Maybe we should start with teams that not Repeat as Super Bowl champions, which might not take the title in two steps, as they include some of the greatest teams of all time and offer a plan for how treacherous the way back to glory can be.
Take the Bears since 1986. In ’85, they went 18-1 and went through the Patriots in Super Bowl 20. They had it all, on both sides of the ball, even though Buddy Ryan ran after Philly after getting a walk from his defense at the Superdome. They won 14 of 16 games and actually allowed 11 points less than the team of 85 and would have hosted the NFC title game against the Giants … except that Washington beat them 27-13 at Soldier Field with a week before. Da Bears hit Da Wall.
Take the 2000 Rams, heirs to the biggest show on the field, who robbed the NFL a year earlier, who actually scored 14 points more than their high-flying predecessors, once offender Mike Martz succeeded him. Dick Vemeil, however, failed in the first round of the following year, giving the Saints their first playoff victory in their Big Easy history, tortured so far.
Take the 2014 Seahawks, who snatched the Broncos in the Super Bowl a year earlier, 43-8, who went through their regular season and withdrew a miraculous comeback against the Packers in the NFC title game and were established – perfect – second and goal from 1, time running against the Patriots … before Russell Wilson’s throw found Malcolm Butler’s arms in front of Ricardo Lockette.
Listen to the men who he could not do this:
“Sometimes,” Mike Ditka said on January 3, 1987, “the best team doesn’t win.”
“I thought it was just going to catch fire and roll again,” Kurt Warner said on December 30, 2000. “But football can be a fun game sometimes.”
“It’s hard to repeat,” Pete Carroll said on February 1, 2015. “Case by case.”
So see what the Kansas City bosses are facing now, with the opportunity in front of them to repeat as NFL champions. Only seven franchises have managed to do so, a total of eight times since Green Bay became first, winning Super Bowls I and II in Los Angeles and Miami, at a time when the pack thought it could beat them. all who came.
“Winning when the whole world doesn’t want anything else to knock you down on a leg or two is the best thing there is,” Vince Lombardi said on January 14, 1968, when his Packers – only 9-4-1 in the regular season, which had just escaped Dallas in the Ice Bowl – clogged 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 could have been the best of Miami’s back-to-back teams. As much as Kansas City’s passing game makes people shake their heads, so did the fish from Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick, and while the 72-year-old team had some fights. post-season, the ’73 repeaters outscored the Bengals, Raiders and Vikings 85-33.
“Maybe we’ll do it again next year,” Csonka said after accepting his MVP trophy, and as we know, no team has ever done that, it has ever gone 3 to 3. They got closer. most – they won four of six titles between 1974 and 1979 and are the only team to turn back twice and spread wealth among the Hall of Famers raft – Franco Harris and Lynn Swann won the Super Bowl MVP for the first time, with Terry Bradshaw winning the trophy every second.
“I’m not going to say we’re the best team ever,” Mean Green, the heart of the steel curtain defense, said Jan. 20, 1980, after they gave up the Rams 31-19 for No. 4. “But I didn’t It bothers us that we’ll be in that conversation for a long, long time. “
As impressive as the first four replays were, however, the last four were probably more unlikely, as they all happened after the NFL economy began to change, when parity began to be associated with the league office thanks to the agency. free and the salary cap. When the 49ers repeated 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 until the Cowboys (1992-93), the Broncos (1997-98) and the Patriots (2003-04) each came out in pairs, there was a feeling, each time, we might not see this again. . Indeed, when the Brady-Belichick partnership defeated the Eagles for the third of six titles in Jacksonville on February 6, 2005, the coach, a well-versed football historian, understood what the moment meant.
“You need a lot of good coaches, a lot of great players and a little luck,” said Bill Belichick that day, and many thought it might be the last back-to-back we would ever see. And it could still be, unless the Chiefs decide to change the schedule this Sunday against Tampa. With Tom Brady in their path, serving as the honorary porter of history. Of course.