Deflated Dreams

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2025

Well … that certainly was an unexpected outcome.

With visions of threepeating dancing in their heads, the Kansas City Chiefs were brusquely jolted back to reality in Super Bowl LIX, a 40-22 beatdown at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score might suggest. The crew, ostensibly from the City of Brotherly Love, instead delivered a big brotherly wedgie, pink belly and noogie rolled into one.

Among the lowlights:

• Quarterback Patrick Mahomes produced the worst statistical performance of his eight-year career. His quarterback rating for the game? 11.4. Juuuust a tad below his season average of 73.47. 

• The offensive line was, at least in terms of Mahomes’ career, historically bad: They surrendered six sacks … using a four-man rush. That’s correct: The Eagles did not shoot a single blitz package at him the entire game.

• The offense overall turned in the kind of performance the Washington Generals used to throw at the Harlem Globetrotters. Here’s the first-half record: Four downs and out. Three downs and out (again). Three downs and out (yet again). Pick-six from Mahomes. Three and out. First-down pick from Mahomes. Three and out. The butcher’s bill: Seven possessions, 13 yards, one first down. 

• The defense, put in tough spots series after series, came out of halftime down 24-0 and soon gave up a field goal after a 12-play, 69-yard drive. The next series was considerably shorter—just one play. Sadly enough, it was a 46-yard Jalen Hurts’ dime dropped on DeVonta Smith for six. A 10-play drive for a field goal followed, then another field goal after a Mahomes fumble. With 8 minutes left in the game, it was 40-6. Taylor Swift may have been sitting silently in the stands, but somewhere out there a fat lady was singing. Loudly.

So … on to next season.

At halftime, the most optimistic of Chiefs fans might have dreamed of that glorious day in 2020, of falling behind Houston by an identical 24-0 score and rallying for a 51-31 playoff win on the way to their first Super Bowl appearance in 50 years. 

If they did, it was just that: a dream. 

Defying the Odds

“Shocked” would be a good way to describe the reactions of most fans—clad in red or green—when things hit 40-6. But anyone who followed the Chiefs closely through the fall of 2024 had to have anticipated that their track record in games Russian Roulette had to run into a loaded chamber.

Consider this: Two-thirds of the way through the season, at 10-1, fully half of the Chiefs’ victories had come on final drives or on the final play of the game. 

It started with the opener when a Ravens’ TD at the gun was wiped out by the length of a toenail over the end line. Leo Chenal preserved victory over the Denver Broncos by blocking a potential game-winning field goal on the final play. Harrison Butker knocked in a 51-yard walk-off field goal to beat the Bengals by a single point. Nick Bolton recovered an inexplicable mis-snap with the Raiders just 15 seconds away from a winning field goal. With Butker benched by injury, newcomer Spencer Shrader polished off the Carolina Panthers, knocking in the winning three on the last play. Yet another short-term signee at kicker, Matthew Wright, hit a 31-yarder at the gun to beat the Chargers by a single point.

Pause for a moment to think about that: The Chiefs won three games with last-play field goals by three different kickers. The NFL doesn’t keep stats quite that granular, but it’s a safe bet no other team in league history has had that kind of luck with injury, recovery and short-term free-agent signings. 

It was a ridiculous run of good fortune that helped propel Kansas City to the top seed in the AFC, the prized home-field advantage for the much-anticipated showdown with Buffalo, setting them up for the Super Bowl thrashing.

Eleven of their 15 wins came by a single score. In a 50-50 world, where most people live, the Chiefs would have been closer to 10-7 than 15-2. If two of those had come against Los Angeles and Denver, rather than being walk-off wins, the Chiefs would probably surrender their grip on the AFC West. Instead of winning it for the ninth straight time, they could have come in third, with the second-place tie-breaker going to the Broncos.

That’s how narrow a tightrope Kansas City walked in 2024. But they did, in fact, walk it. And for that, one must tip their hats to the front office as much as to the players. Well-run organizations, in any business sector, often make a great deal of their own luck.

Some Important Perspective

So, for all you Buffalo Bills fans lamenting another playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. For the Baltimore Ravens fans who believe their starting quarterback was a better all-around signal-caller this year—a valid argument—than Patrick Mahomes. For the Charger, Bronco, and Raider fans gnashing their teeth about nearly a decade of red-and-gold dominance.

And finally, for fans of the 25 other NFL teams who put their ignorance on full display (thanks, TikTok!) with an incessant stream of claims that the Chiefs owe the successes of the past six seasons to a) Dumb luck, b) biased refs; c) league executives who have rigged the outcomes of 272 regular-season games and 13 post-season contents all just to make the Chiefs look good.

Here’s the message: Your hate is misplaced. Why? Because even if your Chiefhate was satiated by the Eagles, just remember that the Kansas City team you’re twisted off about today is not the Chiefs of the 2019 season or any of the Super Bowls that followed. Not entirely.

If you go back six short seasons to the Super Bowl LIV roster, Kansas City had assembled to make its first title-game appearance in 50 years—50!— you’ll recognize only a handful of names responsible for making your seasons miserable this year.

Patrick Mahomes, of course, and Travis Kelce. Chris Jones on defense. Harrison Butker consistently knocking in the long-field goals and points after. 

Other than that very solid nucleus, only four other Chiefs playing in Super Bowl LIX this year were on the roster for that drought-breaker in 2020: defensive lineman Tershawn Wharton, linebacker Mike Danna, long snapper James Winchester, and backup center Austin Reiter. 

Do the math, Chiefs-haters. That leaves 45 players from this cycle who weren’t part of the initial Chiefs run five years ago. What have they done to deserve your opprobrium? Other than defeating you on the field, that is.

No, the people you should be irked with are on the sidelines—head coach Andy Reid, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and specialty-teams coach Dave Toub, who’ve been part of the run all along. And offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, though he’s only been in that role since 2022.

You’ll find your other villains up in the front office: team owner Clark Hunt, president Mark Donovan, and the mad scientist who assembles a new Frankenroster every year, Brett Veach. In many ways, they’re giving you a new team to hate almost every season. And they’re very good at it.

Veach, in particular, has been inordinately shrewd with his draft strategy (for more on this, ask Bills fans gnashing their teeth over the trade that secured Xavier Worthy for Kansas City). Young talent playing at a high level and working on the lower end of the NFL salary scale has allowed Hunt, Donovan, and Veach to open the vault for Mahomes, Kelce, Jones, and Butker. All will likely end their NFL careers as Chiefs.

Savvy drafting has brought in talent like cornerback Trent McDuffie, Worthy, receiver Rashee Rice, linebacker Nick Bolton, and running back Isiah Pacheco, for starters. A keen sense of anticipating new needs has led to fine-tuning of rosters each year. Amid the clicking turnstile of injuries and departures, the Chiefs have reloaded after losing pieces like Juan Thornhill, Willie Gay, and Tyreek Hill, who signed bigger contracts elsewhere. In their places, Veach has secured such talent as receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and DeAndre Hopkins, running back Kareem Hunt, and linebacker Drew Tranquill, veterans all. 

So hate if you must. Just remember: History says a fair number of Chiefs’ players who have ruined your watch parties this year might not be dressing in red next year. You might want to keep the ill will in check.

After all, some of them just might show up on your favorite team’s roster next year.