The NFL hasn't had a ton of different champions since 2000.
Tom Brady won the Super Bowl seven times during that span. Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Patrick Mahomes all have won twice. Seven teams have claimed the Lombardi Trophy multiple times this century.
And yet, not since the New England Patriots in 2003 and 2004 has a franchise repeated as Super Bowl champs.
Going back-to-back in football is just so hard. There's a ton of roster turnover each year. Injuries are always a factor, too. Coaches and coordinators change teams pretty regularly as well.
However, if any team is going to repeat, the Kansas City Chiefs seem like a pretty good bet. They defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 in a thrilling Super Bowl LVII back in February. It was their second title in three years. Kansas City has a great head coach in Andy Reid, the best quarterback in Patrick Mahomes, the best tight end in Travis Kelce, and an overall roster that's loaded with depth and high-end talent in so many areas.
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The Chiefs had a great chance to repeat during the 2020 campaign when they reached Super Bowl LV but lost 31-9 to Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Mahomes is determined to finish the job this coming season and help the Chiefs become the first repeat champs since the 2003-04 Patriots.
"Everybody's motivated by that,'' Mahomes said July 18 as he reported to training camp, per ESPN's Adam Teicher. "You should be motivated to do it again. When you have that parade, when you go through the offseason that I've been through, you want to do it again. You only get those opportunities by winning the Super Bowl. And so for us, we want to make sure that we can build up and try to win that Super Bowl again because that moment, that feeling is something that you just wanted to grab every single time that you get the opportunity to do it.''
Not only have zero teams repeated since 2004, only three have returned to the Super Bowl one year after winning it. Those teams are the 2014 Seahawks, 2017 Patriots and 2020 Chiefs. The Seahawks came the closest to repeating, but they decided not to give Marshawn Lynch the ball at the 1-yard line.
The Chiefs are currently the betting favorite to win the Super Bowl on Feb. 11, 2024. They have +600 odds at DraftKings Sportsbook, which is slightly ahead of the Eagles at +650 odds.
Kansas City deserves to be the favorite, but it does have obstacles on the road to repeating. The AFC is absolutely loaded with quality teams. The Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills are the main threats to the Chiefs' dominance from within the conference, but the Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins and New York Jets should be in the mix, too. The NFC has some pretty good teams, including the Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. It's also harder to be super motivated to win the Lombardi Trophy when you're the defending champ. Injuries, as noted above, are always a threat to derail a season.
Mahomes has won pretty much everything in his brief NFL career. He has two Super Bowl rings, two Super Bowl MVPs, two league MVPs, etc. One thing he hasn't accomplished is winning back-to-back Super Bowls, which is something the two-best quarterbacks in league history -- Brady and Joe Montana -- pulled off during their Hall of Fame careers.
