Tom Brady didn't use the words "Super Bowl." Nor did he say "three straight," "threepeat," "hat-trick" or anything suggesting the New England Patriots are on the cusp of NFL history.
Just the same, he alluded to his team's quest to become the first to win three consecutive Super Bowls. You just wouldn't know it from reading the team's transcript of his chat on a practice field with a small group of reporters -- that part was excised, either by Bill Belichick or someone acting on the coach's orders.
Here's what the Patriots' star quarterback said on a pleasant August morning:
"Everyone knows what the goal is. But you're so far away from that goal, you can't begin to think about it. We haven't even played an exhibition game yet, we haven't played a regular-season game, we haven't made the playoffs yet. That's when you start thinking about it."
Think, yes. Talk about it, no -- a point made clear when the transcript of Brady's interview was e-mailed to the media a few hours later.
At least Brady said something. Anyone who asks Belichick about it gets, at best, a dismissal and a nasty look. Lesser players won't even broach the subject.
In truth, trying to forget February's Super Bowl goal in August isn't a bad idea.
When the Buffalo Bills went to consecutive Super Bowls from 1990-1993, Marv Levy would tell his players at the start of each camp to wipe the slate clean. They were starting from scratch and whatever they had done the previous season was forgotten.
But the Bills lost all four of those Super Bowls, three of them badly. The Patriots don't have the stigma of losing.
Not only can they become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls, but if they capture the Vince Lombardi Trophy again, it will be their fourth in five years, something not even the great Steelers of the 1970s did. Pittsburgh won four in six years: 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979.
The others to win two straight: Green Bay in the first two Super Bowls after the 1966 and 1967 seasons; Miami, which went unbeaten in 1972 and then won the title again in 1973; San Francisco in 1988 and 1989; Dallas in 1992 and 1993 (and again in 1995); and Denver in 1997 and 1998.
All were great teams, all dynasties of a sort, although the Packers of the late 1960s were an aging team without some of the players on Vince Lombardi's great teams that won NFL titles in 1961, 1962 and 1965.
The first five repeat winners did it without the limitations of a salary cap. The Dallas Cowboys won at the start of the salary cap era, when teams could still keep their best players.
The Denver Broncos? They had John Elway and Terrell Davis and still ended up being penalized by the league for salary cap circumvention. Elway retired after the second victory, Davis seriously injured his knee and the Broncos haven't won a playoff game since.
But all those teams had one thing in common: They had to overcome injuries and the fact they were targets for every opponent, every week.
"It's that kind of a thing. It comes down to the bounce of the ball," says newly minted Hall of Famer Steve Young. "If the Patriots do it, it's one of the magnificent things in sports"
Young knows about bounces.
He took over at quarterback for an injured Joe Montana in the fourth quarter of the 1990 NFC championship game with the San Francisco 49ers holding a 13-12 lead over the New York Giants.
He led the 49ers on a long drive, looking to give them a chance to play the Bills for their third straight title. Then Roger Craig was hit by nose tackle Erik Howard and fumbled right into the arms of Lawrence Taylor with 2:46 left in the game. The Giants drove down the field for Matt Bahr's winning field goal and New York went on to win the Super Bowl when Buffalo's Scott Norwood missed a field goal as time expired.
That game illustrates a phenomenon the Patriots don't face in the salary-cap era -- teams that were good stayed good over an extended period of time.
You can argue that the 49ers, who won five titles between 1981 and 1994, were the greatest team of the Super Bowl era because they played in a conference that had a half-dozen strong teams over that span. NFC teams won every Super Bowl from 1984 to 1996. During those 13 seasons, San Francisco won four, the Cowboys three, the Washington Redskins and Giants two each. The Chicago Bears' 1985 winner was one of the best teams ever.
The Cowboys also exemplified the strength of the NFC. They had their run of three wins in four seasons broken by a San Francisco team featuring Young and Jerry Rice that beat them 38-28 in San Francisco to win the NFC title, then totally stampeded San Diego in the Super Bowl. Those Cowboys had lost coach Jimmy Johnson after the 1993 season in a dispute with owner Jerry Jones, and new coach Barry Switzer wasn't close to Johnson in ability.
In the 1970s, it was the AFC that dominated, led by the Dolphins and the Steelers.
Pittsburgh owner Dan Rooney thinks the best of those Pittsburgh teams was one that didn't win a title, the 1976 squad that might have made it three straight had it not lost in the AFC championship game after a slew of late-season and postseason injuries, including Franco Harris.
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