Contributed Photo / Michael Owens
The Super Bowl LVIII stadium 2024.
For the first time since the 2004 season, a team has won the Super Bowl in back-to-back years.
In a thrilling back-and-forth game, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl for the second straight year, the third time in five years and the fourth time as a franchise.
The game was a rematch of the 2019 event and had the same outcome, with the Chiefs taking down the San Francisco 49ers. The final score was 25-22, with the game ending in overtime for just the second time in Super Bowl history.
Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes was awarded Super Bowl MVP for the third time in his career, which ranks him second all-time in NFL history, just behind Tom Brady, who has won the award five times.
“Leading into this game there wasn’t too much excitement from fans but I felt like it lived up to my expectations,” said second-year psychology student Owen Shantz, who’s a lifelong fan of the NFL. “You can’t go wrong with an overtime game and a Mahomes comeback.”
While the game was entertaining, many football fans were hoping for different teams to be in the Super Bowl, as the Chiefs and 49ers played each other only a few years prior and the Chiefs themselves have now played in four of the last five Super Bowls.
On top of this, fan favourite Baltimore Ravens and underdogs Detroit Lions were eliminated from the NFL play-offs just one round before the Super Bowl.
“My ideal match-up would’ve been the Lions against the Ravens, [it was] really tough watching the Lions get beat the way they did,” said Ian Chamberlain, a third-year criminology student and NFL fan.
With the NFL season now to a close, all eyes turn to next year, where the Kansas City Chiefs have a chance to win three straight Super Bowls, which no team has ever accomplished, not even Tom Brady’s New England Patriots.
“It’s really early to predict… but I think the Ravens vs 49ers is the most likely matchup, but I think the Rams, Seahawks and Texans could make it as a dark horse,” said Shantz when discussing the next Super Bowl champion.
“My Super Bowl prediction for 2025, it’s got to be the Dolphins vs. Eagles,” said Chamberlain about the next NFL season.
According to DraftKings, the 49ers, Chiefs, Ravens and Buffalo Bills have the highest odds to win next year’s Super Bowl, respectively.
Regardless of who wins next year, the Chiefs and 49ers put on a thrilling game and it will be tough to follow it next February.
This article was originally published in print Volume 23, Issue 7 on Thursday, March 7.
