The Super Bowl is one of the biggest athletic stages in the world. All-Pro selections and steady contributors are expected to make an impact, but every so often a player comes out of nowhere and rises to the occasion -- even if it is their only great NFL performance.

ESPN looked back at five of the biggest Super Bowl performances by unlikely stars and spoke with former players about what happened after reaching the pinnacle.

We asked our NFL Nation reporters to take us back to Timmy Smith's big rushing day, Larry Brown's two-interception game, David Tyree's helmet catch, Chris Reis' "Ambush" recovery and Chris Matthews' come-from-nowhere performance. Let's start with the legend of the rookie who set the Super Bowl record for rushing yards.

The rookie

Timmy Smith, RB, Washington

Super Bowl: XXII
Game played: January 31, 1988
Final score: Washington 42, Denver Broncos 10
 

Washington quarterback Doug Williams was surprised when coach Joe Gibbs gave him the news. Gibbs wanted to start rookie Timmy Smith at running back in the biggest game of their lives.

Williams remembers Gibbs telling him, "I've got a gut feeling."

That feeling was correct. Smith proved himself early on, rushing for 122 yards in the second quarter alone. The fifth-round pick out of Texas Tech in the 1987 draft ultimately ran his way into the NFL history books with 204 rushing yards, still a Super Bowl record.

"We were walking out of that game thinking this guy would be our running back for a long time," said Charley Casserly, then an assistant general manager with Washington.

After all, he had rushed for 138 yards on 29 carries in the first two playoff games. But it turned out to be the highlight of Smith's career. During the 1988 season, he rushed for 265 yards on 66 carries in his first three games but rushed 71 times for 205 yards in his final 11 games before Washington released him.

"Training," Williams said when asked what went wrong for Smith after the Super Bowl. "He didn't train for the season."

In 1989, he was cut by the Chargers before the season and after starting the season opener in 1990 with the Cowboys -- ahead of a rookie named Emmitt Smith, who had just ended a holdout -- he was cut. Smith never played in the NFL again.

Thus started an odyssey for Smith, one that ended up with him being incarcerated. He was sentenced to two and a half years in March 2006 for selling more than half a kilogram of cocaine to an undercover DEA agent in Denver. Smith, who did not respond to multiple messages to discuss this game and the aftermath, was released from prison in 2008.

Williams said he talks to Smith once a month. They don't discuss the Super Bowl game much -- mainly because, he said, they experienced it firsthand. The reason Smith did not win the MVP award for his record-setting performance is because of what Williams did: He threw for 340 yards and four touchdowns, three of them in the second quarter, and became the first Black quarterback to play in and win the Super Bowl.

"I wasn't surprised by [Smith's] game," Williams said. "I was surprised [by] the way the offensive line dominated Denver. I think I could have picked up 120 yards myself at the time. I turned around one time and we had a play called 50 bang, and I handed the ball to Timmy and he had a 10-yard gap. The line won us the game; they could have given the MVP trophy to the offensive line or the whole defense."

Williams said right before the game when Smith found out he was starting, he told the running back, "If you fumble I'm going to kick your ass. This is my first Super Bowl and you're not going to screw it up. To this day every time he sees me he laughs and calls me old man."

Smith's big day still resonates. He told Sports Illustrated in 2018 that when he was in prison, other inmates would say to him: "That was you in '88?'" And he'd tell them, "Yeah. That was my lucky ass that day." -- John Keim, Commanders reporter

An unlikely MVP

Larry Brown, CB, Dallas Cowboys

Super Bowl: XXX
Game played: January 28, 1996
Final score: Dallas Cowboys 27, Pittsburgh Steelers 17
 

Just about every January, Larry Brown's phone rings with somebody wanting to talk about his two interceptions in Super Bowl XXX against the Steelers. His performance in that game won him Super Bowl MVP and is the lasting memory of the last time the Cowboys won a Super Bowl.

Playing opposite cornerback Deion Sanders had its advantages, which is partly why Steelers quarterback Neil O'Donnell looked Brown's way so much in the second half. The Cowboys turned Brown's two picks into touchdowns and won their third championship in four years.

A free agent after the Super Bowl, Brown wanted to stay with the Cowboys but was told they could not afford him even if he offered a discount. He ended up signing a five-year, $12 million deal with the Oakland Raiders. He was going to play for the team he grew up watching in California.

He played 12 games over the next two seasons, with one start, and had one interception before being released.

"It was really tough because a lot of teams wanted me. So for me, you don't win three championships and say, 'Now I want to go to a bad team,'" Brown said.

"I grew up a Raiders fan. We practiced against the Raiders every year. I knew the players. We were familiar with them and they had talent up the wazoo. Now what you don't know when you're young is you're not on the organization side. You don't focus on how an organization is being ran."

In two seasons, he had two coaches in Mike White and Joe Bugel. Jon Gruden was hired when he was released in 1998. Brown re-signed with the Cowboys in 1998, the final year of his career.

Brown had other big moments, like when he intercepted Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre in the NFC Championship Game in 1995, or when he intercepted quarterback Jim Kelly in Super Bowl XXVII. But he will always be remembered for being the Super Bowl XXX MVP.

"When you're on a team with arguably seven Hall of Famers, being a good player can be lost," Brown said. "I don't hold any animosity. Hey, I played with Deion Sanders, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith, Charles Haley, Larry Allen, Darren Woodson, but we had a lot of good players on a team of Hall of Famers.

"But I guess, for me, people forget. I think I'm still one of the youngest guys drafted at 20. To have a chance to start as a rookie from TCU, nobody expected me to be there. Everybody would say, if you made a [coach] Jimmy Johnson team it's because you deserved to be there. To be a starter on a Jimmy Johnson team, with all the talent and Hall of Famers, that speaks a lot to what he thought about you. I'm grateful for all of it."

When the NFL celebrated Super Bowls XL and 50 in Detroit and San Francisco, respectively, Brown was there with other former MVPs, sharing a field with Joe Montana, Tom Brady and so many other greats.

 

"It's just a special moment, like, 'Wow,'" he said. "I'm a fan of the sport, so being there with Terry Bradshaw and guys like Freddie Biletnikoff, he was coaching with the Raiders when I was there. It's like, 'Man I'm in a room with Freddie and all these guys. What a moment. It's etched in history, so you're just grateful and appreciative of the moment." -- Todd Archer, Cowboys reporter

The helmet catch

David Tyree, WR, New York Giants

Super Bowl: XLII
Game played: February 3, 2008
Final score: New York Giants 17, New England Patriots 14
 

It wasn't just the sheer amazement of pinning a football thrown 42 yards in the air by quarterback Eli Manning against his helmet that made this David Tyree moment special. It was everything else around it.

The Giants were looking to pull off one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history against the undefeated Patriots -- the same seemingly unbeatable Patriots with Tom Brady at quarterback, Randy Moss as his top target and Bill Belichick as the coach.

Despite all of that, the most memorable play in Super Bowl XLII was made by a wide receiver who had four receptions for 35 yards during the 2007 regular season and was coming off a Friday practice where even the simplest task for a receiver, catching the ball, proved difficult.

"Friday, you want everything perfect, right? It's not a long practice. It's not a physical practice. It's a 'hurry here and do this, hurry there and do that'. So we're down inside what I call the tight green [zone], and David can't catch anymore," coach Tom Coughlin said.

"The ball is hitting his helmet. The ball rolled, ricochets off his shoulder pads. The coaches are looking at me and I'm looking at them and the practice is over and Eli goes over and he puts his arm around David Tyree. He says, 'David, I want you to forget about this practice. I know, we all know, that when the time comes, you will make the plays in the game.' And that was it. No more was said about it."

Tyree finished the Super Bowl with three catches for 43 yards, but how one of those catches happened cemented himself in Giants history forever.

"That catch, people want to ridicule that catch, they want to call it hokey or whatever those words are, that's the greatest catch you've ever seen in your life. There's a 220-pound man trying to rip his arms off and somehow, someway, he gets one arm off and he pins the ball to the side of his helmet."

It wasn't the game-winning touchdown, but it led to the winning score minutes later by wide receiver Plaxico Burress. Still, it's the helmet catch that is the lasting moment and perhaps the greatest play in Super Bowl history. It's the most notable achievement in Tyree's career despite being a Pro Bowl and All-Pro special teams player in 2005.

Tyree, 45, doesn't shy away from the helmet catch almost 20 years later. He does public speaking about his rise from New Jersey native to the NFL and the catch, had a podcast called "Catch The Moment" and "Catch Camp," a youth football camp. It's all part of his incredible story of how he went from a "scrawny little special teams player" to an all-time Giants legend.

 

"This is a dream come true and a dream that I couldn't have dreamed myself to be amongst this amazing legacy of the New York Football Giants," Tyree said. -- Jordan Raanan, Giants reporter

'Ambush'

Chris Reis, S, New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl: XLIV
Game played: February 7, 2010
Final score: New Orleans Saints 31, Indianapolis Colts 17
 

It took Chris Reis several years to understand the true magnitude of "Ambush." But 15 years later, he feels like he can pinpoint the trajectory of his life to that moment.

Reis, 41, is now the lead pastor at the Youngsville campus of Our Savior's Church in Louisiana. He went into the ministry in 2014 after retiring from the NFL.

That career journey started in the third quarter of Super Bowl XLIV against the Colts.

Then-rookie Saints punter Thomas Morstead was tasked with executing a surprise onside kick to start the second half.

Morstead, who just completed his 16th season in the NFL, said he only understood the magnitude of the play to a small degree at the time, something he is thankful for now.

"I'm kind of glad I was young and dumb," Morstead said "Because the pressure was already immense, and I've never felt anything like it still to this day."

Reis was part of the special teams unit tasked with recovering the ball. But in all the times the unit had practiced the play leading up to the game, it was safety Roman Harper who was supposed to come up with it. Reis was actually intended to be the last line of defense.

"I was not supposed to recover the ball, I was not even supposed to be in that area. ... There was always a chance it could come to me but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that would happen," Reis said.

The ball bounced off Colts wide receiver Hank Baskett and Reis pounced on the ball. He clung to it for "63 seconds" as Colts' and Saints' players piled on top of him.

"I literally knew nothing was going to stop me from coming out of that pile with that ball," Reis said. "It's crazy. It's a street fight laying down. ... It was just a madhouse. If you go back and watch that film, there's probably seven of our guys from the sideline that jump in once all of that happened and they're trying to pull people off. I mean, it was a chaotic mess in there, and you just hold on for dear life. That's all I was trying to do."

Reis's recovery led to a touchdown, which pulled the Saints, who were down 10-6 at the half, in front of the Colts.

"I guess with a play that big, I think more than anything else, it outlives you. It outlives me. I still have people coming up to me today talking about that recovery, that Super Bowl. I have grown men coming up to me crying today still, thanking me for recovering the ball," Reis said.

"Did it change my life? I would say it created a unique journey for me. I'm super humble and grateful. I'm probably in Louisiana today ... pastoring a church because of that play. It's just cool how God kind of used it to catapult me to where I was supposed to be. But I just thought I fell on a ball."

Reis said he went through a difficult time trying to figure out what to do next after "being on top of that mountain."

"It was wonderful, and I'm so grateful. But it's almost like it's almost a really big letdown," Reis recalled. "It's almost like, man, is that all there really is to this life? Is it really just like, go win another one?"

Reis initially retired to his home state of Georgia in 2011, but "Ambush" led him back to Louisiana.

He and his father self-published a book called "Recovery of a Lifetime," about Reis' NFL journey and his dad's recovery from addiction. Reis was speaking about the book to a church in Louisiana when the senior pastor told Reis he was called to join the ministry. Reis, who said he had always wanted to help people, packed up his family and moved back.

"I preach every Sunday and I utilize the aspects of football and that recovery of the onside kick and different things, and people really enjoy that," Reis said.

Reis said "it's beautiful" that so many people found meaning in his play.

 

"For those people that saw it live, they remember the sights, the smells, the sounds ... They feel like they know me because they lived that moment with me," Reis said. "Though I was under the pile and there were a lot of guys on top of me for 63 seconds, it felt like all of Saints Nation and Who Dat Nation was in there with me, live, in that moment, because they were sharing their life." -- Katherine Terrell, Saints reporter

The fourth-string receiver

Chris Matthews, WR, Seattle Seahawks

Super Bowl: XLIX
Game played: February 1, 2015
Final score: New England Patriots 28, Seattle Seahawks 24
 

Bryan Walters had a front-row view of Chris Matthews' unexpected breakout in Super Bowl XLIX. He was on the field when his fellow Seahawks receiver scored a touchdown before halftime, one of Matthews' four catches for 109 yards.

And yet ...

"I totally forgot about Chris' performance in the Super Bowl, to be honest with you," Walters told ESPN.

Pretty much everything that happened over the first 59 minutes of Seattle's loss to New England became an afterthought because of the game's indelible ending, with quarterback Russell Wilson throwing a goal-line interception to cornerback Malcolm Butler. But Matthews' unlikely showing helped put the Seahawks on the doorstep of a second straight Lombardi Trophy.

The 25-year-old Matthews was a little-known backup until two weeks earlier when he recovered an onside kick during the Seahawks' comeback win over the Packers in the 2014 NFC Championship Game.

But by that point, he still hadn't caught a pass in the NFL, having taken detours through the Arena and Canadian Football Leagues after going undrafted in 2011. He was working at Foot Locker as a security guard when the Seahawks called him after the 2013 season to come in for a tryout. He spent most of 2014 on Seattle's practice squad before a December promotion to the 53-man roster.

Before the Super Bowl, longtime Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin was expecting to be the one to have the big game, feeling like he had studied Darrelle Revis so much that he knew him better than the All-Pro cornerback knew himself. Baldwin never imagined Seattle's fourth receiver would factor as much as he did.

"Chris had always shown the ability to make plays," Baldwin told ESPN. "Really it was just the consistency and the opportunity. We had established guys ... that were already positioned in the pecking order. It was just the nature of it. We kind of always saw the potential there. But going into the game, no, not at all."

With Revis shadowing Baldwin the entire game, Matthews got a one-on-one on the outside. Logan Ryan gave him seven yards of cushion at the snap, leading to his first career touchdown on a back-shoulder fade.

"I think that's just the Patriots going, 'Well, we haven't really seen this guy out here. They're not going to throw him the ball in the Super Bowl,' kind of thing," Walters said, his memory jogged by a YouTube video of Matthews' Super Bowl highlights. "... And then boom, there's Chris Matthews making a big play."

Matthews' third-quarter catches of 45 and 9 yards helped set up a field goal and a touchdown, respectively. But he wasn't on the field for the game's decisive play.

When some of the dust had settled after the loss, Baldwin texted Matthews a week later.

"I do remember telling him that he's a beast, and don't ever forget that," Baldwin said. "... I had thought that he was going to be with the team long-term and how that was going to be his jumping block ... But it's the nature of the NFL."

Matthews was never able to build off of his Super Bowl performance. Nine games into the 2015 season, with Matthews buried on the depth chart and hardly producing, the Seahawks waived him.

"It was a bit hard for me," Matthews told the Baltimore Sun in 2015. "I don't want to take anything away from or downgrade Seattle or anything like that. They definitely gave me opportunities and I was making the most of it. Unfortunately, I got hurt, they drafted [Tyler Lockett] and he excelled from there. He took it to another height, so I was basically fighting an uphill battle."

He landed with the Ravens that November and scored his only regular-season NFL touchdown later that season. He spent 2016 on injured reserve and was released midway through the next season.

Matthews returned to the CFL for two seasons to finish out his football career.

In the fall of 2018, Baldwin sent him another text. It was to congratulate him on another impressive performance in a championship game. Matthews helped the Calgary Stampeders win the Grey Cup with four catches for 59 yards. -- Brady Henderson, Seahawks reporter