Super Bowl LI XXXVIII in 2004, which also featured the New England Patriots against that season's NFC South champion Carolina Panthers. It was also the third time the Super Bowl has been played in Houston, with Super Bowl VIII in 1974 having been held at Rice Stadium. With the Astros baseball team reaching the World Series eight months later, Houston would become just the fourth city to host both the Super Bowl and Fall Classic in the same calendar year, following San Diego (1998), Detroit (2006) and Arlington, Texas (2011); and the first among the four to win the Major League Baseball championship.
Super Bowl XLII the Super Bowl without playing a single home game in the preceding playoffs. They joined the Green Bay Packers (who won Super Bowl I against the Kansas City Chiefs), the Kansas City Chiefs (who won Super Bowl IV against the Minnesota Vikings) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (who won Super Bowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks) in accomplishing this feat. However, Green Bay had to win two games, Kansas City three, and Pittsburgh and the Giants, four, in order to accomplish this. Since, the Green Bay Packers accomplished it in 2010 by winning three road playoff games en route to their