Chiefs, Raiders Won There : New Orleans: Site of a Big Super Bowl Upset

Second-place teams have gone to New Orleans to play in Super Bowls as bigger underdogs than the New England Patriots find themselves against the Chicago Bears.

The Patriots finished in a tie for second in the AFC East this season and then went on the road to defeat the New York Jets, Los Angeles Raiders and Miami Dolphins on successive weekends to earn a berth in Super Bowl XX against the NFC champion Bears at the Superdome next Sunday.

Chicago, which posted the best record in the NFL at 15-1 and then shut out both the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs, has been installed as a heavy 10-point favorite to defeat the wild-card Patriots.

But the Kansas City Chiefs were also a second-place finisher in 1969 and went to Super Bowl IV in New Orleans as a much bigger underdog against the Minnesota Vikings. The Minnesota team that posted a 12-2 record and allowed only 133 points en route to the NFL title that year was favored by 16 points.

“Minnesota had an image going in,” said Len Dawson, who quarterbacked the Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. “The press called them the ‘Purple People Eaters.’ They were the toughest team in a tough, cold-weather division (NFC Central). Their quarterback (Joe Kapp) was tough. Everything about them suggested tough.

“Defensively, teams couldn’t score on them and offensively, they pecked away at you with turnovers. I guess people figured if the Vikings scored two touchdowns, that’s all they’d need. They didn’t think we could move the ball or score on them.”

But the Chiefs didn’t exactly show up in New Orleans outmanned. They lined up perennial AFL All-Pros Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier, Johnny Robinson and Emmitt Thomas on defense and Dawson, Otis Taylor, Fred Arbanas, Ed Budde and Jim Tyrer on offense.

“Coaches tell you all the time, ‘We can do this’ and ‘We can do that’ against a team,” Dawson said. “But the people out there performing have to really believe it. We believed it against Minnesota.

“I can recall Johnny Robinson coming up to me the day before the game and saying, ‘OK, all this crap (from the coaches) aside, I want to hear it from you. What kind of game plan do we have? Can we move the ball on them?’ I told him, ‘It’s a heckuva game plan; we can score some points on these people.’ Then I asked him, ‘What about defensively?’ And he said, ‘We might shut them out.’ ”

The Chiefs didn’t shut out the Vikings. But they came close. And they scored points aplenty--Jan Stenerud kicked three field goals, Mike Garrett ran for a 5-yard touchdown and Dawson threw a 46-yard scoring pass to Taylor--to thrash the Vikings, 23-7.

The Chiefs were the first second-place team to win a Super Bowl but not the first wild-card team. Back in 1969, there were no wild cards. The NFL and the AFL had not officially merged yet and the AFL representative was determined in a playoff between the first- and second-place teams in the Eastern and Western Divisions.

Kansas City posted an 11-3 record during the 1969 season to finish in second place in the West behind the 12-1-1 Oakland Raiders. The Chiefs upset the Eastern Division champion New York Jets in the opening round of the playoffs and then knocked off the Raiders in Oakland before upsetting Minnesota at Tulane Stadium.

The only other second-place team to win a Super Bowl, the 1980 Oakland Raiders, also accomplished the feat in New Orleans. The Raiders mauled the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, in Super Bowl XV at the Superdome.

But both the Chiefs and Raiders had gone to previous Super Bowls and had been exposed to the hoopla and pre-game hype. The Patriots are making their initial Super Bowl appearance after capturing the first AFL-AFC championship in franchise history.

“The Patriots have to remember their journey is not through yet,” Dawson said. “The victories they have had thus far and their first championship is something to be very proud of, but their work is not over. What they have to do is avoid dwelling on what’s happened in the past and concentrate on what they have to do against the Bears. They have to convince themselves they’re as good as the Bears.”