For 36 of the NFL’s 60 seasons in the Super Bowl era, the Pittsburgh Steelers have sat atop the league leaderboard in Lombardi Trophies. They were first to three, four, and six championships. After tonight’s Super Bowl LX, they still have a chance to be the first to seven.
The New England Patriots had six Super Bowl trophies entering the night with a chance to take sole control of the lead, but they fell short to the Seattle Seahawks 29-13 in Super Bowl LX.
The final score didn’t tell the full story. The Patriots were dominated for much of the game by a suffocating Seahawks defense. The score was close entering the second half, but the Seahawks won the war of attrition and eventually found three turnovers—including a pick-six—to seal the deal. Drake Maye could get the Patriots their seventh title to pass the Steelers, but that won’t be this year.
Pittsburgh won its sixth Super Bowl in the 2008 season. New England evened it up a decade later during the 2018 season in Tom Brady’s final championship run with the team. He mercifully departed the AFC to go win another Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.
After a multi-year dip to the bottom of the league standings, the Patriots are back on top of the AFC with head coach Mike Vrabel and young star QB Drake Maye. Even with their loss tonight, they are much further along in the process of potentially winning a seventh trophy than the Steelers. Nobody would have thought the Patriots would be in this situation just a year ago. Things can change quickly in the NFL.
With this loss, the Patriots have fallen to a 6-6 franchise record in the Super Bowl. The Steelers are 6-2 with four fewer trips to the big game.
Behind the Steelers and Patriots are the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers with five trophies each, while the Green Bay Packers, New York Giants and Kansas City Chiefs each have four. Most if not all of those teams behind Pittsburgh have a franchise quarterback in place, which doesn’t bode well for the Steelers holding control of the league lead for much longer.