Hi everyone,

I’m a Canadian who watches some NFL (but more hockey and baseball) and would consider myself somewhat partial to the Buffalo Bills. I remember clearly when the Bills went to four straight Super Bowls in the early '90s, and lost all four. From the reading I’ve done on Reddit about those Bills teams, they really only had a true shot at winning the first one against the Giants (SB XXV in 1990), when Scott Norwood missed Wide Right. They were more or less dominated in the other three losses by Washington and Dallas.

If you look at those four losses in historical context, though, they were part of a larger trend. The AFC champion lost every SB to the NFC champion from XIX (1984) to XXXI (1996). This streak included four wins by San Francisco, three wins by Dallas, two wins each by Washington and the Giants, and one each by Chicago and Green Bay.

My question to you is: why was this the case? What made the NFC teams so dominant in the SB during this stretch of time, and conversely, why was the AFC so weak in the SB during this stretch? Has there ever been another time in NFL history when one conference dominated the SB so thoroughly?

Thanks!