchdown in Super Bowl history.
Fourteen different players scored a touchdown this season for the Chiefs. Running back Ronald Jones II (+1700 anytime touchdown odds in Super Bowl betting) isn’t likely to get a series to himself in a loaded backfield, but he has 19 touchdowns in five seasons, including one this season.
Given the creativity of head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, it won’t be a surprise to see tight ends Jody Fortson (+1000) or Blake Bell (+1700) run a route at the goal line. And who doesn’t love seeing a fullback like Michael Burton (+2500) plunge into the end zone?
The Eagles’ touchdowns were a bit more concentrated, with 10 players combining for all of Philadelphia’s rushing and receiving scores. But wide receiver Zach Pascal (+1000) has enticing odds for a player with 16 career touchdowns. Tight ends Jack Stoll (+1200) and Grant Calcaterra (+2800) are always interesting near the goal line. There’s never been a punt return for a touchdown in the Super Bowl, but maybe Britain Covey (+2800), who had 33 punt returns for the NFC champs this season, etches his name in the record books.
We might be due to see a touchdown scored by someone whose name immediately inspires a spike in Google searches.
The most recent out-of-nowhere player to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl is Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Chris Matthews, who didn’t have a catch during the 2014 regular season but had four catches for 109 yards and a touchdown in the Seahawks’ 43-8 rout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 49.
Prior to Matthews, this century’s most surprising players to score in the Super Bowl were David Tyree and Gary Russell. Tyree had four catches for 35 yards for the New York Giants in the 2007 regular season before finishing with three catches for 43 yards and a touchdown in Super Bowl 42. Of course, he’s best known for the last catch of his career, which didn’t go for a touchdown but extended the Giants’ game-winning drive and is forever enshrined as the best catch in Super Bowl — or maybe even NFL — history.
Russell had 28 carries for 77 yards and three touchdowns for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2008, his second of three NFL seasons, before he rushed twice for negative-3 yards — but one touchdown! — in the Steelers’ 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl 43.
In 1999, Howard Griffith sent us all scrambling for our Pro Football Encyclopedia (ask your parents) by running for two touchdowns when the Denver Broncos rolled past the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII, better known as John Elway’s last game. Griffith, a fullback and former ninth-round draft pick, never rushed for more than 223 yards or scored more than three regular season touchdowns in eight seasons.
Elway was across the field 11 years earlier, when Timmy Smith cemented himself as the McGee of his era by rushing for 204 yards and two touchdowns in Washington’s 42-10 rout of the Broncos. Smith, who lost out on MVP honors to Doug Williams after Williams threw for four second-quarter touchdowns, rushed for just 602 regular season yards and three touchdowns in three seasons.
But none of the aforementioned players are in the quirkiest Super Bowl club of all — comprised of the nine players who scored a touchdown the only time they carried or caught the ball in the big game. Is someone going to supplant Nick Foles — albeit probably not as a quarterback catching a touchdown catch — as the most recent member of this select group on Sunday night?
- Percy Howard: 34-yard touchdown catch for Dallas in Super Bowl X
- Ron Smith: 24-yard touchdown catch for the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl XIV
- Carl Monroe: 33-yard touchdown catch for San Francisco in Super Bowl XIX
- William “The Refrigerator” Perry: 1-yard touchdown run for Chicago in Super Bowl XX
- Zeke Mowatt: 6-yard touchdown catch for the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXI
- Don Smith: 1-yard touchdown run for Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV
- Ben Patrick: 1-yard touchdown catch for Arizona in Super Bowl 43
- Jacoby Jones: 56-yard touchdown catch for Baltimore in Super Bowl 47
- Nick Foles: 1-yard touchdown catch for Philadelphia in Super Bowl 52
