Super Bowl of the Day - The Worst... Super Bowl... EVER

Twelve years ago today, the San Francisco 49ers were slated to meet the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX, and for some reason they went ahead and played the game anyway. What ensued was an orgy of strangeness and bad feelings that started off with Kathie Lee Gifford singing the national anthem and then got worse.

First of all, there was the fact that the Chargers were in it. Led by Bobby Ross, no less. I can't even remember who their quarterback was. Wait a second, it's coming back to me... ah who cares. How can you remember the Chargers quarterback when the Niners quarterback had such a record-setting evening? Let's recap shall we:

• 49ers QB Steve Young set a Super Bowl record by throwing for nineteen touchdowns on 7,010 yards passing.
• Wide receiver Jerry Rice set Super Bowl records by catching twelve of those touchdowns and also managing to bang every one of the Chargers cheerleaders while the game was still in progress.
• Ricky Watters also scored six touchdowns, including three during halftime.

It's a little known fact that the game got so boring for the Niners that in the fourth quarter, no member of the team actually played in the game. They sent their wives and sons on to the field disguised in their uniforms. At this point in the game, Steve Young's son threw eight touchdown passes to Jerry Rice's wife.

The score of the game is thought to have ended up at around 278-12, but the final tally was ultimately deemed incalculable using traditional methods and is now represented by a symbol that looks something like what Prince's name used to be. As if all that wasn't bad enough, whereas the Super Bowl usually does pretty well in the ratings, Super Bowl XXIX actually lost its ratings timeslot to both the shows on the other networks - NBC had a Sanford and Son marathon while CBS was showing like, one of the old Super Bowls. A good one.


(ratings were so bad that this Apple ad was the way most people found out that the Niners won the Super Bowl)