INTO THIN AIR, Part III: Why It’s (Nearly) Impossible to Win Three Straight Super Bowls
You're up, Kansas City. Michael MacCambridge examines whether Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and Travis Kelce can achieve a first: Three straight Super Bowl titles. The challenge is steep, yet possible.
Here’s Part I and Part II, icymi.
The final installment, Part III, is below.
By Michael MacCambridge
III | THE FUTURE
“You come at the king, you best not miss.”
—Michael K. Williams’ Omar, The Wire
To be in the middle of the maelstrom that is an NFL season is to know how fine the margins are, how cruel the breaks can be, and how often a tip, a slip, or a stumble can ruin even the best game plan. And that’s before the crucible of the playoffs, littered with great teams that fell short for one reason or another. Tony Dungy’s 2005 Colts — “the best team we had during my time there” — beat the Steelers by 19 points in the regular season, but lost to them in the divisional round of the AFC postseason. A year later, Dungy led a less well-rounded team to Super Bowl glory. The people who succeed in the NFL make their peace, sooner or later with the breaks of the game.
So every August, when he’s asked to predict the NFL’s next champion, Dungy has a firm policy:
“I never pick the defending champion,” he says. “I always pick the field.”
For much of the 2023 season, it appeared Dungy would be right for a 19th consecutive year. The Chiefs’ lackluster regular season looked like a classic example of good fortune running out. A spate of dropped passes plagued them in close losses to Detroit, Philadelphia and Green Bay. Kadarius Toney’s mental lapse led to an offside penalty that marred what otherwise would have been the play of the season — Travis Kelce’s catch and spontaneous lateral to Toney for a late touchdown that would have rallied the Chiefs past the Buffalo Bills in their regular-season showdown. By the time the Raiders throttled Kansas City in Arrowhead on Christmas Day — Kansas City’s fifth loss in eight games — many had left the defending champs for dead.
But then the Chiefs reset, buckled down to close the regular season with two wins, then secured their claim to dynasty with four rugged victories. Through a scintillating playoff run, they beat the teams ranked sixth (Miami), third (Buffalo), first (Baltimore) and second (San Francisco) by DVOA.
Just minutes after the stirring comeback win in Super Bowl LVIII, the mainstays of this team — future Hall of Famers Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Chris Jones — began pondering the future. Holding his daughter Sterling in his arms on the victory podium, Mahomes turned to fellow franchise cornerstone Jones and said, “We’re not done yet, dawg. I want three; no one’s ever gotten three. I want back-to-back-to-back.” Travis Kelce, in his podium interview, was on the same page. “The goal’s always been to get three,” he said. “But we couldn’t get here without getting to two — and having that target on our backs all year. We get a chance to do it three times in a row.”