A Bye Week Look Back at the Super Chiefs
Last Update: 10/30/2009 8:47 pm
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Steve Kaut, KSHB-TV
It's been 40 years, but a bye week presents the perfect time to look back at the year when the Chiefs truly were super.
The 1969 team ended its season and the final year of the American Football League as world champions.
The squad featured five future Hall-of-Famers in quarterback Len Dawson, defensive lineman Buck Buchanan, linebackers Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier and kicker Jan Stenerud.
It was the defense that powered the team to their third AFL championship in 10 years and second Super Bowl in four years.
The defense allowed just 181 points in 14 games.
The powerful Oakland Raiders were the only team to score more than 25 points against the Chiefs.
The Raiders scored 27 points in a four-point victory that ended the Chiefs seven-game regular seaon winning streak.
Buchanan, Jerry Mays, Curley Culp and the rest of the defense gave up less an average of four yards per play.
Four Chiefs defenders made the final AFL All-Star team.
It was the goal-line stand in the AFL Divisional Playoff game against the Jets that propelled the Chiefs into the AFL title game.
The Chiefs held Joe Namath and the defending World Champion Jets to just six points.
The defense shone again in the title game, shutting down the Oakland Raiders and holding them to just seven points.
The victory was doubly sweet because the Raiders had already beaten the Chiefs twice in the regular season.
It was more of the same in the Super Bowl against the NFL champion Minnesota Vikings.
The Chiefs sacked Minnestota quaterback Joe Kapp three times and stifled the Vikings offense.
It's been almost 40 years since that Super Bowl victory, but the memories of the January day are still fresh.
Here's hoping we don't have to wait 40 more years for the next Super Bowl victory.
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Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
