For the first time in five years, the Super Bowl will not feature a player from the Mobile area, and for the first time in six years, the big game will have no one from the wider viewing area.
The last chance for Super Bowl LV was Buffalo Bills running back T.J. Yeldon of Daphne, whose team lost Sunday’s AFC Championship Game to the Kansas City Chiefs, 38-24.
In recent years the region was well represented. Last year, San Francisco 49ers safeties Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt, both of Davidson High School, played in Super Bowl LIV. Mark Barron of St. Paul’s played the previous season for the L.A. Rams. Super Bowl LII featured defensive end Eric Lee of the New England Patriots, and in Super Bowl LI, Foley’s Julio Jones played with the Atlanta Falcons.
Super Bowl 50 had no Mobile-area players, but the Pensacola area was represented by Courtland Finnegan and Graham Gano with the Carolina Panthers. Every local player in the last five Super Bowls has played for the losing team. The last Mobile area players to win a Super Bowl were Leon Lett of Fairhope and Sherman Williams of Blount, who won Super Bowl XXX with the Dallas Cowboys in 1996.