LAS VEGAS — Want to know why Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes — just one of three men to win three Super Bowl MVPs — is so great?
The cigars were still lit in the Chiefs’ victorious locker room when the next challenge came into focus.
Kansas City Chiefs Aim for NFL History in 2024
“I’m gonna celebrate tonight,” said Mahomes, whose three-yard touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman beat the San Francisco 25-22 and ended the longest Super Bowl in history. “I’m gonna celebrate at the parade, and then I’ll do whatever I can to be back in this game next year and try to go for that three-peat.”
Mahomes added, “It’s an ongoing thing in the NFL. Tom [Brady] said it the best. Once you win that championship, you have those parades, you get those rings, you’re not the champ anymore.
“You have to come back with that same mentality. And I learned from guys like that — [who] have been the greatest of all time at the top of the level. That’s my mindset. I’m gonna celebrate with my guys because of how we’ve done this.
“But then we’re gonna work our way to get back to this game next year.”
Brady is Mahomes’ pace horse, and there’s no guarantee that he ever matches or overtakes TB12 in Super Bowl rings.
But he and the Chiefs have the second-shortest odds to win it again 52 weeks from Sunday. If they can pull it off, they’ll be the first team in NFL history to conquer the league three consecutive years and four out of five.
That would make them the best dynasty of all time.
That would be a bitter pill for Pats Nation to swallow, but four Super Bowls in five years — with seven straight conference championship games — would be unprecedented.
“It’s a little bit surreal,” Andy Reid said. “Back-to-back is rare for this football team and this organization. I don’t know what a dynasty is. You guys have the thesaurus, so you can figure it out.”
Merriam-Webster defines dynasty as “a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time.”
That time won’t end anytime soon, particularly with Reid all but committing to come back next season. Mahomes has a chance to play another decade-plus, which opens the door to something truly unprecedented:
He could potentially win the most championships by any player on any team pro sport. The current record? Eleven, shared by Celtics center Bill Russell and Canadiens forward Henri Richard.
While the Patriots are the gold standard for longevity — winning six over the course of two decades — they were really two different dynasties that had the same head coach and quarterback.
The Chiefs, if they do it again, will have won four and five with basically the same core.
“I don’t care what people call us,” Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. “I know I’m back-to-back, and I won three in whatever year you can call us a dynasty — you can call us whatever you guys want. I know what we got is something more special than really what you see in the NFL because the guys in this locker room and the head coach.”
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As long as that locker room has its coach and quarterback, it’s foolish to bet against them doing almost anything.
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