That night, the Patriots defeated the Chiefs to win their ninth and final AFC title with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick leading the way. Their dominance has been mimicked by the Chiefs, who have picked up where New England left off.

The Chiefs have won the Super Bowl the past two years in a row and have made the championship five times in the last seven seasons. If they win again this year, they’ll become the first team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in a row.

Every NFL season — as sure as there will be hand-wringing over officiating and scrutiny about whether the Jets and Giants can extricate themselves from their malaises — it happens. A team goes deep into the regular season without losing and the talk begins about whether that team might equal what the ’72 Dolphins did in producing a perfect,