Super Bowl XVI Super Bowl XVI Super Bowl XVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Cincinnati Bengals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1981 season. The 49ers defeated the Bengals by the score of 26–21 to win their first Super Bowl. The game was played on January 24, 1982, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It marked the first time that a Super Bowl was held at a cold-weather city. The domed stadium saved the crowd at the
Super Bowl XLIX 2008, and the third Super Bowl played in the Phoenix area, as Super Bowl XXX was held at Sun Devil Stadium in nearby Tempe in January 1996. The New England Patriots had a rough start to their 2014 season, starting the season with a 2–2 record and hitting a low point with a humiliating 41–14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in week four. By this point, the Patriots faced heavy criticism in the media, especially quarterback Tom Brady. Former Patriots safety and teammate Rodney Harrison declared Brady "looked scared to death" in the pocket and "doesn't have any confidence