Since the start of the 2010 season, no player has more rushing yards than LeSean McCoy. It is easy to forget, but McCoy spent some time as the starting running back for the 2019 Chiefs, even though he did not get a carry in the playoffs. McCoy rushed for 465 yards and 4 touchdowns in the regular season and did earn a ring with Kansas City and his former head coach.

It might be even easier to forget that McCoy is a member of the 2020 Buccaneers. He was signed in early August, before Leonard Fournette would make his way to Tampa Bay.  McCoy has been the team’s fourth string running back, behind Ronald Jones, Fournette, and Ke’Shawn Vaughn. But no matter: McCoy is, technically, back in the Super Bowl, for the second year in a row.

If Tampa Bay wins, McCoy — who was arguably the best running back of the 2010s — will close out his career with a pair of rings with two teams that nobody will ever associate him with. That said, he would join a pretty exclusive list. Here are the eight players who have won back to back rings with different teams.

• The two famous members of the club pulled off this trick in 1994, as members of the San Francisco 49ers, and in a surrounding year with the Dallas Cowboys. One was Deion Sanders, who left Atlanta for San Francisco in 1994, and then San Francisco for Dallas in ’95. The other was Ken Norton, Jr., who spent the first six years of his career with Dallas, and won the Super Bowl in 1992 and 1993. Norton then joined the 49ers in ’94, where he spent the final seven seasons of his career. Hochstein and Norton are the only two players to win Super Bowls in three consecutive seasons.
• Guard Russ Hochstein was the next player to do so. He was drafted by Tampa Bay in 2001 and played in one game in 2002; he was waived in October and signed by the Patriots a week later. He stayed in New England through 2008, so Hochstein picked up a Super Bowl ring for his cup of coffee with the Bucs and then earned two more the next two seasons in New England. Hochstein was also a freshman with Nebraska in 1997, when the Cornhuskers were named national champions by USA Today and ESPN. He’s got a lot of hardware!
• Defensive back Derrick Martin played in five games for the Packers in 2010 and 14 for the Giants in 2011. Sure, Martin had just 1 interception and 14 tackles during those two years, but it counts!
• Brandon Browner was the next to do it, and he had a big role in both title teams.  He was a star on the ’13 Seahawks, although he was suspended towards the end of the season and did not play in the team’s postseason run. He joined New England in 2014, and then made the play of the game — or, perhaps, the assist of the game — to help the Patriots defeat his former team. ^[1]Caylin Hauptmann was also a member of the 2013 Seahawks, and he was signed by the 2014 Patriots.  I don’t believe he should be included, but if you want to, feel free!
• LeGarrette Blount led the NFL in rushing touchdowns in 2016 with New England, picking up a ring with the Patriots that season.  The next year he joined the Eagles, and scored a touchdown in Philadephia’s Super Bowl win over his former team. Chris Long was also a rotational defensive linemen on both the ’16 Patriots and ’17 Eagles.
• Surely you don’t remember that Kenjon Barner was the kickoff returner for the ’17 Eagles, do you?  Barner, a star of Oregon under Chip Kelly, joined Philadelphia under Kelly’s watch and survived with the team through 2017.  The next season, he was signed by the Patriots and rushed for 71 yards before being cut in midseason.  No matter: when the ’18 Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl, Barner received a ring.  Literally.  Oh, and guess what? Barner is also a member of the ’20 Buccaneers, although he is unlikely to play in Super Bowl LV.  But I assume he is definitely ready for a third ring in four years.

 

How do Kansas City and Tampa Bay compare to previous Super Bowl participants when it comes to scoring and preventing points? Without any adjustments for era, these two teams look like awful defensive teams and very good (but not historically great) offensive teams.

In the graph below, the X-Axis shows points scored per game, while the Y-Axis shows points allowed per game. The best teams would be in the lower right, at least according to this metric. The Bucs and Chiefs are color-coded, with Super Bowl winners in black circles and losers in white circles. The ’99 Rams are in the lower right corner at 33 points per game and 15 points allowed per game; the ’13 Broncos are the team at the far upper right, while the ’11 Giants, of course, are in the upper left: they are the only Super Bowl team to allow more points than they scored. [continue reading…]