No Threepeat as Eagles Maul Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX

Since the beginning of the NFL playoffs, we had been hearing about how the Kansas City Chiefs could be the first team to win three straight Super Bowls and hence, three straight NFL Championships. While it’s true that no team had won three consecutive Super Bowls, apparently people were forgetting that the NFL existed before there was a Super Bowl, and that the league did have champions in those days. The Super Bowl began following the 1966 season, and matched the NFL champion against the rival American Football League (AFL) champion. It was officially called the AFL/NFL World Championship Game before it was renamed Super Bowl after the NFL/AFL merger in 1970, although it was often called the Super Bowl in those early days. The first four World Championship games before the merger were retroactively renamed as Super Bowls I-IV.

The Green Bay Packers under coach Vince Lombardi won those first two Super Bowls following the 1966 and ’67 seasons. But the Packers also won the NFL Championship in 1965, the year before the first Super Bowl, defeating the Cleveland Browns 23-12 (the Browns, Colts, and Steelers were moved to the AFC following the merger). Thus, the Packers won three NFL Championships in a row from 1965-67. (For the record, the Packers also won three NFL Championships from 1929-31; from 1920-32, there were no playoffs and the team with the best record was champion).

Perhaps the ghost of Vince Lombardi had heard enough of the Chiefs and their seemingly inevitable march to a threepeat of championships, and how that had not been done before. Between that and a highly motivated Philadelphia Eagles team looking to avenge a Super Bowl loss to Kansas City just two years ago, the Chiefs were doomed in Super Bowl LIX.

Philadelphia QB Jalen Hurts passed for 221 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed for 72 yards and another touchdown as the Eagles routed the Chiefs 40-22 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Hurts was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, although the Eagles’ defense could have received the honor. Philly’s defense sacked Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes six times and intercepted him twice, one of which was returned for a touchdown. The Eagles were up 34-0 in the third quarter before Mahomes connected with Xavier Worthy with 34 seconds left in the quarter to finally put the Chiefs on the board. Mahomes would throw two more touchdown passes late in the game, but outside of making his stats look better than his actual performance, were too little too late. It was Philadelphia’s second Super Bowl victory.

Link to Highlights of Super Bowl LIX

And here’s some highlights of that 1965 NFL Championship game. It was legendary running back Jim Brown’s final game.