I’ve got as much Kansas City Chiefs fatigue as anyone these days, and no, it’s not because of Taylor Swift. I’m just sick of them.

But I am even more sick of this notion I keep encountering that there has never been a “three-peat” champion in NFL history, i.e., championships in three consecutive seasons. As Packers fans know, it’s already happened. Been there, done that. It happened under the watch of a guy named Vince Lombardi (maybe you’ve heard of him) following the 1965, 1966 and 1967 seasons. The only caveat: there was no such thing as a Super Bowl after the 1965 season.

In fact, there was no such thing as a Super Bowl in 1966 or 1967. The championship games following those seasons were referred to officially as the AFC-NFC Championship Game, even though Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt had already coined the catchy phrase “Super Bowl” around that time. But it wasn’t officially called the Super Bowl by the league until 1969.

Nevertheless, as I have looked around on social media and read stories during the current NFL playoffs news cycle, I see many writers specifically and (mostly) correctly saying that no team has won three consecutive Super Bowls. That’s fine, I guess, because it’s specific.

But way too many don’t get specific and simply report that no NFL team has ever attained three consecutive championships. 

Heck, even the NFL itself can be blurry on the issue. One NFL.com story said, “As winners of the last two Super Bowls, the Chiefs have a chance to become the first team to three-peat in NFL history.”

Nope.

I concede that those first two AFC-NFC Championships were retrofitted with the moniker “Super Bowl” for the sake of cohesion with the AFC-NFC merger – and I concede that to say that no team has ever won three of those specific games in a row is technically accurate. But it drives me nuts that so few writers even acknowledge Lombardi’s three-fer. 

Seriously, those Lombardi Packers are widely accepted as one of the most dominant teams in the league’s history, led by 10 – count them, 10 – Pro Football Hall-of-Famers from the era. And yet, no love from the modern audience or media? (Well, except us Packers fans, obviously.)

I’m not saying Andy Reid’s Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs aren’t a great team. They’re so dominant, and maybe a bit charmed, that it’s positively wearisome. And a little annoying. But hey, good for them, I guess.

But please don’t argue pedantics with me that somehow the Lombardi three-peat doesn’t count because the first in the series didn’t have a final postseason game attached. That 1965 run was an NFL Championship – period. (Cheesehead TV writer Greg Meinholz astutely wondered on social media that if we start calling that 1965 NFL Championship game against the Cleveland Browns “Super Bowl 0,” this problem might be solved.)

Also, it’s absolutely true that the first future Super Bowl was almost an exhibition match, at least in Lombardi’s eyes. The AFL was a separate league at the time and believed by most to be an inferior league at that, so the National Football League three-peat was all that mattered to Lombardi at the time. And he and his team earned it.

Hear me out on another point: Each year, the Super Bowl winner gets a really nice, shiny trinket after the game called the Lombardi Trophy for a very specific reason.

So, Chiefs fans, enjoy the run. I won’t say a word about the officiating, about Mahomes’ tiresome media presence, about his little sideline two-steps designed to draw cheap penalties or the phrase “bundlerooski.” I might cringe a little, clad in my Bart Starr jersey, if/when the Chiefs tie the Packers for the only three-peats in NFL history next Sunday, but otherwise, I promise I’ll zip it.

Wait. Did I also mention the Packers also had also previously three-peated in 1929-31 with Hall of Famers like Curly Lambeau, Cal Hubbard and Johnny “Blood” McNally? 

Just sayin’.