For the fifth time, a team will have the opportunity to tie the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl record; for the third time, it’s the San Francisco 49ers. Only they and the New England Patriots have won six titles. The 49ers can become the third team. They have already failed twice while stuck on five, losing the 2012 and 2019 Super Bowls.
Now they are back in the title game after defeating the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship Game. It is the second time under head coach Kyle Shanahan, and the first for second-year QB Brock Purdy. They have a daunting task awaiting them in QB Patrick Mahomes. He and the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs took down the Baltimore Ravens after a 13-4 regular season.
But the 49ers have been the best team in the NFC almost consistently since the beginning of the year. Their campaign of terror began with a drubbing of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the season opener. They did pretty well after that as well, minus a three-game losing streak that coincided with injuries. And now they are on the precipice of the elite.
The 49ers became the first team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl five times, in 1994. The Dallas Cowboys followed suit in 1995. The Steelers came another decade behind to earn “one for the thumb”. It took the Steelers only three more years to claim the Super Bowl record with their sixth in 2008.
Dallas has not been in the title game since 1995, when they beat the Steelers. San Francisco is back for the third time since 1994, losing with Colin Kaepernick (2012) and Jimmy Garoppolo (2019). The Patriots won all six of their Super Bowls since then. The fourth came in 2014, the fifth in 2016, and the sixth and last in 2018. They haven’t won a playoff game since then, missing the postseason entirely three out of five years.
On the other hand, the 49ers have reached the postseason four of the past five years. They reached at least the conference finals in each of those years, their second title game appearance during that span. Naturally, they hope to change the outcome of the Super Bowl this time around.
They certainly have a change with the third-ranked scoring offense paired with the third-ranked scoring defense. The Ravens, with the first-ranked scoring defense, held Mahomes and the Chiefs to 17 points. But Kansas City also has the second-ranked scoring defense, so don’t expect anything to come easy.
Many Steelers fans have come to root actively against the teams who have a chance to tie their team’s achievements. Not unlike the 1972 undefeated Miami Dolphins team popping champagne when the last team loses its first game each year, they feel a proprietary ownership over them.
The first to six Super Bowls was certainly an achievement, and they got to be the only one for a decade. Three out of the first four times a team had a chance to win its sixth title, they lost. The 49ers were that team twice. Will the third time be the charm? Will they join the Steelers and the Patriots as the most decorated team of the modern era?
