Eighth in a series of overrated/underrated commentaries

Question: Which Super Bowl was most overrated? Underrated?

Overrated: Super Bowl III

The game has taken on Homeric status in lore, and perhaps it was a terrific upset, but as a game it fell woefully short. It was plagued as much by the Colts' poor quarterbacking (Earl Morrall and John Unitas combined for four interceptions on 41 passes) as it was for poor coaching.

Yeah, I said it — Don Shula had too much faith in Morrall, the league MVP, during a horrible performance where he completed only 6-of-17 passes for 71 yards with three first-half interceptions. Instead of inserting Unitas after halftime, when the Colts trailed only 7-0, Shula waited until there was less than four minutes remaining in the third quarter and they were down 13-0 to send in Unitas, who led them to their only touchdown late in the fourth quarter. Also woefully underused was HB Tom Matte, who had ripped off a run of 58 yards and a reception of 30 but had only 13 touches in the game despite leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage that season.

But, of course, the biggest fallacy this game created was a dreaded two-headed monster: the legend of Joe Namath and the time-mushroomed and, at the time, much-maligned "playoff guarantee." Sure, Namath backed up his boast of the Jets beating the mighty Colts 16-7, but he did so in pedestrian fashion — 17-of-28 passing for 206 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions. The run game was the real hero, wearing down the overrated Colts defense and leading to all four scores.

This game often is labeled as a signpost for the shift of power from the bullying NFL to the once-measly AFL, but that was a brief run. After the merger, the AFC and NFC were far more balanced when you look at the league as a whole and not just at Super Bowl winners over the following decade.

Super Bowl III was mostly a bore — perhaps significant at the time, but even historically speaking, it was surprisingly irrelevant upon closer inspection.

Underrated: Super Bowl XXXVIII

This one had it all. The story line heading in was the underdog-turned-favorite Patriots against the dog-turned-underdog Panthers, two seasons removed from 1-15. Early on, the Patriots' dominant defense looked impenetrable. I remember actually feeling badly for Jake Delhomme when he opened the game 1-for-9 passing and the Panthers' vaunted run game had been shut down. But the Patriots weren't doing much offensively, either, and the normally unflappable Adam Vinatieri had misfired on two short field goals (one was blocked).

As then-Panthers play-by-play announcer Bill Rosinski said, "This game is like Yale vs. Harvard in 1938 with leather helmets. It might be 6-0 when we get done today."

And then everything turned on its head.

Boston Herald columnist Gerry Callahan later would write, perfectly: "One of the greatest Super Bowls of all time broke out like a fistfight in the middle of morning Mass." It was true: In three dizzying minutes to close out the first half, the two teams went from a scoreless stalemate to a 14-10 game full of life. The action on the field was nasty and breathtaking. It was a close to a first half like we had never seen before or since — and there would be more where that came from.

The third quarter mirrored the first, just like the indescribable fourth quarter mimicked the second. After knocking heads for another 15 minutes, the ebb turned and the Panthers and Patriots set off a final stanza for the ages — a thrilling, Super Bowl-record 37 points, with each team one-upping the other before Vinatieri hit his second title-winning field goal in three years in the waning moments for a 32-29 Patriots victory.

No Super Bowl has had this kind of herky-jerky, vertigo-inducing waves of inertia and animation. The game made Tom Brady a full-fledged star, and it kicked off the Patriots' mini-dynasty. It also hardened the idea of the "team" concept, one that talent-driven owners such as Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones still have failed to recognize.

I also believe this was the first game where fans at large first began to turn against the Patriots, lifting the club to its secure perch near the top of the "most hated teams" lists anywhere west of Interstate 87 and south of Stamford, Conn. Despite the win, the Patriots no longer were America's darlings - the spunky Panthers stole that title, for a day anyway — but instead became the reviled favorites they would be known as for the next five years. Of course, "Spygate" didn't hurt matters later.

In addition to what you can read on our Web site, PFW editors sounded off on 10 more "overrated/underrated" topics in the Preview '09 magazine by PFW and Yahoo! Sports, now on sale at bookstores and newsstands across the country and online at PFWstore.com.