Super Bowl XI regular season record before defeating the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs. The Vikings were making their fourth Super Bowl appearance after posting an 11–2–1 regular season record and playoff victories over the Washington Redskins and the Los Angeles Rams. The Vikings became the first team to appear in four Super Bowls, a record they held until the Dallas Cowboys advanced to a Super Bowl for the fifth time in Super Bowl XIII. They had not won in their previous three attempts, losing Super Bowl IV to the Kansas City Chiefs in the final Super Bowl
Super Bowl XLVIII uniform (white jerseys with navy-blue pants, representing away and home, respectively). With the loss, the Broncos fell to 0–4 (outscored 167–38) in Super Bowls in which they wore orange jerseys, while with the Seahawks' win, the team wearing white had then won nine of the previous ten Super Bowls. Holding the game in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut Tri-State Area created the possibility of a "cold weather Super Bowl", leading to much controversy about whether or not MetLife Stadium was an appropriate venue. Further raising the possibility that cold temperatures could have affected the game was that the winter of 2014