Coaches, athletes share accounts of achieving the championship three-peat, or coming agonizingly close.
Lamar Jackson has a Patrick Mahomes problem: Will he and the Ravens be able to beat K.C. in the season opener?The Kansas City Chiefs head into the new NFL season looking to make history by becoming the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. Elizabeth Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN. She previously wrote for The Kansas City Star and The Omaha World-Herald.
For Kramer, winning three straight was one of the biggest achievements of his football career. In his basement, next to the poker table, hangs a Sports Illustrated cover from Jan. 22, 1968. The photo shows Kramer hoisting Packers coach Vince Lombardi on his shoulder after they beat theLombardi is looking down at Kramer, smiling, while teammate Forrest Gregg is propping their coach up from the back."Gregg didn't like it as much as I did," Kramer says.
ESPN spoke with coaches and athletes who have achieved the three-peat, those who have come agonizingly close and a couple of coaches who are in the middle of chasing history. Here are their stories. "I'm focused on the next game; you're focused on your preparation. But I do think you have to acknowledge the enormity of certain moments."
Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Byron Scott says then-coach Pat Riley was"driven" by the idea of achieving a three-peat. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley long ago credited Scott for coining the phrase"three-peat," and according to Scott, it happened in 1988 during training camp in Hawaii. Or was it during the championship parade a few months earlier? Scott isn't positive.
Scott loved that despite all their talent, the Lakers remained a team in every sense. Each player knew his role, Scott says, and sacrificed individual accolades for the team. The first six months of the season, everything went as planned. The Lakers finished 57-25 in the regular season, earned the top seed and swept theThe night before Game 1, the Lakers held a final practice. Riley, worried about the inside presence of Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer, ran a rebounding drill.
"If you have two of those long, drawn-out seasons in a row," he says,"some of the players don't recover real well. If they play in a third Super Bowl, they have basically played four seasons in three seasons. And the human body -- the football body -- cannot handle that. Former New England Patriots receiver Deion Branch says what really hurts is going through all the extra work to reach the Super Bowl and then to lose. Deion Branch, former Patriots receiver, and Russ Hochstein, former offensive lineman, Super Bowl champions 2003, 2004
When historians talk about what went wrong in the Patriots' 2005 season, they start with linebacker Tedy Bruschi suffering a mild stroke a few days after the Pro Bowl, and the season-ending injury to safety Rodney Harrison. Then there were the five turnovers in an AFC divisional round loss to Denver.
Like Branch, Hochstein also believed in Belichick's tunnel vision regarding three-peats. In the kind of coachspeak that could have come directly out of Belichick's mouth, Hochstein says that if you don't take care of business, there's no business at the end to take care of."As players, you do talk about it," Hochstein says."We're not dumb. We know what's going on.
"I would equate it to the Super Bowl just with how many great artists and songs there are nowadays. It's a lot of hard work, it's a team effort. We don't have to be in as good of shape as those guys on the field. But you have to stay focused, you have to have your goal and work toward it every single day. ... So I do think there are some parallels there."
OU softball coach Patty Gasso says she wants her players to celebrate and enjoy winning -- and that three-peats and four-peats are a big deal. The Last Dance "So you need to find a way to bring them up to your level and communicate with them and have a relationship even if it's just a professional relationship versus a personal relationship. Because that's something that, I think, in a locker room looks a little bit different. And one thing that I think makes me good at this level as a is that I know what female cliques look like and I know how they can absolutely annihilate your program.".
"When it's done, your emotions are just joy, like, 'We did it. Oh my gosh, we did it.' But you're also, 'Thank God this is over. Thank God that the pressure of this and the intensity and everything that goes with it is just over and you can breathe again.' Because the further you go in the tournament, it's harder to take that deep breath because everything is heavy on your shoulders. So you just see a sense of joy and just a sense of relief.
"You work at a sense of urgency," Armstrong says."This is a very short window in my life. I committed to this life. I was the little crazy kid that said, 'I want to be a professional athlete,' and then you get there and then you said, 'Then you want to start taking a vacation?' That just didn't make sense to me. I was living a dream that I set out to do my entire life. And when I got there, the last thing I wanted to do was stop.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Chiefs begin quest for 3 straight Super Bowl titles starts with game vs RavensThe Kansas City Chiefs' quest for three consecutive Super Bowl titles begins on Thursday night against the Baltimore Ravens. The NFL is officially back.
Read more »
NFL preview 2024: Super Bowl LIX odds for Jets, Giants, Chiefs moreThe Jets are in a far better position to compete for a championship, though they are still not believed to be legitimate Super Bowl contenders, but they do
Read more »
Chiefs are Super Bowl betting favorites, while Lions attract actionThe Chiefs enter the 2024 season as the betting favorite to win the Super Bowl, but sportsbooks are exposed on the Lions.
Read more »
Best Bets: KC Chiefs Season Odds for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Super Bowl LIXHow will QB Patrick Mahomes, TE Travis Kelce and RB Isiah Pacheco fare in 2024? Here's what you need to know, including the latest odds and stats, before placing your bets on the Kansas City Chiefs.
Read more »
Mahomes, Chiefs seeking AFC West title and a Super Bowl 3-peatThe Kansas City Chiefs have ruled the AFC West since two-time MVP Patrick Mahomes was still slinging it at Texas Tech. They’ve won the division every year...
Read more »
Pro Picks: Eagles will beat the Chiefs in Super Bowl 59, preventing a 3-peatThe Chiefs are going for a three-peat. Aaron Rodgers is trying to propel the Jets to prominence. The Ravens have unfinished business. That’s just three of the contending teams in a stacked AFC. The Bills, Bengals, Texans and Dolphins each have a legitimate chance to go deep in the postseason.
Read more »