The Super Bowl has been defined by great plays and outstanding efforts. But there have also been some odd, quirky and downright strange moments.

From a missing helmet to a darkened stadium, the Super Bowl has had some strange times. Will there be another one in Super Bowl LIX? Here is a look at five odd incidents through the years.

Where is my helmet?

Thurman Thomas had a great season in 1991, rushing for 1,407 yards and adding 631 more in reception yardage. So it was odd when he did not start Super Bowl XXVI for the Buffalo Bills against Washington.

That is because the “Therminator” could not find his helmet on the sideline at the Metrodome.

The popular story is that the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back had a ritual where he would place his helmet at the 34-yard line before a game (to honor his uniform number) and it was moved. Some believe it was moved because Harry Connick Jr. was singing the national anthem in that general area, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. A frantic search for the helmet ensued before it was finally found.

In 2011, Bills equipment manager Dave Hojnowski said the helmet of the NFL’s 1991 MVP may have been taken by another member of the Bills by mistake.

“I firmly believe that one of his teammates picked up Thurman’s helmet thinking it was theirs and walked to the other end of the bench and realized it wasn’t his helmet, put it down and then went to find his own,” Hojnowski said, according to BuffaloBills.com.

Kenneth Davis had to substitute at running back and gained a yard on the Bills’ first offensive play. Thomas returned two plays later, but although he would later score a touchdown, he did not have a good game. Thomas gained 13 yards on 10 carries as the Bills lost their second straight Super Bowl, 37-24.

Thomas has always been rankled by the incident.

“Do people really think I’d be stupid enough to not know where the helmet should be?” Thomas told the Los Angeles Times in October 1992. “It got moved. No one knows why to this day. You really can’t explain it. When I think back on it, I should have known something was going to happen bad. It was a culmination of a nightmare. But what really frustrates me is that people were talking after the game like I was the reason we lost. Anyone who thinks that because I missed two plays we lost is a damn fool. A damn fool.”

Turn out the lights

The lights went out the last time the Super Bowl was held in New Orleans.

On Feb. 3, 2013, Super Bowl XLVII was delayed for 34 minutes early in the second half after there was a power outage in the Superdome.

The Harbaugh Bowl -- John Harbaugh’s Ravens were facing Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers -- began in raucous fashion in the second half when Jacoby Jones returned the second-half kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown to give Baltimore a 28-6 lead.

Then, 1:38 into the third quarter, half of the lights at the New Orleans stadium went out and the game would become known as the Blackout Bowl.

Once power was restored, the 49ers chopped the Ravens’ lead to two points when Colin Kaepernick scored on a 15-yard run with 9:57 left in the game. The two-point conversion failed, so Baltimore still led 31-29. The Ravens kicked a field goal with 4:19 to play and then took an intentional safety in the final seconds to win 34-31.

A 15-page report that investigated the blackout was released a month after the game.

“The switchgears installed by Entergy in preparation for the Super Bowl contained a device called a relay that was supposed to shut down the power supply if either feed reached a certain amperage,” Sports Illustrated reported in 2015. “The problem: The factory settings were too low.”

“It was the Super Bowl where the lights went off,” John Harbaugh said, according to ESPN. “The night that the lights went out in New Orleans will be remembered forever.”

Cocaine on the sidelines

Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson was a flamboyant player who went to the Pro Bowl in 1978.

That season the Cowboys returned to the Super Bowl for the second straight year and were facing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Super Bowl XIII would determine the first team to win a third Super Bowl title. Dallas had won Super Bowls VI and XII, while Pittsburgh prevailed in Super Bowls IX and X.

During Super Bowl XIII, Henderson sneaked a spray bottle onto the sidelines at the Orange Bowl that had a mixture of water and cocaine.

“I had a deviated septum that was a bloody mess, and I had this big scab,” Henderson told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 2018. “When you’re snorting (cocaine) pebbles up your nose, it’s going to hurt the lining of your nose. But I was only using the (the spray bottle) for medical purposes to ease the pain, not to get high.”

Dallas lost the game 35-31 to Pittsburgh, but Henderson did sack Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

The leadup to the game also featured another Hollywood minute, according to NFL.com -- Henderson famously said that Bradshaw “couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the ‘c’ and the ‘a’.”

After Bradshaw passed for 318 yards and four touchdowns to earn Most Valuable Player honors, the Steelers quarterback needled Henderson right back.

“Ask Thomas Henderson if he can spell M-V-P,” Bradshaw said during postgame interviews.

“This isn’t nuclear physics,” Bradshaw later said about playing football, dismissing reports about his supposed spelling deficiencies. “How smart do you have to be?”

Celebrated too soon

Leon Lett and Don Beebe are forever linked in Super Bowl history.

The Dallas Cowboys were crushing the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. Ken Norton had just returned a Frank Reich fumble 9 yards for a touchdown to give Dallas a 52-17 lead with 7:42 to play.

With 4:56 left, Reich was sacked and fumbled again, and the ball was picked up by Lett, a defensive tackle. As Lett was about to complete a 64-yard touchdown return and give Dallas the most points ever scored by a Super Bowl team (at least 58), he held out the football in celebration.

That gave wide receiver Beebe, who had been pursuing on the play, a chance to swat the ball out of Lett’s hand. The ball rolled into the end zone and out of bounds for a touchback.

“I have to deal with that all the time,” Lett said.

Lett chuckles now when he recalls the play.

“All of a sudden, I got the ball in my hands and I’m running down the field in Pasadena, and I’m saying to myself, ‘This is the Super Bowl, a million people are watching, what are you gonna do?’” Lett told NFL Films. “I had a dance in mind. Michael Jackson had just done the halftime show, so I was gonna do the ‘Billie Jean’ or something, maybe.”

Beebe had other ideas. He was not going to give up.

“If you watch the play, you’ll see my reaction,” Beebe told SBNation in 2013. “I knocked the ball out. He drives his knee into my helmet as he’s falling down. I get up and fix my facemask and I’m still upset that we’re getting our tails whipped. No way did I ever think that was special. I was just doing my job.

“I’m reminded of this play almost every day. I’m not kidding you or exaggerating. At this time of year, it’s a half dozen times per day around Super Bowl time. It blows my mind.”

“I still have to give Don the credit, and I always have,” Lett said. “Because who chases down a guy when you’re losing by 35 points?”

Passing fancy

The Miami Dolphins had dominated Super Bowl VII and were on the verge of a perfect season -- and also the first shutout in the game’s history.

Miami led Washington 14-0 when Garo Yepremian lined up to attempt a 42-yard field goal with 2:38 to play.

By converting the kick, Yepremian would give Miami a 17-0 lead -- a fitting epitaph to a 17-0 season.

And then things went sideways.

Yepremian’s kick was blocked by Washington’s Bill Brundige, according to NFL.com. The ball rolled toward the kicker, who should have fallen on it.

“Yepremian made the mistake of picking it up, apparently deciding he was the designated pinch passer,” Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated wrote. “The ball slipped from his hand as he drew back to throw and bobbled about his shoulders until he batted it into the air.”

Washington’s Mike Bass snatched the ball and went 49 yards for the touchdown, making the score 14-7 and suddenly putting the perfect season in doubt.

“What a kooky play that was,” NBC television broadcaster Curt Gowdy said.

However, Miami was able to hold on and win, which was a big relief to Yepremian.

“That championship ring will hang heavy on my hand,” Yepremian said after the game.

Yepremian was able to laugh at one of the most comical plays in Super Bowl history.

When the kicker was near the end of his career in 1980, he joked about it with a reporter during a spring minicamp camp with the New Orleans Saints in Vero Beach, Florida.

“You know, I have to ask you about that pass,” the reporter said.

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Yepremian joked.

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