"They're doing it again," said Oakland's George Blanda, a 10-year AFL veteran who always carried the flag for the upstart league. "They haven't learned a thing from last year. They're underestimating the AFL all over again."

The Vikings were an awesome team in 1969, with Joe Kapp directing an offense that scored 50 points or more in three games. In fact, add those totals up and it was more than the Minnesota defense allowed all season; opponents scored only 133 points.

E.J. Holub (55) and Chuck Hurston (85) pressure Bart Starr. (AP)

But the Chiefs were every bit their equal. In 1969, Kansas City allowed the fewest points in the AFL (177), just seven points more than their AFL record-low yield of 170 the year before. Hank Stram's unit -- which would ultimately send three players to the Hall of Fame -- also led the AFL in fewest first downs allowed (181), fewest rushing yards (1,091) and fewest passing yards (2,491), and it was No. 1 in sacks (48) and interceptions (32). OK, so to review, the Chiefs led the AFL in every major defensive category, and they did so with NFL-like numbers despite playing in a league that was far more wide-open offensively.

So why exactly were the Chiefs underdogs on that chilly January day in New Orleans?

"It bothers me that when they talk about that game, it is called an upset," said Vikings coach Bud Grant, who would go on to lose three more Super Bowls. "That was a fine football team that beat us. I think it becomes less and less an upset as more and more of the Chiefs get inducted into the Hall of Fame."

The Kansas City offense, with Len Dawson at the controls handing to the likes of Mike Garrett, Robert Holmes, Warren McVea, Ed Podolak and Wendell Hayes, and throwing to Otis Taylor, Frank Pitts and Fred Arbanas while protected by behemoths such as Jim Tyrer, Ed Budde and E.J. Holub was very impressive. But there was no doubting the simple truth that the defense delivered both of Kansas City's AFL championships as well as its 23-7 triumph over the Vikings.

The zenith for this unit -- led by Hall of Famers Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan and Willie Lanier and aided by Johnny Robinson, Jim Marsalis, Emmitt Thomas, Jerry Mays, Curley Culp and Jim Lynch -- was the 1969 season.

When the Chiefs lost the first Super Bowl, many felt it was because their cornerback play was not up to snuff. The Packers knew Fred Williamson and Willie Mitchell could be beat, so they beat them as lumbering Max McGee caught a pair of touchdown passes.

"You can have a great front four, exceptional linebackers and fine safety men, but if you have two weak cornerbacks, people are going to kill you," Stram said, describing his team perfectly.

In the next couple of years, Marsalis and Thomas joined the club, and the weak links were fortified. Stram told them to play aggressive bump-and-run, and they paid attention. Thomas led the AFL with nine interceptions in 1969, and Robinson benefited from the fine cornerback play to pick off eight.

"It's pressure defense all over the field, and you can't play it unless you have the cornerbacks," said Stram.

Nothing changed in the front seven, though. The Chiefs were always strong there, and in 1969, Minnesota's Purple People-Eaters garnered the attention, but Buchanan, Mays, Culp and Aaron Brown were just as dangerous, and the Chiefs had the advantage at linebacker with Lanier, Lynch and Bell.

"The linebackers make 60-70 percent of the tackles, so as a result, your linebackers have to be people who are very mobile and agile as well as having a certain degree of tenacity," said Stram. "Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier and Jim Lynch are top quality athletes."

For the Super Bowl, Stram used an odd-front alignment that positioned either Buchanan or Culp on the nose of Minnesota's undersized center, Mick Tingelhoff. He then stacked his linebackers to fill the gaps in what essentially was the precursor to the 3-4 defense. The Chiefs dominated the line of scrimmage and stopped the Vikings' tough running duo of Bill Brown and Dave Osborne before they could get started.

"The Vikings were a super team; they just ran all over everybody," said Bell. "But we had a game plan. We were prepared. We got there and walked into that stadium and there was no way we were going to walk away losers. We were determined to dominate the game, more so on defense because we were noted for our defense."

In his 1970 book, "The Illustrated History of Pro Football," author Ron Smith compared Stram to legendary Paul Brown, a man renowned for his visionary thinking.

"Stram seemed to be doing to professional football what Paul Brown had done a quarter century before," Smith wrote. "Shifting it to a higher intellectual plane, or at least developing it in the direction of an academic discipline. There was far more to learn, to practice and to remember in Hank Stram's football than there ever had been in Curly Lambeau's or in Jim Thorpe's."