ONLY BORED PEOPLE THINK THE CHIEFS ARE BORING, ONE VICTORY FROM HISTORY
It's a dynasty that shouldn’t happen in the NFL or in sports, but here is Kansas City again, with Mahomes beating Allen and Kelce kissing Taylor — and, yes, the Chiefs will win a Super Bowl three-peat
The same grin, so deliberate and cunning, came with 90 seconds left. We have seen Patrick Mahomes beam so often, let’s assume his supremacy has overtaken what we’re trying to decide about America at this juncture. He delivered a pass to little-used Samaje Perine for 17 yards, to win another AFC championship, just after Josh Allen was exposed to an outlandish blitz and almost found Dalton Kincaid for a catch.
He had the football. And couldn’t hang on, in a video that demonstrates what we must know about the Chiefs and their attempts to win an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl. “Let’s go make history,” said Mahomes after the 32-29 victory, another prime-time classic for a league that thrilled tens of millions again. They put away the Bills, who couldn’t win for Buffalo, which should not be subjected to snobbery but respect.
“Thought we had a chance to catch the ball,” coach Sean McDermott said. They fell short, allowing only one team to stop sports history, the same Philadelphia Eagles who lost to the Chiefs in 2023 and will throw Saquon Barkley into the mix. The last American team to three-peat: the 2000-02 Los Angeles Lakers, with a superstar named Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash five years ago Sunday.
Are the Chiefs next? Folks are tiring of the familiar story, but they’ll never grow weary of Mahomes. He is one victory from his fourth championship, leaving him only three short of Tom Brady, who was 43 years and 188 days old when he won his seventh ring. Imagine being 14 years younger and ruling the sports kingdom in a flyover town, Kansas City, with no scandals and a happy family life while Travis Kelce kissed Taylor Swift on the field.
We’ve seen the narrative before. Watch it again.
“It’s just so hard to get to the Super Bowl and I don’t take it for granted, and to do it again at Arrowhead Stadium was special,” Mahomes said. “You get that trophy on that stage and you look around here and there’s not an empty seat — it’s special. I’m just, I’m just lost for words. I'm always nervous whenever the football's not in my hand, but I have so much trust in that defense. They've done it all year.”
“Never satisfied, baby. You can’t beat Kansas City,” said Kelce, wiggling his hips as Swift smiled nearby. “Let’s do a little dance, let’s make a little love, get down tonight.”
“Taylor says, ‘We’re up seven!’ ’’ CBS analyst Tony Romo said at one point with a female voice, which won’t endear him to the Swifties.
This is a dynasty that shouldn’t happen in the NFL and in no other league. It requires the quarterback of the moment, an all-timer, with teammates who fall in order. Andy Reid already has beaten the Eagles, his former team. He won his 301st career game and might be headed for a record himself, the most career victories by a head coach. His defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, unleashed a double blitz on Allen just when it seemed he might topple the champs. Mahomes will win the usual glory before the teams play in New Orleans in 13 days. He refuses to accept it.
“I’ve always said it: It’s not about one guy. It’s not about a couple guys. It’s about the whole entire team,” he said. “When we needed the defense to get stops, they got stops. Offense, we made plays. That’s why we’re so special. I trusted my teammates more than anybody. I appreciate Chiefs Kingdom for being loud and proud. We love you.”
If Mahomes against Allen reminds fans of Brady versus Peyton Manning, the rivalry is taking too much time. It took Manning five years to win a postseason game against New England, and while Allen has won four times in the regular season, he has lost four times in January. So far, Mahomes is trumping the legacies of Allen and Lamar Jackson. Will Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts be next as he tries for a second time? Playing with a knee injury, Hurts thanked his coach, Nick Sirianni, for letting “me out of my straitjacket a little bit today.” He ran for three touchdowns and threw for another while Barkley ran for three more scores, including a 60-yarder.
Can the Chiefs take steam from an offense that scored 55 points against Washington? Kansas City is a 1.5-point favorite. These are the league’s best teams, much as people were rooting for Allen in an underappreciated town with too much lake-effect snow. “To be the champs, you’ve got to beat the champs,” he said. “They have a good team. They made more plays than we did.”
For now, we just stare at the scenes. Imagine Kelce and his brother, Jason, in the French Quarter. The Green Bay Packers won three straight titles but only two came in Super Bowls. We are witnessing something new, from a team owned by a man whose father, Lamar Hunt, originated the Super Bowl name because his kids had been playing with a “Super Ball.”
“Every one of these is so special,” said Clark Hunt, whose father’s name also is on the AFC trophy. “Travis, Patrick and their teammates always find a way to get it done. That was true this whole year. And it's a credit to coach Reid and his amazing staff. Now we get to do something that's never been done before. We’re headed to New Orleans to make history.”
The Chiefs have won nine postseason games in a row. Let Mahomes keep grinning. The NFL’s other teams keep trying to figure out life, and year after year, one powerhouse does nothing but quantify its enormity. The Super Bowl will be fun.
You’d be a fool to take Philadelphia.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.