The Chiefs are ready to address the dynasty question
The final play of the second-longest season in NFL history ended with a football fluttering and dying and landing in an empty patch of green at the bottom of State Farm Stadium. No miracles for the Eagles. No joy for the Philadelphians who’d migrated west for the week and mostly filled the afternoon with an East Coast edge.
Now, in an eyeblink, the stadium flipped in hue. Gone was the green. Suddenly a blast of confetti filled the air, small squares of red and gold cascading to the ground. Onto the field came a swarm of Kansas City Chiefs, many of them thrusting their red helmets in the air. It was over. It was official.
The Chiefs were champions.
Again.
“I’m not going to say dynasty … yet,” Patrick Mahomes said, to the delight of the red-tinted remains of the 67,827 folks who stuck around a few minutes after the Chiefs had outslugged the Eagles, 38-35, winning their second Super Bowl championship in four years, pondering the first of what would soon become an avalanche of questions addressing the “D” word.
And then the money quote:
Let that serve as official notice to the rest of the league, much of which has probably grown weary of the relentless excellence that has emanated from the middle of the country for five straight years. Mahomes is probably right to keep the reins in for now; there have been plenty of very good teams who’ve won two of these across the decades.
The really special ones start sizing their dynasty jacket with No. 3.
“All I know,” Andy Reid said, a smile creasing his face that’ll probably stay there till St. Patrick’s Day, “is that this group believed it was good enough to win, it worked hard enough to win. And today, against a great, great opponent, they played well enough to win. What a game, and what a day.”
They certainly are on their way, and the fact is they’ve done it having to endure — and shake off – some hard-to-accept disappointments. They have hosted five straight AFC Championship games, losing two of them in overtime, one to New England and one to Cincinnati. They lost in this game two years ago, bowing before the powerful inevitability of the Tom Brady Buccaneers.
They keep losing key players, year after year, because that is law of the land in the salary-capped NFL. But they have remained as the AFC standard bearer because despite this, they have the three prerequisites for NFL success:
- An elite coach, and Reid is bound for Canton five minutes after he retires, whether that’s in the coming weeks or a few years from now.
- A brilliant quarterback, and we’ll talk more about Mahomes in a moment.
- The ability to replenish talent, both in the draft and in free agency, and the Chiefs have been masters at that. Fewer than half of the players who beat the 49ers four years ago are still on the team. They are fabulous even as they remain fluid.
They trailed by 10 points at the half. In the 29 minutes between halves, there was one message on the lips of the men in the Chiefs’ locker room.
“We have to be us,” Travic Kelce explained. “We have to be the Chiefs.”
Mahomes aggravated his high-ankle sprain late in the second half, and looked in despair as the Eagles drove to the field goal that made it 24-14 before Rihanna took the stage. In that moment, you could almost envision the folks at the Empire State Building making sure their trusty green-and-white light bulbs were all working properly.
But the Chiefs had four possessions in the second half, and they went like this:
Touchdown. Touchdown. Touchdown. Field goal.
One of those TDs was to the exiled Giant, Kadarius Toney, who a few minutes later added the longest punt return in Super Bowl history. You want more evidence why the Chiefs have maintained their place? They made Kadarius Toney into a useful player.
“All they ask,” Toney said later, “is when you can make a play, make the play.”
He made his. The defense, trucked much of the first half, made theirs. And Mahomes … well, we’ll never know just how bad that ankle was. We assume it was awful.
“I didn’t worry about his leg,” Reid said, “because I know about his heart.”
He was brilliant. He is brilliant. He is 27 years old. And for as long as he is on the Chiefs, the D-word is in play. Maybe they’re not there yet. But they can sure see it from here.
