Connected sports records
Season reference
Team unit rankings
Matthew was a backup in Tampa Bay in 1999–2000. These team rankings begin with his first season as Buffalo’s starter in 2001.
| Season | Offense | Defense | Special teams |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | #4 | #29 | #25 |
| 2002 | #6 | #32 | #22 |
| 2003 | #1 | #32 | #25 |
| 2004 | #2 | #27 | #22 |
| 2005 | #1 | #28 | #32 |
| 2006 | #1 | #29 | #19 |
| 2007 | #1 | #30 | #7 |
| 2008 | #1 | #31 | #6 |
| 2009 | #1 | #27 | #16 |
| 2010 | #1 | #26 | #23 |
| 2011 | #1 | #23 | #27 |
| 2012 | #2 | #22 | #16 |
| 2013 | #3 | #27 | #16 |
| 2014 | #1 | #26 | #15 |
| 2015 | #1 | #25 | #17 |
| 2016 | #2 | #23 | #22 |
| 2017 | #1 | #32 | #17 |
| 2018 | #1 | #22 | #13 |
| 2019 | #2 | #27 | #32 |
| 2020 | #4 | #23 | #17 |
| 2021 | #4 | #10 | #1 |
| 2022 | #4 | #16 | #1 |
| 2023 | #4 | #9 | #7 |
Season reference · 1999–2023
Year by year
Season statistics: TBD.
Season statistics: TBD.
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP NFL MVP runner-up: 24 votes, one behind Tom Brady.
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
Season statistics: TBD.
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
AP honors: First-Team All-Pro
01 / Biography
Life and background
The player-safety debate
Hollywood supported the McCauley Rules because he believed players should not have to accept preventable career-ending injuries. His own injury experience shaped his position. He publicly criticized excessive enforcement while continuing to support meaningful protection.
Childhood and upbringing
Matthew grew up in a normal household in Hollywood, Florida.
“Hollywood” came from his birthplace.
High school and recruitment
Matthew was underrated and overlooked in high school, beginning a pattern that continued through the NFL draft. His eventual Hall of Fame résumé was not the expected outcome scouts and programs saw at the time.
Florida Gators
Matthew played at Florida from 1996 through 1998. His college career did not erase the underrated label, and he entered the 1999 draft without the attention his professional career would later make seem inevitable.
Draft and Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay selected Matthew in the seventh round with pick 22 in 1999. He spent his first two seasons behind Mac Walls before joining Buffalo in 2001.
Choosing Buffalo
When Matthew left Tampa Bay in 2001, he chose Buffalo specifically for its offensive talent. He wanted to become the centerpiece of an attack and knowingly chose that opportunity rather than inheriting an established starting job elsewhere.
Buffalo gave him the offensive responsibility he wanted, but rarely supplied comparable defensive or special-teams support. That imbalance shaped the next two decades of his life and career.
Super Bowl XLVIII — The postgame interview
Reporter: “Is this a loss you can get past, or does it follow you into next season?”
Matthew sighs.
Matthew: “I don’t think I’ll ever get past it. We scored 42 points, and it wasn’t enough. I’m the quarterback. That falls on me. I failed my teammates. I failed the city of Buffalo.”
W Hoboken — Luxury Suite
February 3, 2014
225 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey — 1:00 AM
The television flickered in the darkened room.
Third-and-six. 11:26 remaining in the fourth quarter. Tie game.
Matthew watched the ball leave his hand, reach his receiver, and fall incomplete.
He pressed rewind.
Again.
Savannah glanced at the clock. It was past one in the morning. Matthew had barely moved from the couch, and this was the fiftieth time he'd watched the same play.
“Matthew.”
He didn't respond.
She walked over and sat beside him.
“Rewatching it won't change the outcome.”
The footage stopped. Matthew stared at the screen, the football frozen inches from his receiver's hands.
“I could have been better.”
Five words. The only five words he'd spoken since the game.
Savannah sighed.
“You did everything you could.”
He reached for the remote again.
“Matthew, please.”
He stopped.
Her voice was still gentle, but the frustration was beginning to show.
“I watched that game too. I watched you give everything you had. And now I'm sitting here watching you beat yourself up over it.”
Matthew lowered the remote into his lap.
“I know you're disappointed,” she continued, taking his hand. “I'm not asking you to stop being disappointed. But it's one in the morning, honey. You've watched it fifty times.”
She glanced toward the television.
For a moment, Matthew didn't move.
Then he switched off the television.
Savannah stood, keeping hold of his hand. After another moment, he got up and followed her.
Marriage and fatherhood
Savannah Harper was Matthew’s girlfriend during the aftermath of Super Bowl XLVIII and later became his wife. She was the one person with enough standing to intervene when his film study became compulsive and self-punishing.
Their son, Matthew Hall Jr., won the Heisman and projected as the first overall pick before a catastrophic knee injury ended his playing career before the NFL. Their grandson, Matthew Hall III, later carried the family line into the league.
Savannah Hall
Savannah was outgoing, playful and sarcastic, as well as confident, direct and independent. She and Matthew first connected through a shared college class.
Retirement and later life
Matthew’s Buffalo tenure ran from 2001 through 2023. His post-career life was quiet and centered in part on a standing golf group with Mac Walls, Trever Walls and Garrett Carter.
The friendship with Mac endured the two Super Bowl losses that framed Matthew’s career. They deliberately left football off the golf course, and Mac sincerely believed Matthew was the better quarterback.
Death
Matthew Hall died from old age on October 19, 2071, at 96 years old.
Additional biographical details
Super Bowl LIV · 2019 season
Buffalo lost Super Bowl LIV to the Rams, 31–23. Hall completed 39 of 53 passes for 388 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Jaxson Walls received Super Bowl MVP.
02 / Career & Football Identity
The player and the résumé
Buffalo relied heavily on its offense throughout Matthew’s tenure, with little reliable support from its defense or special teams. Its approach was “We’ll outscore you”.
He lost six consecutive AFC Championship Games from 2002 through 2007, then lost in the divisional round in 2008 before winning a title in 2009. In three straight losses to Tom Brady from 2005 through 2007, Matthew matched or exceeded Brady’s passing production and still refused to make the result somebody else’s fault.
Super Bowl XLVIII became the clearest expression of his career: 533 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions in a 47–42 loss to Mac’s Buccaneers. Matthew won Super Bowl MVP in defeat, then abandoned any remaining hope that Buffalo would solve its defensive problem and turned obsessive preparation into a permanent worldview.
His 2018 peak produced 5,547 passing yards and 53 touchdowns, breaking Peyton Manning’s single-season yardage record.
At 45, Matthew was sacked a Super Bowl-record eight times in a 31–9 loss in Super Bowl LV. For the first time, he questioned whether he wanted to continue. He answered the following season with NFL MVP, Super Bowl MVP and a championship in Super Bowl LVI.
Matthew won Super Bowls XLIV and XLV against Seattle and LVI against San Francisco. His four defeats came in XLVIII against Tampa Bay, LII against Minnesota, LIV against Los Angeles and LV against Tampa Bay. He finished 3–4 as a starting quarterback. His four confirmed Super Bowl MVP awards include XLVIII in defeat.
03 / Personality
The person behind the record
Matthew was honest, brief and uninterested in wasting words. He never threw teammates under the bus, including when the defense or protection gave him a completely justified excuse.
Disappointment turned inward. His accountability could become compulsive and self-punishing, especially after Super Bowl XLVIII, and Savannah was the person capable of stopping the cycle.
He answered doubt through preparation and performance rather than public argument.
04 / Relationships
People in the record
05 / Legacy & Analysis
What the life and résumé mean
Matthew won eight NFL MVP awards.
His career is the WAU’s strongest argument that degree of difficulty can matter as much as championship count: elite production sustained for decades while Buffalo’s offense repeatedly carried an unsupported roster.
His relationship with Buffalo ownership remained complicated and unresolved for two decades—neither open resentment nor genuine peace, and never converted into a public excuse.
The Super Bowl LV crisis and LVI response show his defining strength and danger at once: failure drove him toward doubt and obsession, but his answer still arrived through action.