Chiefs sit favored for rare Super Bowl repeat
Nobody has won back- to- back titles since the New England Patriots successfully defended theirs in February 2005.
It took five decades for the Kansas City Chiefs to win a second Super Bowl. Now they have the audacity to shoot for two in two years.
Yet while Patrick Mahomes and Co. are the favorites at just about every sports book, bar or barbershop heading into the playoffs, the road to a repeat is hardly a smooth one. Nobody has won back- to- back championships since the New England Patriots successfully defended theirs in February 2005, the longest stretch without a repeat winner in Super Bowl history.
“It’s just historically an enormous challenge for teams to come back,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who led Seattle to the 2013 NFL title but lost to the Patriots the following year. “It’s almost easier to get there and win it than it is to come back and do it a second time around. And it’s because of the shift that takes place once you win, and all that goes on through those months of the offseason, and the buildup and then the anticipation going through the start.”
That’s certainly one reason why repeating is so difficult. There are dozens of others.
The schedule of defending champions is often more difficult, and you are bound to get your opponent’s best shot any given week. Injuries and luck inevitably play a factor.
The salary cap, the NFL draft and free agency are designed to create parity, giving more teams an opportunity to make the playoffs.
The result? Over the last 20 years, seven defending champions failed to make the postseason at all. Three more were knocked out of the playoffs in the wildcard round and five more in the divisional round, which means just a quarter of Super Bowl winners were able to reach the conference championship game.
During one stretch from 2006- 13, every champion either missed the playoffs or lost its first game.
“I mean, you have to be able to take it up another notch without getting so tied into it that you completely can’t function,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “Sometimes you can just try to so hard that everything goes the opposite way. You have to work within it and rise up to those challenges, and try to maximize what you think you’re capable of.”