The New England Patriots defeated the Atlanta Falcons to win Super Bowl LI, but the result was already in the cards when the Falcons opted to wear red jerseys. With the Patriots victory, teams in white jerseys now have wins in 12 of the last 13 Super Bowls.
It all started in 2005 when the white jersey-wearing Patriots topped the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, 24-21. It launched over a decade of dominance by white jersey teams:
White jerseys dominate the Super Bowl
Super Bowl | Winner | Jersey | Loser | Jersey |
---|---|---|---|---|
Super Bowl | Winner | Jersey | Loser | Jersey |
XXXIX | Patriots | white | Eagles | green |
XL | Steelers | white | Seahawks | blue |
XLI | Colts | white | Bears | blue |
XLII | Giants | white | Patriots | blue |
XLIII | Steelers | white | Cardinals | red |
XLIV | Saints | white | Colts | blue |
XLV | Packers | green | Steelers | white |
XLVI | Giants | white | Patriots | blue |
XLVII | Ravens | white | 49ers | red |
XLVIII | Seahawks | white | Broncos | orange |
XLIX | Patriots | white | Seahawks | blue |
L | Broncos | white | Panthers | black |
LI | Patriots | white | Falcons | red |
If it wasn’t for Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers’ win in Super Bowl XLV while wearing green it’d be a clean sweep for the teams that wore white.
The Falcons could have avoided this. It was the NFC’s turn to be home team in the Super Bowl, so Atlanta had the choice of jerseys, and they opted to wear red. In hindsight, there was a lot of bad mojo working against the Falcons.