The Kansas City Chiefs are on a collision course with history. With a victory in Super Bowl LIX, they will become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. Eight teams, including the Steelers twice in the 1970s, tried and failed for the coveted three-peat.
Furthermore, if the Chiefs beat the Eagles on Super Sunday, they will equal the four Super Bowl wins in a six-year span the Steelers had from 1974-79. That extended run of dominance for years has set the Steelers apart as the NFL’s greatest dynasty.
So next week, Steelers fans all over the world will have a choice: root for the Chiefs to join them in NFL lore, or cheer on a team from Philadelphia, as hard as that might be to fathom. The Eagles — and their 1-3 record in Super Bowls — are the only thing standing between the Chiefs and immortality.
The Steelers had their chances to three-peat in 1976 and 1980, but they never had the opportunity to defend their title in the Super Bowl like the Chiefs are in New Orleans one week from now.
After winning Super Bowls IX and X, the Steelers started the 1976 season 1-4, but they won nine consecutive games to win the AFC Central and qualified for the playoffs. They turned their season around with the greatest stretch of defensive football in NFL history.
Over the final nine games of the regular season, the Steelers gave up 28 points and recorded five shutouts. They gave up fewer than 200 yards in five of those games.
The Steelers beat the Colts, 40-14, in the first round of the playoffs, but starting running backs Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier were injured in the game and unable to play in the AFC championship game the following week in Oakland against the Raiders.
With Reggie Harrison making his first NFL start at running back, the Steelers’ vaunted running game managed just 72 yards in a 24-7 loss. After the game, Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert said: “Give me a six pack of beer, an hour and then we’ll go back out and beat them.”
Many Steelers believe the 1976 team was the best of their teams from the 1970s, but the injuries to their pair of 1,000-yard rushers, who also accounted for 19 of the team’s 33 touchdowns during the regular season, proved too much to overcome.
Pittsburghers from most any generation know the story of the 1976 Steelers well. The story of the 1980 Steelers team is lesser known.
They opened the season with four victories in their first five games, but a three-game losing streak in October, a 2-4 division record and a key injury to one of their star players kept the Steelers out of the playoffs for the first time since the 1971 season.
John Stallworth, the hero of Super Bowl XIV, missed 13 games due to leg and foot injuries, and the offense stumbled down the stretch. The Steelers were shut out, 6-0, in an early December game in Houston, a loss that put their playoff hopes on life support. But surprisingly, a slump wasn’t the team’s biggest problem.
The Steel Curtain defense was aging and a shell of its former self. Defensive linemen Joe Greene and L.C. Greenwood were 34 and Jack Ham 32. Greene and Greenwood would retire after the 1981 season, and Ham would follow them out the door following the 1982 season.
The Steelers in 1980 gave up more points than any other team in the AFC Central, including 45 in a home loss to the Oakland Raiders, who would succeed the Steelers as Super Bowl champions a few months later by beating the Eagles in Super Bowl XV.
By the time the Steelers took the field for a late afternoon game against the Chargers on the final Sunday of the season, they had been eliminated from playoff contention. It was the end of their hopes for a three-peat — and the dynasty that ruled the decade in the NFL.
The Steelers would miss the playoffs again in 1981 and wouldn’t play in another Super Bowl for another 15 years.
Six other teams won back-to-back Super Bowls and none of them advanced to the Super Bowl. The closest a team came was the 1990 San Francisco 49ers, who were dethroned by a last-second field goal by former Steelers kicker Matt Bahr, who not only sent the Giants to the Super Bowl but prevented the 49ers from getting a leg up on the Steelers.
Had the 49ers won that game, they would have had a chance to win their fifth Super Bowl in a 10-year span, which might have vaulted them past the Steelers in the minds of many NFL historians.
One of the most impressive aspects of the Chiefs’ recent run has been their willingness to change. They started out as a prolific offensive team that outscored teams on their way to their first couple of championships, but they’ve transitioned to a team that now wins with defense.
The Chiefs had the 15th-ranked scoring offense in the NFL during the regular season. They scored just five more points than the Steelers did, while their defense allowed the fourth-fewest points in the league.
Their ability to adapt is the reason they’re in position to make history. The Steelers of the ’70s were smart enough to change in the middle of their dynasty, too.
They won their first two Super Bowls with dominant defenses, but they modified their playing style when the NFL changed its rules to favor offenses in 1978. They then won their final two Super Bowls of that era by having dominant offenses that could outscore the opposition.
They were the NFL’s highest-scoring team during the 1979 season. Against the upstart Rams in Super Bowl XIV, they had to score 14 points in the fourth quarter to overcome a 19-17 fourth-quarter deficit.
Stallworth and the rest of the Steelers cemented their place in NFL lore with that comeback.
Now, the Chiefs have their opportunity to join them.
First Published: January 31, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 1, 2025, 3:23 a.m.