Maybe we should start with the teams that not Repeat as Super Bowl champions, who couldn’t make it to the two-step title, as they feature some of the greatest teams of all time and provide a blueprint for how treacherous the path back to glory can be.
Take the 1986 Bears. In ’85 they went 18-1 and rolled through the Patriots in Super Bowl 20. They had everything, on both sides of the ball, even if Buddy Ryan had fled to Philly after a run from his defense in the Superdome. They won 14 out of 16 games and in fact allowed 11 points less than the ’85 team, and would have hosted the NFC title game against the Giants … except Washington stomped them 27-13 on Soldier the week before Field. Da Bears hit Da Wall.
Take the 2,000 Rams, heirs to the Greatest Show on Turf who sacked the NFL the year before, who actually scored 14 points more than their high-flying predecessors, once attacking whiz kid Mike Martz succeeded Dick Vemeil but couldn’t make it through the first round the following year, with the Saints handing over the first playoff win in their hitherto haunted Big Easy history.
Take the 2014 Seahawks, who had smothered the Broncos in the Super Bowl the year before, 43-8, who went through their regular season and made a miraculous comeback against the Packers in the NFC title game and who – perfectly – were set up second-and-second. goal of the 1, time is running out against the Patriots … before Russell Wilson’s throw found Malcolm Butler’s arms in front of Ricardo Lockette’s.
Listen to the men who could not do that:
“Sometimes,” said Mike Ditka on January 3, 1987, “the best team doesn’t win.”
“We thought we were just going to catch fire and roll again,” said Kurt Warner on December 30, 2000. “But football can be a fun game sometimes.”
“It’s hard to repeat,” said Pete Carroll on February 1, 2015. “Preview.”
So you see what the Kansas City Chiefs stand for now, with the ability to rerun as NFL champions. Only seven franchises have managed to do it, a total of eight times since Green Bay took first and won Super Bowls I and II in Los Angeles and Miami, at a time when the Pack thought they could just beat anyone.
“Winning when the whole world doesn’t want anything to take you down a pole or two, that’s the best there is,” said Vince Lombardi on January 14, 1968, when his Packers – only 9-4-1 on the regular season , who had narrowly escaped from Dallas in the Ice Bowl – beaten up Oakland 33-14. “Nothing about this is easy. Nothing.”
The ’72 Dolphins went 17-0, and yet it was next year’s team that lost twice, which was arguably the better of Miami’s back-to-back teams. As much as Kansas City’s passing game makes people shake their heads, so does Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, and Jim Kiick’s ground-and-pound Fish, and while the ’72 team had some problems after the season, the ’73 repeaters scored better than the Bengals, Raiders and Vikings 85-33.
“Maybe we’ll do this again next year,” Csonka burst out after accepting his MVP trophy, and as we know no team has ever done that, has ever gone 3-for-3. The Steelers came the closest – they won four of six titles between 1974 and 1979, and they’re the only team to go back-to-back twice, and they spread the wealth among their raft Hall of Famers – Franco Harris and Lynn Swann won Super Bowl MVP the first time around, with Terry Bradshaw taking the trophy each of the second two.
“I’m not going to say we’re the best team ever,” said Mean Joe Greene, the heart of the Steel Curtain defense, on January 20, 1980, after the Steelers turned down the Rams 31-19 for No. 4. “But I don’t mind that we’ll be in that conversation for a very, very long time.”
As impressive as those first four reps were, the last four were probably more unlikely, as they all happened after the NFL’s economy began to change, when parity began to partner with the league office thanks to free agency and the salary cap. When the 49ers repeated themselves in 1988 and ’89, they had the same star power (Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott) but different coaches, first Bill Walsh, then George Seifert.
And by the time the Cowboys (1992-93), Broncos (1997-98), and Patriots (2003-04) each pulled their two up, there was a sense that we might never see this again every time. When the Brady-Belichick partnership defeated the Eagles for the third of their six titles in Jacksonville on February 6, 2005, the coach, a veteran football historian, understood what that moment meant.
“You need a lot of great coaches, a lot of great players and a little bit of luck,” said Bill Belichick that day, and many thought this might be the last back-to-back we would ever see. And it still could be, unless the Chiefs decide to change the timeline against Tampa this Sunday. With Tom Brady standing in their way as history’s honorary doorman. Of course.