Before every NFL season, every single team has aspirations of making it to the Super Bowl, no matter how implausible it may seem at the time. That’s the goal for every team and player. They grow up fantasizing about lifting the Lombardi Trophy, although only a select few get to do it over the span of their careers.
The trophy awarded to the best team in the sport after the final whistle blows has become iconic due to its design. Its name has also become colloquial, although many may not even know how it got its name. Football diehards surely do, though.
Vince Lombardi was arguably the greatest head coach in football history
Known more so as just the “Lombardi Trophy“, its full name is the “Vince Lombardi Trophy“. It’s named after Vince Lombardi, who is highly regarded as one of the best coaches and football executives in the sport’s history. It wasn’t named after him until 1970.
Lombardi led the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls ever played (I and II), as the team’s head coach and general manager. That came after he had led them to five NFL Championships in seven years before the Super Bowl became the final game of the season.
The trophy features a simple design of a football perched on top of a three-sided design. It was created by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1966, in conjunction with Tiffany and Co. vice president Oscar Riedner. Riedner had made a sketch of the trophy on a cocktail napkin, and the rest was history.
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Tiffany and Co. continue to produce the trophy every year. A new one is made for every season, and the winning franchise gets to keep it. Each player gets a small replica trophy as well.
The franchises with the most Lombardi Trophies in their possession are the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots. Both have six trophies, while the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys are right behind with five.
Has Lombardi Trophy ever been broken?
While the trophy has not been fully dropped or broken, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski actually dented the franchise’s sixth Lombardi Trophy by using it as a baseball bat.
Some legendary quarterbacks have also had mishaps with the trophy. Patrick Mahomes almost gave the Chiefs’ trophy away to a fan during a championship parade.
Tom Brady also threw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ trophy from one boat to another in an extremely risky maneuever back in 2021. Gronkowski was involved in that one as well.