1984 Super Bowl XVIII

About Tampa, Florida: Tampa, Florida with a population of 300,000 was getting ready to host thousands of visitors to their city and to have millions of football fans from around the world watch Super Bowl 18 in their Tampa Stadium. With warm weather year round what better place was there to watch the Los Angeles Raiders take on the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII!

Ticket Sales / Attendance: There were 72,920 people in attendance at the game in and it is estimated that another 77.6 million more excited football fans tuned in from their homes or other parties around the world while tuning into CBS. The ratings the game for the game on this network were 46.4.

Team Pre-Season Stats: Head coach Tom Flores was looking for his second Super Bowl victory with the Raiders and first since the team moved to Los Angeles. Running back Marcus Allen would once again anchor the offence and TE Todd Christensen hoped to have an even better year than his 500 yards receiving the previous season.

Joe Gibbs and the Washington Redskins came into the season as defending Superbowl Champions and were looking to repeat. With QB Joe Theismann leading the offence along with RB John Riggins and WR Art Monk the Redskins were legitimate favourites to win their second title in a row.

Team Roster: Key players on the Raiders roster included TE Todd Chistensen, DB Lester Hayes, DL Howie Long, LB Rod Martin, QB Jim Plunkett, RB Marcus Allen, and WR Cliff Branch.

The notable players for the Redskins included QB Joe Theismann, RB John Riggins, WR Charlie Brown, WR Art Monk, OL Jeff Bostic, DL Dave Bultz, DB Darrell Green and OL Mark May.

Game Highlights: The Los Angeles Raiders came into the game with a strong offence and defence and in the game they dominated on both sides of the ball from start to finish. They took an earlier 7-0 lead as Derrick Jensen returned a blocked put for a touchdown at 4:52 in the first quarter. They then added to the lead as QB Jim Plunkett threw to Cliff Branch for a 12 yard touch down pass and a 14-0 lead. The Redskins came back with 3 points on a field goal, but with 7 seconds left in the first half L.A. linebacker Jack Squirek intercepted a Joe Theismann pass and returned it 5 yards for a touchdown. This gave the Raiders a 21-3 lead and all of the momentum.

In the second half Marcus Allen added two more touchdowns for the Raiders and Washington's two field goals were not enough to mount a come back in the game. Los Angeles went on to a 38-9 victory and their second title in 4 years.

Game MVP: The MVP of the 18th Super Bowl was Raiders running back Marcus Allen. Allen carried the ball 20 times for 191 yards and 2 touchdowns. He made the most spectacular play of the game when he ran for a 74 yard touchdown on the final play of the 3rd quarter. His play during the game helped the Raiders dominate Washington and to score the most points in Super Bowl history.

Half Time Show: The halftime show was entitled "Salute to Superstars of the Silver Screen" and featured the marching bands of the University of Florida and Florida State University.

Commercials: The average cost for a 30 second commercial during the 18th Superbowl was $368,000. Chevrolet had several ads during the game featuring their vehicles Camaro, Cavalier, Celebrity, Chevette, and S-10 Blazer.

Probably the one of the strangest advertisements appeared during the third quarter introducing the Macintosh personal computer for the first time. A sci-fi type commercial where everything is black, gray and white with subjects marching towards a giant TV screen, bowing to it, "Big Brother". One woman not caught by conformity, brightly dressed comes in and shatters the screen and "On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984" appears on the screen. It is considered a masterpiece in advertising.

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