Maybe we should start with the teams that do not have repeat it as Super Bowl champions, it can not win the title in two steps because it contains some of the great teams of all time and offers a blueprint for exactly how treacherous the road to glory can be.
Take the Bears 1986. In 85, they led 18-1 and rolled through the Patriots in Super Bowl 20. They had it all on both sides of the ball, even though Buddy Ryan fled to Philly after taking a ride from his defense at the Superdome. They won 14 of 16 games and conceded 11 points less than the 85 team, and would have hosted the NFC title game against the Giants … except that Washington had beaten them 27-13 at Soldier Field the week before. Da Bears hit Da Wall.
Take the 2000 Rams, the heirs of the Greatest Show on Turf, which went through the NFL last year, which actually scored another 14 points as their high-flying predecessors, who were once offensive, Mike Martz, Dick Vemeil succeeded, but it still could not make the first round next year, which gave the Saints the first playoff game in their hitherto tortured Big Easy history.
Take the 2014 Seahawks, who thrashed the Broncos in the Super Bowl last year, 43-8, who rolled through their regular season and made a great comeback against the Packers in the NFC title game and were perfectly drafted – second goal of the first time, the time the Patriots run out … before Russell Wilson’s throw found Malcolm Butler’s arms in front of Ricardo Lockette.
Listen to the men who could not get it done:
“Sometimes,” Mike Ditka said on January 3, 1987, “the best team does not win.”
“We thought we would just catch fire again and roll again,” Kurt Warner said on December 30, 2000. “But football can sometimes be a funny game.”
“It’s hard to repeat,” Pete Carroll said on February 1, 2015.
So you see what the Kansas City Chiefs are facing now, with the opportunity to repeat themselves as NFL champions. Only seven franchises have managed it, a total of eight times since Green Bay won the first Super Bowls I and II in Los Angeles and Miami, at a time when the Pack felt they could just beat them all.
“To win when the whole world wants nothing more than to drop you a pen or two is the best thing there is,” Vince Lombardi said on January 14, 1968 when his Packers – just 9-4 – 1 on the regular season, which could barely escape Dallas in the Ice Bowl – Oakland split 33-14. “Nothing about this is easy. Nothing. ”
The ’72 Dolphins led 17-0, and yet it was next year’s team that lost twice that could have been the best of Miami’s rugby teams. As much as Kansas City’s passing game made people shake their heads, the fish of Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick also did the ground-and-pound fish, and although the ’72 team struggled for several seasons has, the ’73 repeaters beat the Bengals, Raiders and Vikings 85-33.
“Maybe we’ll do it again next year,” Csonka cracked after accepting his MVP trophy. As we know, no team ever did that, he ever won 3-for-3. The Steelers came closest – they won four out of six titles between 1974 and 1979, and they are the only team to have won twice in a row, and they spread the wealth among their Hall of Famers series – Franco Harris and Lynn Swann won Super Bowl MVP for the first time, with Terry Bradshaw winning the trophy each of the second two.
“I’m not going to say we’re the best team ever,” Joe Curene, the heart of the Steel Curtain defense, said on January 20, 1980 after the Steelers fired the Rams 31-19 for No. 4. “But I do not care that we will be long, long in that conversation.”
Just as impressive as the first four iterations, the last four were probably more unlikely because it all happened after the NFL’s economy began to change, when the relationship with the league office began to work together, thanks to free agency and the salary cap. When the 49ers repeated in 1988 and ’89, they had the same star force (Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott), but different coaches, Bill Walsh first, then George Seifert.
And by the time the Cowboys (1992-93), Broncos (1997-98) and Patriots (2003-04) each pulled down their two reports, there was a feeling we would never see it again. In fact, when the Brady-Belichick partnership beat the Eagles for the third of their six titles on February 6, 2005 in Jacksonville, the coach, a well-known football historian, understood what the moment meant.
“You need a lot of good coaches, a lot of good players and a little bit of luck,” Bill Belichick said that day, and many thought it would be the last rugby player we would ever see. And it could still be, unless the Chiefs decide to change the timeline by Sunday against Tampa. With Tom Brady standing in their way, he serves as the honorary porter of history. Natural.