Terry Bradshaw always wondered what might have been if his Pittsburgh Steelers had reached the Super Bowl either of the times they started an NFL season with a chance to win three in a row.
Ronnie Lott has long lamented just one bounce of the oblong ball that he believes, had it gone a different direction, could have helped send the San Francisco 49ers to the big game when they were in just about perfect position for a three-peat.
The Kansas City Chiefs are the first team to reach the Super Bowl after winning the previous two, which means star quarterback Patrick Mahomes has already done what Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman and Tom Brady couldn’t before him.
Now the two-time league MVP and his teammates will try to finish the job Sunday night, when the Chiefs (17-2) face the Philadelphia Eagles (17-3) at Super Bowl LIX. Fox will televise the matchup from the Superdome in New Orleans at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
“You’ve got to have a lot of luck,” said Lott, a Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive back who spent the bulk of his career with the dynastic 49ers of the 1980s. “You’ve got to find moments where you want the ball to bounce your way. And then the other thing is, you’ve just got to get over the idea that nobody thinks you can do it.”
There is one asterisk: Bart Starr quarterbacked Green Bay to the 1965 NFL championship and the first two Super Bowl titles. In addition, Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway retired after winning consecutive Super Bowls.
Bradshaw and those Steel Curtain teams of the 1970s lost to the Oakland Raiders — coached by the legendary John Madden — in the AFC championship game during Pittsburgh’s first run as the two-time reigning Super Bowl champ.
The Steelers didn’t even make the playoffs the second time around, which was four years later.
“Had we gotten to the Super Bowl, then I would say the chances of a three-peat would have been very good because you are a defending champion and you’ve experienced a Super Bowl and winning a Super Bowl,” Bradshaw said. “It’s that long, drawn-out football season where you’re just waiting to get to the playoffs. And it’s a difficult task.”
Roger Craig’s late fumble is what most remember when the 49ers lost at home to the New York Giants 15-13 on a field goal on the final play of the NFC championship game during the 1990 season.
Lott, however, recalls in vivid detail — 34 years later — an earlier play when Jeff Hostetler lost control of the ball in the backfield with him blitzing, but the ball bounced the Giants quarterback’s way instead of his.
A second consecutive 14-2 season with Montana and receivers Jerry Rice and John Taylor amounted to nothing in the minds of the 49ers. Besides the luck of the bounce, Lott was quick to bring up the health of the players — as was Montana.
“The seasons are long. The offseasons are short,” the four-time Super Bowl champ said. “Usually you’re not at 100% strength, your body doesn’t have its usual time to prepare itself during the offseason. When you compound that over the years … it makes it even worse.”
Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith and receiver Michael Irvin got the Dallas Cowboys back to an NFC title game as two-time champs, but the Hall of Fame trio lost on the road to the 49ers during the 1994 season, when Steve Young had taken over behind center as the successor to Montana.
Daryl Johnston, the fullback when Dallas became the first team to win three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons, believes the Cowboys had an asterisk of their own.
After beating the Buffalo Bills for the title in consecutive years, team owner Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson had their infamous and acrimonious split. Barry Switzer coached the team that fell short of a three-peat.
In the 38-28 loss to the 49ers, the Cowboys turned over the ball the first three times they had it and trailed 21-0 halfway through the first quarter.
“So, you lose your head coach,” Johnston said. “Where would Kansas City be if they lost Andy Reid? And then to play the worst six minutes of football you’ve ever played as a group to start that game, it was just so unexpected.”
Coach Vince Lombardi left the Packers after winning what retroactively became the first two Super Bowls as the AFL-NFL merger was completed, and the team didn’t make the playoffs the following year as Joe Namath quarterbacked the New York Jets to their famous upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
The first of consecutive titles for the Miami Dolphins is still the only undefeated season of the Super Bowl era, the 17-0 run during the 1972 season. The Dolphins lost their playoff opener when they were two-time reigning champs.
The New England Patriots fell two victories short of a three-peat in the 2005 season, the only chance they had to do that while winning six championships with Brady and coach Bill Belichick over the course of two decades.
Mahomes is well aware of the history as the Chiefs try to to shrug off talk of a three-peat. A victory Sunday over Philadelphia would be the 29-year-old’s fourth Super Bowl title. Brady was 37 when he won the fourth of his record seven.
“I think you always want to leave a legacy and kind of make your imprint on history, but more than anything, you just want to accomplish a goal that you have with your teammates,” Mahomes said. “We know that’s a hard process. We know it’s hard week in and week out. But I’m proud of how our guys have kind of went about that process.”
Bradshaw still talks about how hard trying to three-peat was on him. As part of the Fox television crew covering the Super Bowl — along with Brady — the Hall of Famer will share the stage with the winning team, which could mean handing the Lombardi Trophy to Mahomes.
The 76-year-old Bradshaw remembers having a similar chance at history with the Fox crew when Brady’s 18-0 Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl to cap the 2007 season.
“So here I go again. Historical moment,” Bradshaw said. “I have no way that I could sit here and say Kansas City is going to lose.”