Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL — not even a trip to the Super Bowl despite a team’s status as the best in the conference or the league. Balls take funny bounces, established teams can be taken apart by upstarts, and individual performances can usurp the efforts of others. As such, there have been several surprise results in conference championship games. Here are the biggest such upsets in NFL history.
January 10, 1982: San Francisco 49ers 28, Dallas Cowboys 27
Was the game that gave us “The Catch” and marked the beginning of Bill Walsh’s 49ers dynasty an upset? Based on past performance, it would appear to be so. Tom Landry’s team hadn’t missed the playoffs since 1974, and the 49ers hadn’t made the playoffs since 1972, with only one winning season in that time before their surprising 13-3 campaign in 1981. Dallas came into the game as three-point road favorites, and they had a 27-21 lead before Joe Montana found Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone with 51 seconds left in the game. Walsh beat Paul Brown, his former mentor, in Super Bowl XVI two weeks later, 26-21. It was the first of three Lombardi Trophies for Walsh, perhaps the greatest offensive mind in NFL history.