The longest game in football is the waiting game, that interminable stretch between February and September where Sundays are an open book and time ticks to a slightly different beat. It’s a game everyone has no choice but to play, from fans tortured by the inactivity and waiting restlessly with replica jerseys and fantasy spreadsheets, to groups of players for whom last time around – with one exception – didn’t end quite as they’d have wanted it to. The pause might be worst of all for the squad with the most pressing sense of unfinished business, which in this case is the Kansas City Chiefs. It must be a strange kind of offseason for Patrick Mahomes and his colleagues, who have performed at a high enough level for long enough now to be bestowed with many of the trappings of a Super Bowl champion, despite having lost the biggest game of all to Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs and their quarterback are a collective hot commodity. Mahomes, alongside Brady, is on the cover of the Madden 22 video game, getting the headlining spot for the second time in three years. It is surely a nice accolade and a grim reminder, all wrapped up into one. Kansas City is the clear favorite to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next season, listed at +500, per FOX Bet, ahead of Tampa Bay, the Buffalo Bills and the Los Angeles Rams. Mahomes’ aura and mystique haven’t dimmed any despite the events of that Florida night, and when the National Football League’s decision to expand to a 17-game regular season prompted him to throw out the possibility of a historic 20-0 campaign, no one scoffed at the ridiculousness of such a notion. Yet while the Chiefs clearly breathe rare air and are afforded the loftiest status, the truth is one they’re painfully aware of: that they had a chance to win it all a few months back and couldn’t get it done. “Everyone’s still got a bad taste in our mouth about how we finished the season last year,” tight end Travis Kelce told reporters. “That’s fuel in the fire. Everyone is more motivated right now than before we won a Super Bowl.” That right there, the infuriating itch of getting so close and falling short, is what the Chiefs need to lean into, rather than the satisfaction of having become the standard by which every other team judges itself by. Eras of dominance are typically fleeting in the NFL. The Chiefs’ time is now and they need to make the most of it. Behind Mahomes, they have an offense that looked utterly unstoppable last season, right up until the point when the Bucs defense produced an incredible shutdown performance with a Super Bowl on the line. They’ve made some strengthening moves, most notably splashing out to boost the offensive line with free agent Joe Thuney, who received a five-year, $80 million contract and, on paper at least, will be every bit as strong as they were. “This team is set up for success,” former All-Pro Brandon Marshall said on FS1’s “First Things First.” “They have everything they need to dominate the AFC. The best quarterback, the best tight end (Kelce) and an under-appreciated wide receiver (Tyreek Hill). Patrick Mahomes is going to do what he’s always done, and just run through the AFC.” When Mahomes made his 20-0 comment at the start of June, he clarified it a couple of days later, but didn’t walk it back. Since then, his teammates have bought in to that same thought process, and the mentality of shooting for perfection was running through the squad as minicamps came to a close and the players returned home before full training camp begins next month. “We got to look forward to the future and the future is what Patrick Mahomes said,” Hill told the media. “20-0 – that’s what we are aiming for.” “We are going to try to win every single game and with that mentality the sky is the limit,” Kelce added. Aiming for 20-0 and having the swagger to talk about it isn’t something that needs apologizing for. Indeed, it’s an appropriate goal for a team that was imperious a year ago, right up until the time when it mattered the most. They didn’t like losing to the Raiders in the regular season much, especially when it resulted in the Las Vegas team bus taking a victory lap around Arrowhead. In reality though, that was the only blip. The Chiefs weren’t really trying when they lost to the Los Angeles Chargers with a weakened group in Week 17, and will again likely be favorites every time they play. Andy Reid has said he likes what he sees; a collection of players bursting with the intention to correct the shortfall, a quarterback certain he is still getting better, a chip on every shoulder in the locker room and a team that not only wants to win every game but genuinely believes it is good enough to do so. The only blip is the one thing he can’t do anything about – that long, long wait. Here’s what others have said … Shannon Sharpe, Undisputed: “As long as Patrick Mahomes is in Kansas City, they’ll always be a favorite contender. But I love that they addressed their needs, this is a complete overhaul of their offensive line.” Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach: “To me, records don’t mean anything if you’re not winning that last game at the end of the season. So to me it’s about going in every single week with the mindset that … we’re going to win.” Vahe Gregorian, Kansas City Star: “And that’s why even after the Chiefs were pulverized by Tampa Bay 31-9 in Super Bowl LV in February behind a devastated offensive line that necessitated an extreme makeover, and even after requiring offseason toe surgery from which he reports being largely recovered, (Patrick) Mahomes has embraced raising the standard yet more.” |
