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The Kansas City Chiefs in perspective

Monday 2/12/24

The Chiefs got another Super Bowl win and it went the way one would have expected it to. Someone asked me what I thought the score would be before the game and I said Kansas City, 24-17. Not far off. I didn't actually see any of it. What!? Look, I have to be up early and I had a pretty good idea how that game would work out.


Patriots fan don't like when the Chiefs win and on the NFL's website this morning I saw a headline that Mahomes is coming for Brady and all of that. I'd written here the other day that these Chiefs remind me of the 2018 Patriots. They were 11-6 this year. Mahomes, as I've also mentioned, didn't have that great a year. Things have a shelf life in professional sports. Teams don't go on twenty year runs like the Patriots did. They were right there for a fifth of a century. (And it wasn't just the Super Bowl wins--it was the Super Bowl losses, the conference championship games, the 2007 season.) The Chiefs won't be, I don't think. This could have been the end of it. Whether they win or don't doesn't really mean anything to me and the idea of feeling protective about a sports team's legacy isn't one I'd personally subscribe to. I get that it means something to people, though.


It'll be interesting to see how things play out with Mahomes. Reid won't be there much longer, he doesn't have the receiving talent he once did, Kelce will be gone soon. Organizations have to start over again. Now, Mahomes is a great constant to have, as was Brady. But pedigreed teams that gut their way to a championship--the 2018 Patriots, the 1982-83 Islanders--don't usually keep rolling on and winning them.


Can the Chiefs become the first NFL team to win three in a row? I don't think so, but I'm not rooting against them to do that. Odds are certainly against it, and then Kelce is gone or just an average player, Reid could very well be gone, and then where are you? I don't mean you're nowhere, assuming a healthy Mahomes. But you're somewhere else and needing to do it a different way.


Also too little--as in never--noted: Belichick's age when the Patriots started winning was a huge advantage. He was in his forties. And also looking to remain somewhere as long as possible. That was contingent on winning. But he was settled and he had time.


The thing that amuses me is that when someone is having success, it's like people--and all of these dumb "experts"--think it will just continue, when the truth is, it could already be over. That's sports and it's life, too. The history of sports is filled with teams and players who were going to do this and do that, and it was talked about as some given, and then it never came close to happening and was just like so much else. I don't mean like so much else in that the achievement wasn't notable or grand. I mean that there was this coming back to the pack, history-wise, and taking up a place on a shelf with others, not being alone on some shelf.


Brady likely cost Mahomes two Super Bowl wins--he certainly cost him one--and I think that is too little mentioned. What the Chiefs have done is outstanding. I expected them to win this year and they did. The only team I thought might bump them off was the Buffalo Bills if those Bills had one of their "good" days, which you never know if you're going to get with them.


Winning is not a given and it doesn't get easier. Rosters turn over, coaches leave, there's the whole time component, teams are especially motivated to beat you, etc. My sense: This is the thing right now for the Chiefs. It's here. This is it. I don't think it's out there at five years in the future as well.


But who knows? It has to be play out. And that's the thing.



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