At around 11 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 11, I sat, empty, in disbelief, as Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. After hours of sitting on the edge of my seat, my nerves were shot, to say the least.
Maybe I was being naive, but I genuinely believed Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and company could beat the Chiefs. I did. And through the first half, I was feeling pretty good about my prediction.
And then, the 49ers’ offense completely stalled in the third quarter, and Mahomes found a way, as he has in each of the now three Super Bowls he and the Chiefs have taken home in the past five years.
I did not know what to say. It felt like if — again, if — anybody was going to take the belt from Reid, Mahomes and Kelce, this was the year. From Week One, the story of this Chiefs team has been its receiving core, or lack thereof. Sure, rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice is a stud, and Kelce is Kelce, but Mahomes does not have anywhere near as many, or as talented, targets as he did during his first Super Bowl run.
But it did not matter, which is all the more frustrating and makes the situation at hand feel all the more dire. It does not matter if Mahomes has a star-studded offense behind him; he alone is enough to take a team to the Super Bowl. Of course, as long as Kelce is on the roster, we will not know, but right now, it feels like Mahomes, skill-wise, is in a similar place LeBron James was in the late 2010s, when, regardless of who else was on the Cleveland Cavaliers, he was able to take them to the NBA Finals each and every year.
It is starting to get boring, and there is no reason to believe it is going to change anytime soon. Kelce, at 34 years old, will likely be the first major piece of this Chiefs dynasty to fall to the wayside. But based on Mahomes’s ability to win two Super Bowls without Tyreek Hill, who is to say he would not be able to do it without Kelce? At 28 years old, he is still in his prime and far from falling off, let alone retiring. I mean, Tom Brady, the only name preventing sports analysts across the country from touting Mahomes as the greatest quarterback the game has ever seen, played until he was 45.
Only one QB has beaten Mahomes in the playoffs: Joe Burrow. There is a good chance that if he did not suffer a wrist injury, an injury that would damper him before eventually sidelining him for the rest of the season, he and the Cincinnati Bengals would have met Mahomes in the playoffs. And there is a good chance they would have come out the other side.
The other big-name quarterbacks in the AFC, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, have not been able to do it. As a fan of Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens, I do not enjoy seeing Burrow and the Bengals win. But if it comes down to seeing Jackson lose in another AFC Championship game or Burrow beating Mahomes in another AFC Championship game, I am taking the latter every single time.
Wishing you a speedy recovery, Mr. Burrow.
