The greatest sports comeback of all time is the New England Patriots’ 25-point comeback over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017 — they trailed 28-3 in the third quarter and won 34-28 in overtime.
The largest NFL regular-season comeback was the Minnesota Vikings overcoming a 33-point deficit (33-0 at halftime) to beat the Indianapolis Colts 39-36 in overtime on December 17, 2022. Here are the 20 greatest single-game comebacks in sports history, plus the most memorable series comebacks and career comebacks from athletes who came back from injury or scandal.
Greatest sports comebacks complete breakdown
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The Patriots 28-3 comeback (and why it changed the Super Bowl)
With 8:31 left in the third quarter of Super Bowl LI, the Atlanta Falcons led the New England Patriots 28-3. ESPN’s win probability model gave the Patriots a 0.5% chance of winning. The Falcons had outplayed New England for the better part of three quarters, with Matt Ryan leading what should have been the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship. Then Tom Brady started his methodical comeback.
Brady finished with a then-Super Bowl-record 466 passing yards. The Patriots scored 31 unanswered points, including a James White touchdown with 57 seconds left and a critical two-point conversion to force overtime. New England won the coin toss in OT, drove down the field, and James White scored the game-winning touchdown — the first overtime in Super Bowl history. The Patriots had not led until that final touchdown. The score “28-3” is now permanently associated with the Falcons’ collapse, treated as shorthand among NFL fans for any blown lead.
The previous record for a Super Bowl comeback was just 10 points. Patriots-Falcons more than doubled that. Tom Brady’s 466 passing yards stood as the Super Bowl record until 2018, when he broke his own mark with 505 yards in a loss to the Eagles. James White’s three touchdowns and 14 receptions both set Super Bowl records that still stand. From a probability standpoint, Super Bowl LI remains the most improbable championship win in major American sports — a championship game where one team was effectively eliminated and then won anyway.
The Buffalo Bills’ “Comeback” — and the Vikings’ 33-point miracle
Before Super Bowl LI, the largest comeback in NFL history was the Buffalo Bills’ 32-point rally against the Houston Oilers in the 1992 AFC Wild Card playoff game on January 3, 1993. The Bills trailed 35-3 early in the third quarter, with starting quarterback Jim Kelly sidelined by injury. Backup Frank Reich led the comeback, throwing four touchdown passes in the second half. Buffalo took a 38-35 lead with 3:08 left, gave up a tying field goal, then won 41-38 in overtime on Steve Christie’s 32-yard field goal. The game became known simply as “The Comeback” in NFL lore — a single-word identifier that needs no further explanation.
The Bills’ record stood for nearly 30 years until December 17, 2022, when the Minnesota Vikings shattered it. The Vikings trailed the Indianapolis Colts 33-0 at halftime — a deficit ESPN’s analytics model gave a 99.6% chance of resulting in a Colts win. Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins threw for 460 yards (417 in the second half alone) and four touchdowns.
Minnesota outscored Indianapolis 39-3 in the second half and overtime, winning 39-36. The 33-point deficit is now the largest comeback in NFL history. The Vikings clinched the NFC North division title with the win. Cousins, often criticized for big-game struggles, has the largest single-game comeback in league history on his resume.
The 2004 Red Sox: the only 3-0 series comeback in MLB history
The 2004 American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees is the most historically significant series comeback in baseball history. After Game 3 — a 19-8 Yankees blowout at Fenway Park — Boston was down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series.
No team in MLB history had ever come back from 3-0 to win a seven-game series. Of the 25 previous teams in that situation, none had even forced a Game 7. Game 4 went to extra innings, with Dave Roberts’ steal of second base off Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning setting up the tying run. David Ortiz’s walk-off home run won Game 4 in the 12th inning. Games 5, 6, and 7 followed — including Curt Schilling’s “Bloody Sock” Game 6 performance — and the Red Sox completed the only 3-0 ALCS comeback in MLB history. They then swept the Cardinals in the World Series to end Boston’s 86-year championship drought.
The “Miracle on Ice” remains the greatest international upset in sports history. On February 22, 1980, a U.S. men’s hockey team of college players defeated the Soviet Union 4-3 in the Olympic semifinals at Lake Placid. The Soviets had won four straight Olympic gold medals and beat the same U.S. team 10-3 in an exhibition just days before the Games. Mike Eruzione scored the game-winning goal with 10 minutes left, and the U.S. went on to beat Finland for the gold medal. Al Michaels’ “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” call became one of the most famous in sports broadcasting history.
Career comebacks: Tiger Woods 2019 and the others
Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters victory is widely considered the greatest individual comeback in modern sports. Woods had not won a major championship since the 2008 U.S. Open — an 11-year drought that included four back surgeries, a public scandal, the loss of multiple endorsements, and a DUI arrest in 2017. At one point in 2017, Woods was outside the world top 1,000 in golf rankings.
His 2019 Masters win — Tiger’s 15th major championship, three shots back going into Sunday’s final round — was the most-watched golf telecast in 33 years. Other elite career comebacks include Peyton Manning, who returned from four neck surgeries that nearly ended his career in 2011 to win Super Bowl 50 with the Denver Broncos in February 2016. Magic Johnson’s 1992 NBA All-Star Game return after his HIV announcement (where he won MVP) demonstrated to a global audience that HIV was not an immediate death sentence. Ben Hogan won the 1950 U.S. Open just 16 months after a near-fatal head-on car collision with a Greyhound bus left doctors saying he might never walk again.
For continuously updated historical sports records and detailed game-by-game accounts, the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s records archive publishes comprehensive comeback statistics with full play-by-play context for every major NFL turnaround. For cross-sport historical analysis, Sports Illustrated’s archives remain the most detailed long-form coverage of these moments, with first-person accounts from the athletes and coaches involved.
The honest summary on greatest sports comebacks: the most compelling comebacks share a common pattern — a decisive moment where the trailing team finds a way to score quickly, then captures momentum so completely that the leading team falls apart psychologically.
The Patriots’ 28-3 game features five Falcons mistakes after going up 28-3 (a missed field goal, multiple stalled drives, and the Robert Alford strip-sack of Matt Ryan). The 2004 Red Sox needed Dave Roberts’ stolen base AND David Ortiz’s walk-off home run in the same game just to force a Game 5 — a margin so thin that one inning of different baseball ends the comeback before it starts. What separates the truly legendary comebacks from the merely memorable ones isn’t the deficit overcome, but the championship implications and the cultural staying power. “28-3,” “The Comeback,” “Miracle on Ice” — these scorelines and phrases live in sports vocabulary because the games themselves became cultural moments larger than their final scores.
— Drew, Legion Report