January 26, 1992: Super Bowl XXVI is played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. This was 3 months after the Minnesota Twins won the World Series there, and 2 months before the NCAA Final Four would be played there, won by Duke University. Though since demolished, the Metrodome remains the only building to have hosted all 3 events, let alone within 6 months of each other.
The Washington Redskins were looking for their 3rd Super Bowl win. The Buffalo Bills, who had lost to the New York Giants the year before, were looking for their 1st.
The opening kickoff had to be redone because Bills kicker Brad Daluiso kicked the ball before referee Jerry Markbreit signaled to begin play. Then, after Washington was forced to punt on their opening possession, Bills running back Thurman Thomas, the NFL's Most Valuable Player that season, missed the 1st 2 plays of their 1st drive because he misplaced his helmet.
Each team led its respective Conference in scoring, but the game was scoreless at the end of the 1st quarter. In the 2nd quarter, Chip Lohmiller of the Redskins kicked a field goal, Earnest Byner caught a 10-yard touchdown pass from Mark Rypien, and Gerald Riggs run a yard in for a touchdown. It was 17-0 'Skins at the half.
They made it 24-0 early in the 3rd, when Riggs scored from 2 yards out. The Bills tried to make it respectable, with Scott Norwood, whose miss on the last play of the game cost the Bills the previous year's Super Bowl, kicked a 21-yard field goal, and Thomas ran a touchdown in from 1 yard out. But Rypien threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Gary Clark, and Lohmiller kicked 2 more field goals to make it 37-10. Jim Kelly threw touchdown passes to Pete Metzelaars and Don Beebe in the 4th quarter, but the Bills could get no closer, and the Redskins won, 37-24.
Rypien was named the game's Most Valuable Player. He was one of several fine quarterbacks produced by Washington State University, and a graduate of Shadle Park High School in Spokane, Washington. He was 3 years younger than Ryne Sandberg, who went to Spokane's North Central High School; and 6 months younger than John Stockton, who went to Gonzaga Prep. Each of those 3 was an All-State as a football quarterback, a baseball player, and a basketball player. Sandberg would make the Baseball Hall of Fame, Stockton the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Rypien would not make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Although he had already been a Super Bowl MVP and a 2-time Pro Bowler, a knee injury the next season curtailed his career, and he bounced around the NFL, last playing in 2001. He turned to golf, and won a few celebrity tournaments. But he began to show symptoms of the brain condition CTE, and no longer makes public appearances.
His nephew, Brett Rypien, also quarterbacked in the NFL, mostly as a backup for the Denver Broncos. Two of his cousins, Rick Rypien and Shane Churla, played in the NHL.
For one particular running back, this game was a bit of a redemption: Earnest Byner, who had fumbled just before the goal line for the Cleveland Browns in the 1987 AFC Championship Game, scored a touchdown, and got the title he was so close to 4 years earlier.
For the Redskins, this game concluded a stretch of 10 seasons under head coach Joe Gibbs, 7 Playoff berths, 5 NFC Eastern Division titles, 5 NFC Championship Games, 4 NFC Championships, and 3 Super Bowls. But the team got old, and since then, mismanagement and an unsatisfying replacement for Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium led to a long dark period. Over the next 30 seasons, they made the Playoffs just 7 times, with 4 Division titles, and 3 Playoff games won, not getting past the Divisional round.
Indeed, no Washington team -- unless you count MLS' D.C. United or the WNBA's Mystics -- even reached its sport's Finals after 1992, except the 1998 Capitals, until the Caps won the Stanley Cup in 2018, followed by the Nationals winning the World Series and the Mystics the WNBA title, both in 2019.
And in 2020, the NFL outfit in town finally accepted that the name "Redskins" is racist, and dropped it, becoming simply "The Washington Football Team" until they can settle on a permanent name.
UPDATE: In 2022, they chose "Washington Commanders" as the permanent name. From the seasons of 1992 to 2025, 34 years, they've reached the Playoffs 8 times, with 4 Division titles, won 5 Playoff games, and finally got back to the NFC Championship Game in the 2024-25 season, though they lost it to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Commanders have a Ring of Honor. From their Super Bowl XXVI winners, they have elected quarterback Mark Rypien, running back Brian Mitchell, receivers Art Monk and Gary Clark; "Hogs" center Jeff Bostic, guard Russ Grimm and tackle Joe Jacoby; defensive end Charles Mann, linebacker Monte Coleman and cornerback Darrell Green
Also owner Jack Kent Cooke, head coach Joe Gibbs, assistant coaches Charley Taylor and Richie Petitbon, former star turned executive Bobby Mitchell, trainer Bubba Tyer, public address announcer Phil Hochberg, and former star turned broadcasters Sonny Jurgensen and Sam Huff.
Mitchell, Monk, Clark, Grimm, Jacoby, Mann, Green, Gibbs, Beathard, Taylor, Petitbon, Cooke, Huff and Jurgensen have also been elected to the Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame. So have executive Charley Casserly and broadcaster Frank Herzog. So has Johnny Holliday, a legendary radio personality in Cleveland, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Washington area, who has worked with the Bullets/Wizards, the Senators, the Nationals, the Redskins/Commanders and the Capitals. But Rypien, so far, has not.
Strangely, while assistant coach Petitbon has been inducted into both the Ring and the DC Sports Hall of Fame, without having truly been a star player like fellow assistant Charley Taylor, assistant coach Joe Bugel, who built the "Hogs," has not yet been inducted into either.
It says something about the quality produced by the Washington football team since 1992 that no new players -- not even Sean Taylor, the All-Pro safety who was murdered in the middle of his 4th season, and was honored with a stadium statue -- have been elected to the DC Sports Hall of Fame.
And the only players added to their Ring of Honor since 1992 have been Taylor, 1990s linebacker Ken Harvey, 2000s offensive tackle Chris Samuels, 2000s and 2010s receiver Santana Moss, and 2000s and 2010s linebacker London Fletcher. They have also added Wayne Curry, the Prince George's County Executive who helped get the new stadium built, in Landover, Maryland, across the Capital Beltway from the site of the Capital Centre, the one the team is now set to abandon by building a new one on the site of RFK Stadium.
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January 26, 1992, like all Super Bowl days, was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. There was only 1 game in the NBA, since they didn't want to compete with the Super Bowl with fan attention: The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-91 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.
And there were 3 games in the NHL:
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Hartford Whalers, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.
* The Washington Capitals beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-4 at the Capital Centre in the
Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Winnipeg Jets, 5-2 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
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