INTO THIN AIR, Part II: Why It’s (Nearly) Impossible to Win Three Straight Super Bowls
INTO THIN AIR, Part II: Why It’s (Nearly) Impossible to Win Three Straight Super Bowls
In Part II, Michael MacCambridge takes you through history. Eight teams won back-to-back titles but failed to win a third Super Bowl. Why? There are many lessons to learn...
Miss Part I? Catch up here.
By Michael MacCambridge
II | THE HISTORY
“A season is like a lifetime, of things that can happen.”
—Willie Lanier, Hall of Fame middle linebacker
The select group of teams that have had the opportunity to pursue a three-peat includes, by definition, some of the most successful teams and coaches and players in pro football history. There are no impostors in this group. The NFL today is far different than it was when most of these teams repeated, but there are still lessons to be learned from the eight teams that preceded the Chiefs.
Many of these teams suffered key talent losses, in coaching or players or both. Some of these teams were past their prime. Many teams suffered untimely injuries. Some of these teams were brought down by other teams that had been gunning for them for years. A couple of the teams — the ’68 Packers and the ’99 Broncos — lost such key elements of their identity that they never really had much of a chance to defend their title. And in almost every case, the good fortune of the previous two campaigns was unsustainable across a third season.
Each season carries its own lesson.
1968 GREEN BAY PACKERS
Lesson: Don’t lose your legendary head coach and grow old in the same offseason.
With the Packers of 1968, it was all very simple: the titanic presence of Vince Lombardi was gone. More notable than the Packers’ futile title defense of ’68 was that the team had somehow prevailed in ’67, with the legendary Ice Bowl win over Dallas in the NFL title game, before coasting to a Super Bowl II win over Oakland.