6 NFL Players We Wish Had Won a Super Bowl Ring
When the confetti falls at the conclusion of Super Bowl LVIII in less than a week, the title of "Super Bowl champion" will be tacked onto the resume of all the players involved in the winning effort.
Each of those players—from the star quarterback to the end-of-roster special teamers—will forever be known as a champion, a distinction that even some of the NFL's all-time greats never earned.
While a good number of the Hall of Famers enshrined in Canton have at least one ring in their trophy case, plenty left an indelible mark on the league without one. These players still managed to make a massive impact on professional football history despite this lack of hardware, perhaps making their enshrinement all the more impressive.
Regardless, each of these players undoubtedly wanted to experience the joy that comes with the ultimate NFL victory. Given their immense contributions to the game, here's a look back at some of the greatest players to never win it all who we wish had at least one ring.
Bruce Smith
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Bruce Smith is one of the greatest defensive players to ever grace the NFL, but even he couldn't propel his Buffalo or Washington teams to a Super Bowl victory during his nearly two-decade tenure in the league.
Smith was part of the infamous Bills squad that went to four consecutive Super Bowls and lost each one. Their closest call was in Super Bowl XXV—a matchup in which Smith directly put two points on the board for his Bills by securing a safety—but Buffalo lost when Scott Norwood's potential game-winning field goal sailed wide right in the final moments.
Although he never captured a Lombardi Trophy, Smith is still remembered for being the NFL's all-time leader in sacks with an even 200 for his career. No active player is within striking distance of that longstanding record, with Von Miller's 123.5 currently being the closest. Smith's longevity adds to his legend, as he had at least one sack in all 19 seasons he played and recorded a double-digit total in 13 of those campaigns.
Sacks weren't the only thing Smith did well. He was an 11-time Pro Bowler, eight-time All-Pro and two-time Defensive Player of the Year award winner for his all-around contributions in the defensive trenches. He had 1,224 tackles—only 41 were officially for a loss due to the league not keeping that stat until the final half-decade of Smith's career—along with 43 forced fumbles, 15 fumble recoveries and even a pair of interceptions.
Anthony Munoz
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Anthony Munoz is widely regarded as one of the greatest offensive linemen to ever step on the gridiron. While he battled injuries during his collegiate days at USC, Munoz would win a national championship as part of the Trojans 1978 squad and went on to get drafted No. 3 overall in 1980.
Munoz had a legendary 13-year career with the Cincinnati Bengals, getting named to 11 Pro Bowls and nine All-Pro teams. Despite his incredible personal accolades and four trips to the postseason, the left tackle would never capture a championship as a professional.
Munoz had two close calls with the Lombardi Trophy, competing against the San Francisco 49ers in both Super Bowl XVI and XXIII. The latter was an especially painful loss for the Bengals, falling by a 20-16 margin following a 92-yard game-winning drive orchestrated by the legendary Joe Montana.
Munoz would go on to play a few more seasons but never returned to the Big Game, making him arguably the best offensive line talent to never win it all.
Tony Gonzalez
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Tony Gonzalez was instrumental in modernizing tight end play and will always be remembered as one of the greatest to ever suit up at the position. He played 17 years in the NFL—the first 12 with the Kansas City Chiefs and the final five for the Atlanta Falcons—at the highest of levels, even earning the last of his 14 total Pro Bowl nods during his swan-song campaign.
Gonzalez broke down the door for tight ends to become the top pass-catching option in an offense, even leading the league in receptions during a historic 2004 season. He never caught fewer than 59 passes in a single season outside of his rookie year and had at least 80 catches on eight occasions.
Despite his immense talent, Gonzalez's teams never found much success outside of the regular season. While he appeared in seven postseason games across six different playoff runs, his Kansas City squads never made it beyond the divisional round.
Gonzalez had slightly more luck in Atlanta during the final stages of his illustrious career—he won his lone playoff game following the 2012 campaign with the club—but ultimately fell short in the subsequent NFC Championship Game appearance when the Falcons blew a 10-point halftime lead against the San Francisco 49ers.
With 270 games under his belt, Gonzalez is one of the few players to reach that lofty mark without playing in a Super Bowl. He wrapped up his Hall of Fame career with 15,127 yards and 111 touchdowns on 1,325 receptions across all those contests, stats that seem almost unfathomable for him to not have played in a Super Bowl.
Randy Moss
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No receiver made a lasting impact on the modern NFL quite the way Randy Moss did. The lanky 6'4", 210-pound athlete began piling up accolades shortly after becoming a first-round pick by the Minnesota Vikings in 1998 and didn't stop for the better part of his 14 years in the league.
Not only did he make six Pro Bowls, lead the NFL in touchdown catches five times, earn four All-Pro nods and capture the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, but he played with so much flair and had such a penchant for big plays that his name became a verb. The term "Moss'd" is often the first thing to come mind—even today, over a decade after Moss' retirement—when a receiver makes an incredibly athletic, highlight-reel catch over his defender.
Despite his legacy, Moss never managed to win a Super Bowl. He had two legitimate cracks at a championship in the latter stages of his career, coming painfully close in 2007 as part of a New England Patriots team that went 16-0 during the regular season and nearly capped off an unprecedented 19-0 run before collapsing in Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants.
Moss admitted he's still haunted by a missed connection with Tom Brady during the game's final drive. The wideout narrowly failed to haul in a ball that would've resulted in a 60-plus-yard gain, a play that would have put New England in position to at least tie the game.
He would get another chance to win a ring in his final season by signing with the San Francisco 49ers in 2012 after taking a year away from the game. The 35-year-old was still effective at this point in his career—he started all three of San Francisco's playoff contests and caught seven passes for 112 yards during them—but his side would fall just short against the Baltimore Ravens, the second Super Bowl Moss would lose by a mere three points.
Barry Sanders
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Barry Sanders is largely considered one of the greatest running backs, if not the greatest, in NFL history. He averaged a whopping 1,527 rushing yards per season and nearly 100 rushing yards per game over the course of a decorated 10-year career, but one of the few things Sanders failed to accomplish in that span was winning a Super Bowl.
Sanders accomplished much during his decade as a professional, including earning the league MVP award for a herculean 1997 season—one in which he rushed for 2,053 yards and 11 touchdowns on 335 totes and added 305 yards and three more scores on 33 receptions—which shockingly wound up being his penultimate NFL campaign.
Even with a player of Sanders' immense caliber leading their offense, the Lions remained mired in mediocrity. The team reached the playoffs on five occasions during Sanders' stint in the Motor City but won just a single playoff game during those trips. Sanders' Lions were obliterated by a 31-point margin during their lone NFC Championship Game appearance in 1991.
Sanders would abruptly retire following Detroit's disappointing 5-11 finish in 1998. Even though he still appeared to be in his prime at age 30—he rushed 343 times for 1,491 yards and four scores while earning the last of his 10 Pro Bowl nods that year—Sanders admitted that he lost his desire to keep playing following another fruitless season.
Dan Marino
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No conversation related to NFL stars who never earned a Super Bowl ring would be complete without a Dan Marino mention. The legendary quarterback put up eye-popping numbers and revolutionized the passing game while overseeing the Miami Dolphins offense for nearly two decades, but unfortunately he was never able to take the franchise to the promised land.
Marino garnered no shortage of individual honors during his 17-year NFL career. He was named to nine Pro Bowls, led the league in passing yards five times and touchdowns on three occasions while earning a trio of All-Pro nods during an era filled with elite quarterbacks.
While Marino did take the 'Phins to the playoffs on 10 occasions and finished with a respectable 8-10 postseason record, he never had the support system around him—especially on the ground, as Miami lacked a 1,000-yard rusher for the first 13 seasons of Marino's career—to topple the juggernauts of the times.
In 1984, just his second season as a pro, Marino was named both the league MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. He racked up an incredible 5,084 yards through the air (a figure that wouldn't be topped until 2011) and 48 touchdowns—which shattered the previous high of 38 in a season and remained atop the record books for two decades—while guiding Miami to an NFL-best 14-2 record. The spectacular season ended in disappointment, however, as the team would get decimated by the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX.
That would be the closest Marino ever came to the Lombardi Trophy. The Dolphins never reached the Super Bowl again during his tenure as the starter (and still haven't been back to this day), something that seemed unfathomable in the early 1980s given Marino's 21-4 record over his first 25 career starts.
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