Football is funny this way. In the other three major sports, history is history. In baseball, we do recognize the “modern” era, and we usually mean post-1900, but it’s helpful that 1901 was also the birth of the American League. That makes sense. The NHL goes back to 1917, the NBA to 1946. There’s no delineation, random or otherwise.
In the NFL? There’s an entire segment that exists between Oct. 3, 1920 — when the Dayton Triangles defeated the Columbus Panhandles 14-0 in the first-ever game played in what was then called the American Professional Football Association — and the Green Bay Packers’ 23-12 win over the Cleveland Browns on Jan. 2, 1966, the last pre-Super Bowl NFL Championship. And another that began the very next day.
From Jan. 3, 1966, until this very moment, there exists “the Super Bowl Era.” And for the purposes of many football conversations — including the ones taking place on these pages today — that is the one football people talk about. So while it would be impossible to write a history of the NFL since Day 1 and not have, say, the Cleveland Browns and the Chicago Bears be in the talk about the 10-best football teams ever, most of those glories took place before Jan. 3, 1966.
And so we have the Patriots and the Steelers, winners of six Super Bowls each, neither of whom had won a blessed thing (and were both, in fact, almost comically terrible) before the advent of the Super Bowl, both of whom reside in a class all by themselves on the Pantheon of Super Bowl Era teams.
This Sunday we may see the addition of one more team — the 49ers — to add a sixth Lombardi Trophy to its collection, or we may see another — the Chiefs — climb up to an even more rarefied place than they already occupy, adding a fourth, with the second half of Patrick Mahomes’ prime still ahead of them. The Chiefs do also have an AFL Championship trophy in their collection (won in 1962 when they were known as the Dallas Texans); the Niners never got any closer to a title than losing the championship game of the old AAFC to the Browns in 1949.
For the Niners, this will represent their third shot at joining the six-shooting Pats and Steelers. San Francisco won its first five appearances in the big game starting with XVI, but have now lost twice in a row, first to the Joe Flacco Ravens in XLVII, then to the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs VII years later. The Chiefs lost the first-ever Supe to the Packers and also got stomped by the Tom Brady Buccaneers three years ago.
So we are here.
Where we sit, less than a week away from the first Super Bowl ever played in Las Vegas, is a unique time when both participants have an opportunity to make a play not only for the right-now title of best football team on the planet, but to augment their place in the sport’s history (or at least the last 58 years’ worth).
The Steelers and Patriots both have six, and both franchises probably feel like they may have left a few on the table, too. The Steelers won four of the six Super Bowls between 1975 and 1980, and had the same core in the two years that Oakland and Dallas interrupted that reign, and later on there was a stretch early in Bill Cowher’s tenure when three times they were upset at home in the playoffs.
And while the Patriots won at least four Super Bowls that easily could have gone the other way (against the Rams, Panthers, Seahawks and Falcons,) the three that they lost under the Belichick-Brady umbrella (two to the Giants, one to the Eagles) still haunt.
So both have to settle for six, and so that is the club the 49ers hope to join on their third try. The Chiefs can also join the fairly exclusive realm of next-level teams that have four or more. As we sit, that modest fellowship consists of the following:
5 – Dallas
4 – Giants
4 – Packers
Again: As you’ll see elsewhere in this package, the absence of the Bears (eight titles between 1921 and 1963) and Browns (eight from 1946-1964) is a quirk. In 1967, the same year the Super Bowl was born, Toronto won its 13th championship, same as the Canadiens. They would be 1 and 1A if a poll were taken then. Since, it’s 12-0 for Montreal, and so it would be more like 1 and 25 if we only considered the last 57 years.
But such is what the Super Bowl means to us now, and such is the impact it’s had on the sport, and its history books. One fresh chapter is going to be written right around 10 o’clock come Sunday. No matter who wins.
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