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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Doug Farrar

The refs didn’t steal a Super Bowl trip from the Bills. The Chiefs’ excellence did

Bills Chiefs Eagles Howie Roseman Josh Allen Saquon Barkley Buffalo Super Bowl Commanders Jalen Hurts
Josh Allen walks off the field after another painful loss to the Chiefs.
Josh Allen walks off the field after another painful loss to the Chiefs. Photograph: Mark J Rebilas/USA Today Sports

From 1967 through 1975, the Oakland Raiders were the most successful team in professional football … in the regular season. They compiled a record of 95-24-7, and that winning percentage of .798 was a full 70 percentage points higher than the second-best team, the Dallas Cowboys. Those Raiders were packed with future Hall of Famers, and they had John Madden, one of the NFL’s best coaches, for most of that span.

And throughout that time, they were stopped from winning the big one by several different dynasties. They lost Super Bowl II to the Green Bay Packers, and were crossed off in successive seasons in the playoffs by the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers – two more all-time teams. Oakland’s 7-8 postseason record tended to render everything else irrelevant. It wasn’t until 1976, when the Raiders went 13-1 in the regular season and poleaxed the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI, that they finally got that albatross off their backs.

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