I’ve spent much of the past week reading Kingdom Quarterback, a new book that chronicles both the football journey of superstar Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the birth and development of his adopted home of Kansas City and the connection between the place and its player. Authors Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd, both Kansas City area natives, nail their description of Mahomes’ unorthodox playing style and trick-shot throws, painting him as a football equivalent of Stephen Curry and a transcendent player.
The book ends with Mahomes’ victory in Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles, and since then Mahomes’ star has only brightened, with a third Super Bowl trophy and third Super Bowl MVP award secured this past February in Las Vegas against the San Francisco 49ers. For much of the book and for all of the football that has been played since, Mahomes and the Chiefs’ ascension to the top of the football hierarchy has felt inevitable. That dominance obscures the uncertainty preceding it, from Mahomes’ struggles to win over college coaches with his mechanics and multi-sport background to the Chiefs’ chronic ineptitude at winning playoff games. It’s safe to say both question marks are fully behind Mahomes and his franchise.
The Chiefs’ third title in five years enshrined them as the dynasty of the 2020s, and Mahomes as the clear best player in the NFL. And that’s what I enjoyed most about Kingdom Quarterback — the insights it provided into the definitive story of the NFL over the past decade. It’s a story that makes hyperbole seem commonplace, and one that sets the bar incomprehensibly high for the rest of Mahomes’ career with the Chiefs.
That led me to wonder: what could Mahomes possibly do to further his legend as one of the NFL’s all-time greats? The answer, for the upcoming season at least, is to rewrite the record books and achieve what I believe would be the most impressive team achievement in NFL history: three consecutive Super Bowl titles.
The feat of winning back-to-back-to-back Super Bowl titles would stack up favorably with many of the all-time great stretches of dominance and seemingly untouchable feats. I’m narrowing my list to the Super Bowl era (given the considerable difference in the number of teams and rule book), but a range of different records could be used to denote team dominance.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins’ perfect 17-0 season comes to mind as the definitive team achievement, though the 2007 New England Patriots came close with a 18-1 season. In terms of streaks, the 2001-2005 Patriots won 10 straight playoff games, and the 2008-09 Indianapolis Colts captured 23 consecutive regular-season victories. The 2000s Patriots and 1990s Cowboys won three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons, and several others have won three titles in a span of five seasons. For single-game dominance, I’ll throw in the 49ers’ 45-point win in Super Bowl XXIV as the Super Bowl’s biggest blowout, and the Patriots’ comeback from down 28-3 against the Falcons in Super Bowl LI as the Super Bowl’s biggest comeback.
Three titles in three years, or a three-peat in NBA legend Pat Riley’s lingo, combines the best of all of these. Winning a Super Bowl requires considerable regular season success to make the playoffs, earn home field advantage and survive the injury-ridden minefield of the fall, playoff dominance to best the top teams in a given conference and a team’s A game to excel under pressure and come out on top in a battle of the best teams. A Super Bowl season requires an ability to quickly adapt, to assert dominance over weaker teams and a slim margin for error to make it through the physicality and competitiveness of the NFL gauntlet. 12 of the NFL’s 32 franchises have never won a Super Bowl.
Now multiply that by three times, and it’s no wonder that no NFL team has accomplished that feat in three consecutive seasons. The NFL’s salary cap makes keeping great teams intact nearly impossible, and the surest way to build a contender, the NFL Draft, has very few proven commodities. For a team to win three Super Bowls in a row, they would need to be judicious in spending their money on their own players, bring in high-impact free agents without breaking the bank and nail their evaluations of draft talents, often without a top-30 pick in the NFL Draft (as a result of winning the Super Bowl). That feat also requires a franchise that can win in a lot of different ways and not get lost in the emotional ebbs and flows of an NFL season. The NFL went without a repeat champion for 20 years, a drought that ended when the Chiefs secured the Lombardi Trophy in Las Vegas.
Over the past five seasons, Mahomes and the Chiefs have become a prime example of sustained success. A offense once fueled by the playmaking ability of Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins and a high-flying receiving corps now relies on younger and more inexperienced players, while investments into the Steve Spagnuolo-led defense have turned that unit from a middle-of-the-pack groups into one of the Chiefs’ real strengths and a defense that no playoff teams want to face. The Chiefs’ lone Super Bowl loss, which came in between Mahomes’ first and second title, motivated them to fortify their offensive line and ease the burden on and protect Mahomes. Shrewd moves in the coaching staff and front office have enabled the Chiefs to maintain momentum from season to season and sidestep the Super Bowl hangover. While the roster has evolved over time, the two core pieces, Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid, have established the foundation for the Chiefs’ winning ways and give Kansas City Hall of Fame-worthy figures at the two most important leadership positions in a franchise.
That’s all great on paper, but the Chiefs’ performance in the games themselves has proven that none of the championship runs were flukes. Consider that Kansas City’s worst season outcome over the past five seasons was a down-to-the-wire loss in the AFC Championship Game, or the quarterbacks Mahomes has outdueled in just his most recent run to Super Bowl MVP: Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Brock Purdy. The Chiefs are accustomed to playing their best football in the most important part of the football calendar and have shown that they can’t be counted out, no matter the deficit or situation.
If the Chiefs can do it all again this season, their accomplishment will be the epitome of team success. Of all of the aforementioned team performance records, three straight Super Bowls stands on its own. Three seasons is a much larger sample size than a single game or winning streak, and the three titles/three years feat is technically the same amount of titles as some of the NFL’s previous dynasties, but with less margin for error.
The NFL’s current definitive team accomplishment is the perfect season. But how much does winning every single regular season game matter? It’s difficult and incredibly rare, for sure, but teams like the 2009 Colts have purposely rested starters while holding winning records because their playoff seeding was solidified. Three titles in three years requires an NFL team to win the most consequential games for three consecutive seasons, including perfect runs in each postseason and dominant showings in the regular season.
A Super Bowl this season is no given, but the Chiefs are set up particularly well to defend their crown. The Ravens and Bills, Kansas City’s biggest rivals in the last half-decade, suffered significant personnel and coaching staff losses, and the Texans still seem a year away from contention. While other contenders were losing important pieces as other teams tried to emulate their regular season success, the Chiefs — the team that actually won the whole thing — remained relatively the same team. Kansas City should also be the overwhelming favorite to win its division, the AFC West, and might not face its toughest competition until reaching the Super Bowl and matching up against an NFC power like the 49ers, Eagles or Lions. With a rock-solid foundation in the Mahomes-Reid duo and plenty to like about the Chiefs’ defense, I’d expect a smoother ride during the 2024 regular season and a Chiefs team that no one wants to play in the postseason.
As has been the case for most of the past decade, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs will be the most intriguing and impactful story of the upcoming NFL season. It’s the NFL, so I’m not counting on the Chiefs’ next chapter being as dominant as the recent ones, but after four Super Bowl appearances in five years, I’m finding it difficult to imagine an ending without red and yellow confetti in February.
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