The last time these teams won...

OK, so not that much has changed since February 2020 — just a few months before the pandemic, many of us blissfully unaware of what was to come as we watched second-year starter Patrick Mahomes rally Kansas City to victory. Although some days it may feel like centuries have passed in the two years since the Chiefs beat the 49ers, the team’s starting lineup of big names has remained largely unchanged — Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, and Travis Kelce all played major roles in the Chiefs’ second-ever Super Bowl victory. A few months later, Mahomes would sign a 10-year contract extension worth over $500 million, and the Chiefs went on to drop the 2021 Super Bowl to Tom Brady’s Buccaneers.

Outside of sports, early 2020 was an eventful time. We entered a new decade. Donald Trump was acquitted on his impeachment charges (remember when he got impeached? It seems like another lifetime). Kobe Bryant and his daughter had recently passed away in a tragic accident. COVID-19 was quickly spreading through China, and had not yet reached the United States — a distant era now.

We’re taking it back two decades to look at the next former champion — the start of a new millennium began with the Rams beating the Tennessee Titans 23-16, back when the franchise was still based in St. Louis. The 2000 champs were led by backup QB Kurt Warner, who took the starting job after Trent Green was injured in the preseason. Warner had gone undrafted and didn’t make the cut after the Packers’ training camp in 1994, so his pre-Rams resume included the AFL Iowa Barnstormers and NFL Europe’s Amsterdam Admirals. He was Taylor Heinecke before Taylor Heinecke. Alongside Pro Bowlers Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce, Warner led “The Greatest Show on Turf” to their championship victory.

In the early months of 2000, the dot-com bubble was at its peak. Bill Clinton was in his last year as president after his 1999 impeachment (sensing a pattern here). The world had not, in fact, ended after Y2K much to the relief and/or disappointment of doomsday preppers, depending on how much they wanted to be right. The Billboard charts were topped by the Backstreet Boys, Faith Hill, and Destiny’s Child. When the Rams last won the Super Bowl, you could walk right up to the airport gate without taking your shoes off or even having a boarding pass. On a more personal note, I had not yet celebrated my first birthday.

The Rams played in the 2002 and 2019 Super Bowls, but lost both matchups — to Tom Brady and the Patriots.

The ‘95 victory was the last of a stretch of five Super Bowl wins over a 14-year period. The 1980s saw four of the five championships, led by Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, and things weren’t looking so great in the early 90s. Even the start of the 19994 season was shaky, but QB Steve Young was able to pull it together and some to defeat the San Diego Chargers, 49-26, and become the first franchise in history to win five Super Bowls. Another big name on that 1994 49ers team — Deion Sanders, the current head coach at Jackson State who just made an enormous splash by signing the nation’s top recruit out of high school.

What else was going on back then? In early 1995, OJ Simpson’s trial had just begun in California courts. That March, Michael Jordan would come out of retirement with the iconic press release: “I’m back,” before leading the Bulls to another three championships. Across the pond, Russia was at war with Chechnya and the IRA and Ulsters were at a ceasefire in Northern Ireland. The World Series had been canceled in late 1994 due to an MLBPA strike — the only other time this has happened was in 1904, one year after the first World Series ever held.

The 49ers played in and lost the 2013 and 2020 Super Bowls.

As we know all too well, the long-suffering Bengals have never quite reached the top. They’ve appeared in two Super Bowls, in 1982 and 1989, and lost both to the Joe Montana-era 49ers during their aforementioned hot streak. For the sake of this article, we’ll go with their last appearance, after they beat the Bills in the AFC Championship under QB Boomer Esiason, who won the NFL’s MVP award that season. Eddie Brown and Ickey Woods led the team in receiving and rushing yards, respectively, during the 1988 season. The Bengals had a narrow lead going into the fourth quarter of this Super Bowl, but two late touchdowns from San Francisco sealed their fate (and Montana had the famous, “Isn’t that John Candy?” line). This was the first Super Bowl in which instant replay was used to reverse an on-field call.

Early 1989 saw George H.W. Bush sworn in as president of the United States, as well as Ted Bundy’s execution. The Cold War was still on and the Berlin Wall was still standing. The Tiananmen Square massacre would happen a few months later. Just a few months earlier, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant had been born. Notre Dame had just won their 11th national championship, a feat they have not been able to repeat again to this day

If we’re lucky enough to get more games like the ones we saw this weekend on Sunday, this may go down as one of the greatest postseasons in NFL history. The Bengals will face the Chiefs in the AFC championship, and the 49ers play the Rams in the NFC.