Moore: What does it mean to win the Super Bowl? Everything, NFL players say

Tony Dorsett can speak with an unparalleled authority on the most special accomplishment in football.

“Winning a Super Bowl,” he said on the red carpet ahead of the NFL Honors award ceremony Thursday night at the Phoenix Convention Center.

“It’s the deal,” Dorsett said.

Strictly by the numbers, Dorsett is in a class by himself.

Every year, more than 50 players win a Super Bowl ring. Add to that a dozen or so coaches, plus front office staff, support staff, trainers, equipment managers, video technicians and interns.

Do the math, and we’re probably looking at more than 3,000 people who can say they’ve contributed to the ultimate level of success in the ultimate team game, even after accounting for hoarders like Tom Brady (7) and Charles Haley (5).

To whittle it down to something more manageable, consider that there are about 350 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Plenty of these guys have Super Bowl rings, but not all of them.

To narrow it further, there are only two players who’ve ever had a touchdown run of 99 yards. One of them is Derrick Henry, the Titans running back who received an MVP vote this season. The other is Dorsett, the only running back in the history of the sport who can say he’s won a Super Bowl, popped off the longest possible run from scrimmage and earned enshrinement in Canton.

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Dorsett says there’s nothing better than winning the big game.

“To just get in with the whole team, the whole team had to work hard all season long; it’s a team accomplishment, what I did, individually, was just part of helping the team be successful,” he said.

And even though Dorsett is one of one in the more than 100-year recorded history of pro football, plenty of other guys grasp the impact.

“There’s no greater feeling when it comes to sports,” William Gholston said.

Gholston, a defensive end, won a Super Bowl ring in 2021 with Tampa Bay. He came close to getting a sack, but the memory that he carries most is the message he heard in the locker room from the greatest quarterback of all time.

“Tom Brady’s speech before the game was insane,” Gholston said.

Not that he’s willing to divulge any details.

“No,” Gholston said. “I’m keeping that to myself, locked in the vault. Unless they come out with an audio of it. Nobody’s gonna hear a word from me. Just know that I could hear it until the second quarter of the game … Oh, my God! Chills in my veins, going up the arms, all of that.”

At that point, Brady had already won six rings, and he’s not known as a rah-rah guy, which makes it all the more significant that he told his teammates what was on his heart and mind.

“I said to myself, ‘Yo!’ … I knew everybody was all in, 100 percent,” Gholston said.

“When you hear (Brady) speak,” he said later, “you hear him.”

Like most of us who love the game, Gholston grew up dreaming of playing in the Super Bowl. In 2006, his father worked security at the Super Bowl in his hometown of Detroit. Gholston and his brother found their way into a party, and that’s when it hit him.

“We were looking at everybody, and I said to my brother, ‘Man, this is crazy … we’re gonna play in the Super Bowl one day. We’re gonna be in the NFL. And I just so happened to make it.”

Detroit fans bear the unfortunate distinction of rooting for the only franchise to have played in every season of the Super Bowl era without seeing their team play in one.

But their guys are working on it.

“It would mean a lot” to help the Lions reach their first championship game, Detroit cornerback Jerry Jacobs said. “We’ve gotta go step by step, though. You just can’t jump straight to the Super Bowl. That’s gonna be hard. We’ve got to win our division, first. Then go on a playoff run. Then we can make a Super Bowl run. But we’ve just got to take it one by one.”

Jacobs, who scrapped his way into the NFL without being drafted, has dreamed of playing in the last game of the season since he was a kid.

“My earliest Super Bowl memory, I was sitting on the couch, and the Giants were playing Patriots, and the receiver caught the ball on his head,” he said. “I’m like, ‘No, this ain’t real.’ And now that I’m older and they show that, and I’m like, ‘I watched that game live.’”

Jets defensive lineman Solomon Thomas saw that game, too. It was in 2008 at the building now known as State Farm Stadium in Glendale. Seeing it as a youngster represents his earliest championship memory, as well.

Thomas grew up to play for the 49ers after the 2019 season. He can tell you that it’s tough to compare the experience of watching the big game with playing in it.

“The experience was just unbelievable,” Thomas said. “The energy just going through my body, like, it was just such a cool experience. ... I can’t wait to get back someday.”

He’s not alone among players who’ve competed in the Super Bowl and lost. He’s also not alone in having a gnawing desire to one day finish what was started.

Cincinnati defensive end Sam Hubbard played for the championship last year and was a game away from making it back this season. The game is just different from all the others.

“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “Surreal, for sure, when you’ve got however many hundred million people watching. I’ve got my Super Bowl jersey, all my gear that I’ll keep forever. It’s something no one can take away from you. But, obviously, I want to get back and get that win next time.”

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He was amazed to see the reception from Bengals fans when the team buses rolled in in the middle of the night. People had lined the streets to greet and cheer for them.

“Unbelievable support,” he said.

He also summed up the point that everyone made.

“If you’ve never played in it,” Hubbard said, “you can never replicate it.”

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore. There's plenty Moore where this came from. Subscribe for videos, columns, opinions and analysis from The Arizona Republic’s award-winning team. 

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Moore: From Tony Dorsett on down, players say Super Bowl is everything