Colin Cowherd sounds like he could use an NFL history lesson.
During Thursday’s edition of his “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” show on FS1, Cowherd and Jason McIntyre discussed the impact that the second tax apron has had on the ability of NBA teams to contend year after year. Cowherd said he thinks the NBA is going to start looking more and more like the NFL, where it is difficult to keep rosters together.
Cowherd mentioned how no NFL team has won three straight championships and said it is “almost impossible” to win back-to-back titles. He then mistakenly claimed Bill Belichick and Tom Brady never won consecutive Super Bowls with the New England Patriots.
“I think the NBA is gonna look more like the NFL, where it’s virtually impossible … nobody wins three in a row, it’s almost impossible,” Cowherd said. “Not even Brady and Belichick won back-to-backs. The NFL, you can’t win back-to-back. You have to move off people.”
Neither one of these boneheads is aware that the Patriots won back-to-back Super Bowls. pic.twitter.com/Sw2L9fKNAT
— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) June 26, 2025
The Patriots, of course, won back-to-back Super Bowls in 2003 and 2004. It is also a stretch to say the feat is “almost impossible,” as eight different teams have accomplished it in NFL history and the Pittsburgh Steelers have done it twice.
Cowherd’s point was a valid one. NBA teams have increasingly been faced with difficult decisions to avoid massive luxury tax bills and the restrictions that accompany spending into the second apron. A team owner even recently suggested he might have to trade one of the NBA’s biggest stars.
However, most casual NFL fans know that Brady and Belichick won back-to-back titles together. It is possible that Cowherd meant to say they never won three straight, but that would not be the first time he has made an embarrassing on-air blunder.