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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/iCE_P0W3R on 2024-08-25 13:13:56+00:00.
Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and the Chiefs are back-to-back Super Bowl champions, and this upcoming season, they have an opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done since the merger: win 3 straight championships. Given that the season fast approaches, I wanted to look back at previous attempts to threepeat to see how close some teams have gotten, and how hard that road actually was.
If we’re just looking at teams since the NFL/AFL merger, there have been 7 previous teams to win back-to-back Super Bowls. Their results are as follows:
2005 Patriots: went 10-6 and lost in the Divisional Round
1999 Broncos: went 6-10 and missed the playoffs entirely
1994 Cowboys: went 12-4 and lost in the NFC Championship game
1990 49ers: went 14-2 and lost in the NFC Championship game
1980 Steelers: went 9-7 and missed the playoffs entirely
1976 Steelers: went 11-3 and lost in the AFC Championship game
1974 Dolphins: went 11-3 and lost in the Divisional Round
As you can see, 2 teams missed the playoffs, 2 teams lost in the Divisional Round, and 3 teams lost in the conference championship. No repeat winner made it back to the Super Bowl the following year. For what it’s worth, both the 1994 and 1990 NFC Championship games are classics that are razor close and come down to the wire, so, for my money, those are probably the closest anyone has gotten to threepeating in the modern era (the 1976 Steelers got blown out by one of the greatest Raider teams ever).
Technically, though, there have been a few teams to threepeat in the NFL, all of which occurred before the merger. Depending on who you count, there have been either two or three NFL teams to threepeat Championships. In the order they happened, these teams are: the 1929-1931 Green Bay Packers, the 1946-1950 Cleveland Browns, and the 1965-1967 Lombardi Packers. That last Packers team won an NFL Championship and the first two Super Bowls ever, which is the closest anyone has ever come to winning 3 straight Super Bowls. Of note, you didn’t read that incorrectly, the Cleveland Browns won 5 straight championships. The only problem with this, however, is that the first 4 all came from the defunct AAFC, or All-American Football Conference. They did, however, follow their quad peat with an NFL championship in their first year as an official member of the league, in 1950.
What does this mean for the Chiefs? Probably not much, but I think it’s pretty interesting.