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Last fall, I wrote an article previewing the NFL season, emphasizing how difficult and historically improbable a Kansas City Chiefs three-peat would be. For that reason, I picked the Cincinatti Bengals to make it out of the AFC. Though Joe Burrow did have a very strong season – as I predicted – no one in the AFC was able to stop the Chiefs – not as I had predicted.
After beating the Buffalo Bills by just a few points this past weekend, the Chiefs are set for a rematch with the Philadelphia Eagles, the team they beat in Super Bowl 57 two seasons ago.
Given that Fanduel and other betting sites consider this game a genuine toss-up, and the fact that the Chiefs have been hot all year, the possibility of the NFL’s first-ever three-peat seems very real. So, let’s dive into this. How crazy is this, really? How rare is it in other sports? Why the Chiefs? Can the Eagles stop history, or is it just destiny waiting to happen in the Big Easy?
Football perspective:
Until 1932, the NFL used a Premier League style of determining a champion. There were no playoffs, and the team with the best regular-season record was awarded the championship at the end of the season. During this era, the Green Bay Packers were the only team to three-peat, winning from 1929 to 1931. For reference as to how long ago this was, the runner-up team in 1931 was called the Portsmouth Spartans. The other two years, it was actually the New York Giants.
Then again, once the NFL Championship game was introduced, the Packers three-peated from 1965-67, though in these years, there was no playoff before the big game, so the best AFC team would play the best NFC team – this year that would’ve been Chiefs-Lions. The Super Bowl was first instituted in the 1966 season, the Packers had to play an extra game against the best AFL team in 1966 and 1967. And … that’s it. No one else has three-peated since. In fact, no team has even made it back to the Super Bowl after having won the previous two years. So, the Chiefs have already made history. What about other sports?
In other sports:
In Major League Baseball, no team has three-peated in the World Series since the late ‘90s dynasty New York Yankees, which won from 1998 to 2000. Since then, no MLB team has even won two in a row.
In the National Basketball Association, back-to-back championships happen much more often than in baseball and football. The Golden State Warriors repeated in 2017-18, the Miami Heat in 2012-13, the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009-2010 and earlier that decade, the Lakers pulled off the NBA’s most recent three-peat when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant won three straight from 2000 to 2002.
In the National Hockey League, no team had three-peated since the early 1980s when the New York Islanders pulled off a historic four-peat, winning from 1980-1983, even making it back to the finals in 1984 on a quest for five straight, only to lose to some 23-year old kid named Wayne Gretzky. It should be noted that in the NHL, the Tampa Bay Lightning came extremely close to three-peating just three seasons ago. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 and made it to the finals in 2022 but lost to a ravenous, well-rounded and younger Colorado Avalanche team.
In European Soccer’s Champions League, the last team to three-peat was Real Madrid, who won from 2016-18, with one of the best and most well-rounded soccer teams of all time, featuring the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Sergio Ramos and more. This Madrid side was the first Champions League three-peat since Bayern Munich in the mid-1970s.
So, a Chiefs win next Sunday would be historic, to say the least. Patrick Mahomes would catapult Joe Montana in the eyes of many as the clear second-best quarterback of all time, still a bit behind Tom Brady — the only quarterback to ever beat Mahomes in the Super Bowl.
But the Eagles are loaded, and they know their opponent. Two years ago, the Eagles played the Chiefs extremely close in an instant all-time classic game. And that was without Saquon Barkley, whom they added this past offseason and seems likely to win Offensive Player of the Year. But who am I to count out the Chiefs? They beat MVP Lamar Jackson and his stacked Ravens team last year, the should-be MVP Josh Allen and his stacked Bills team this year and a historically well-rounded San Francisco 49ers team in Super Bowl 58 just a year ago.
Though the Eagles are a really scary team, I feel like the Chiefs won’t even bat an eye. They might be losing at points during the game, sure. Saquon might rip off a 69-yard touchdown run. Patrick Mahomes might even throw an interception. But none of that matters. The Chiefs will have them right where they want them the whole time. Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and Travis Kelce are professional winners. Give me the Chiefs, 31-27.
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