One of the hardest things to do in sports at any level is establish an identity. When it happens it can be something beautiful. For much of their history, the New England Patriots were a laughingstock. They made it to one Super Bowl in 1985, but otherwise were also rans going back to their inception. Suddenly, they won three Super Bowls in the 2000s and several more the next decade. Now, they are the evil empire.
Go back in history and you can see similar patterns with teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, and Las Vegas Raiders.