The Giants, led by quarterback Phil Simms, running back Joe Morris, and their "Big Blue Wrecking Crew" defense, advanced to their first Super Bowl after posting a 14–2 regular season record and only allowing a combined total of 3 points in their two postseason wins.

[4] The large national audience saw an early appearance of the now-traditional Gatorade shower, where players dump a cooler full of liquid over a coach's head following a meaningful win.

[6] The Philadelphia host committee assembled what was considered a strong, but long-shot bid, hoping to win the first outdoor Super Bowl in a cold weather city.

[7] Minneapolis went above and beyond in selling their unsuccessful bid, even staging a parade in the lobby of the hotel hosting the NFL owners' meeting that included a woman riding a white horse.

Philadelphia ultimately came close to landing a Super Bowl at Veterans Stadium, nearly approaching the needed number of votes to secure the game.

Their secondary was led by Pro Bowl cornerbacks Dennis Smith and Louis Wright, along with Mike Harden, who intercepted 6 passes and returned them for 179 yards and 2 touchdowns.

One reason for his success was fullback Maurice Carthon, who provided Morris with excellent blocking and was the team's second leading rusher with 260 yards.

Nose tackle Jim Burt and right end Leonard Marshall, who were also both selected to the Pro Bowl, anchored the defensive line.

With the play of their defense, the running attack led by Morris, and Simms' passing game, the Giants earned a 14–2 regular season record.

Elway's ability to improvise on the fly, in part, helped Denver to make it through the playoffs, narrowly defeating the New England Patriots 22–17, and the Cleveland Browns 23–20, in the AFC Championship Game.

The Broncos then won in overtime after Elway led them 60 yards in 9 plays to set up kicker Rich Karlis' game-winning field goal.

[11][12] The dominating performances by the Giants' defense gave the team extra confidence going into their Super Bowl matchup versus the Broncos.

The New York players in this game wore stickers with the number 38 on their helmets as a tribute to former Giants fullback John Tuggle, who had died of cancer shortly before the start of the season at age 25.

In the teams' local markets, the game was carried on WNEW-AM in New York City with Jim Gordon and Dick Lynch and KOA-AM in Denver, Colorado, with Bob Martin and Larry Zimmer.

[13] Super Bowl XXI is featured in NFL's Greatest Games under the title Land of the Giants and was narrated by John Doremus.

However, both the game and the postgame interviews ran past the expected airtime, and thus the montage was canceled and CBS instead went straight to its Super Bowl lead-out program, Hard Copy.

CBS then asked Barrett for permission to use the song after the 1987 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Game on March 30, in which Indiana beat Syracuse.

The pregame show was a salute to California and featured the pop music group The Beach Boys and Canadian jazz fusion band The Shuffle Demons.

As had been their tradition all season, upon securing their victory, Giants players celebrated by dumping a Gatorade cooler on head coach Bill Parcells.

The 1986 Giants were the first team to initiate what has now become a standard post-game celebration, and the Super Bowl telecast enabled a large, national audience to first witness what has become commonplace.

On the Broncos' first play after receiving the opening kickoff, quarterback John Elway faked a handoff, then spun around and ran in the opposite direction for a 10-yard gain to the Denver 34-yard line.

However, the Giants' defense tightened up and halted the drive at the 30-yard line, forcing Denver to settle for kicker Rich Karlis's 48-yard field goal to give them an early 3–0 lead.

The Giants' pass rush forced him to scramble out of the pocket, but it gave him enough time to find wide receiver Vance Johnson for a 54-yard completion.

Carson stopped fullback Gerald Willhite on the next play for no gain on a run up the middle, and linebacker Carl Banks chased down Winder as he attempted to score on a sweep, tackling him for a 4-yard loss, bringing up 4th-and-goal from the 5.

Despite having made all but one of his attempts inside of 40 yards during the regular season, Karlis once again pulled the kick wide right and the drive ended with no points.

After a false start by offensive tackle Ken Lanier pushed Denver back to their own 4-yard line to start the fourth quarter, Elway threw an interception to Giants cornerback Elvis Patterson, who was tackled at the Denver 42 by Watson, but an illegal use of hands penalty on Patterson after the interception moved the ball to the New York 48.

Elway completed 5 of 6 passes for 46 yards (including a 15-yard reception by Jackson) and rushed for 14, while Karlis finished the drive with a 28-yard field goal, cutting Denver's deficit to 33–13.

But Giants wide receiver Bobby Johnson recovered Karlis' ensuing onside kick attempt and New York responded with yet another scoring drive.

In addition, offensive tackle Brad Benson and center Bart Oates drenched Simms with a cooler of ice water.

[22] Defensively, while the Broncos managed to bottle up Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks had 14 tackles, 10 of which were unassisted and four of those for negative yardage, while Leonard Marshall had two sacks and forced a fumble.