Are the Chiefs Really This Good? Are They the New Patriots?

It may be time to start thinking of the Chiefs as the new Patriots, especially if Patrick Mahomes adds another Lombardi Trophy to his resume in February.

Now that Tom Brady is 45 and playing in the NFC and the New England Patriots are just a good-but-not-great team, it’s fair to ask — who is the most disliked team in football? I get it, people can’t stand Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. Philly fans are rough, so the Eagles are another easy target. The Steelers and 49ers have won a lot in their history, as have the Packers.

How about the Chiefs?

Yes, the once-lovable-loser Chiefs. They were so easy to root for in the Dick Vermeil/Trent Green days. Derrick Thomas (RIP) and the 90’s Chiefs were always close-but-no-cigar. The Chiefs were a midwest darling that you just wanted to see win once.

But not anymore.

Since Andy Reid has taken over, the franchise has looked and felt different. And since Patrick Mahomes has entered the picture and appeared on every commercial you’ve ever seen, you’d be happy to never see him again. The Chiefs have employed far-from-model-citizens like Tyreek Hill and still employ ones like Frank Clark, Kadarius Toney, Chris Lammons, and Willie Gay.

And of course, above all, they win. A lot. Mahomes has not lost a game in the month of November or December since 2019, which is very Tom Brady-esque. The Chiefs have hosted four straight AFC Championship Games (an NFL first), which is very Patriots-esque. The Chiefs play in a very weak AFC West, just as New England cruised in the AFC East all those years.

It doesn’t help that some of your buddies are coming out of the woodwork as Chiefs fans the way your uncle’s cousin never set foot in Boston in his life but grew to love the Pats.

Now, the good news is that the Chiefs have only won one Super Bowl in the last 52 years. But you feel like with the weapons they have (no pun intended, I’m just talking football here) a few more could be on the horizon. What’s scary is just how close they have been in the years they haven’t won. They were a Dee Ford offsides penalty from winning the AFC in 2018. An untimely arrest by Andy Reid’s son (see, even the coaches on the Chiefs can’t stay out of trouble) and a slew of offensive line injuries kept the Chiefs from repeating in 2020 (with some help from Lord Brady). And only a poor coaching decision by Reid (he sure makes a lot more of those than Bill Belichick does) at the end of the first half last year against the Bengals opened the door for an epic Cincinnati comeback.

We all heard about how great the AFC West was going to be this year, and even I drank the Kool-Aid. I ask for a pardon because much of it was brought on by wishful thinking. From the get-go, it’s been the Chiefs and Chiefs alone in the AFC West just as it has been since Peyton Manning walked away from the game. Since 2016, Year 1 post-Peyton, the other three AFC West teams have combined for a grand total of three (!) playoff appearances. Resistance from divisional foes have been slim to none for Kansas City.

Now, onto the here and now. The Chiefs are 8-2, and despite that uplifting (for Chiefs haters, at least) loss to Buffalo in Week 6, control their own destiny to get the coveted lone bye week. They picked up a freebie in Toney (although he left last week’s game with another hamstring injury) and seem to have barely missed a beat in trading Hill to Miami. But are they really that good?

Again, I have to avoid that old “wishful thinking” thing here, but my hunch is that they are, yet it feels like they’ve yet to be truly tested. And, just as their Patriots predecessors, they’ve gotten quite a lot of luck along the way.

In Week 1, they steamrolled Arizona, who was playing without DeAndre Hopkins. Arizona is one of the sorriest 4-6 teams we’ve ever seen. In Week 2, the Chargers looked like they had a chance until they realized they were the Chargers. Justin Herbert injured his ribs and promptly threw a game-altering pick-six. In Week 4, after a stunning loss to the Colts a week prior, the Chiefs traveled to Tampa to take on a Bucs team that had to practice all week in Miami after being displaced by Hurricane Ian. The Bucs were completely out of sync and out of the game from the start.

The luck wouldn’t end there. In Week 5 in a classic trap game, Las Vegas came oh-so-close to knocking off the Chiefs. But an unheard-of defensive holding call on a field goal changed the course of the game, and the Chiefs squeaked by, 30-29. Two weeks later, after the Bills got a measure of revenge, the Chiefs rolled over a 49ers team still apparently paralyzed by their Super Bowl LIV meltdown three seasons prior. Keep in mind that the 49ers are only 6-4 and have one win to date over a winning team (Seattle in Week 2). After a bye, the Chiefs got one of their luckiest breaks yet, and his name is Malik Willis. One of the most overmatched QBs in history still almost led the Titans to a win before Mahomes rallied the Chiefs in OT. It’s hard to envision the Titans losing that game if they’d played with the same level of effort with Tannehill under center. After rolling over a bad Jaguars team (although the final score was a respectable 27-17), the Chargers had one more trick up their sleeves in the form of a heartbreaking defensive meltdown as Mahomes and Kelce carved up in LA in just over a minute to steal another win.

The truth is, the Chiefs are good. They might be really good. They might even be really, really good, even for those of us hoping that isn’t the case. There are seven games left and, wouldn’t you know it, the Chiefs have the easiest remaining schedule in football. The only game that looks like a possible loss is at Cincinnati in Week 13, and who knows if JaMarr Chase will be back and healthy then. If Kansas City snags the bye, a fifth straight AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium feels inevitable. But it’s worth wondering about all the potentially good teams out there that the Chiefs hadn’t had to face, like the Eagles, Ravens, Cowboys, Dolphins, Vikings, or, dare I say, the Patriots. What looked like a difficult schedule on paper before the year has, naturally, not turned out to be so difficult for the Chiefs.

Look no further back than 2019 to see a recurring theme in the present. On the season’s final day, the 4-11 Dolphins stunned the 12-3 Patriots to hand the Chiefs a bye (the last year that a No. 2 seed could earn one). A week later, Tannehill and the upstart, 9-7 Titans knocked off the Patriots in Foxborough, helping the Chiefs avoid a rematch with Brady’s Pats. A week after that, the Titans did more dirty work for the Chiefs when they took out the 14-2 Ravens in Baltimore, giving the Chiefs a home date in the AFC title game. After wiping the floor with DeShaun Watson and the sorry Texans, it was the Cinderella Titans, then the Jimmy Garoppolo-led 49ers in the Super Bowl, rather than perhaps elite QBs like Brady, Jackson, Rodgers, or Brees. When the smoke cleared, the red confetti fell for Kansas City even though it felt like they may not have been the best team that year.

Now, in order to be “the new Patriots,” understandably, the Chiefs need a couple more Lombardi Trophies under their belt. The AFC has gotten a little bit better and more balanced since the “Big 3” of Brady, Manning, and Ben Roethlisberger have left. But as long as Mahomes keeps winning and Travis Kelce keeps dancing and the Chiefs keep adding questionable characters to the roster, it’s going to be hard not to view them as such.

For a franchise that has but one Super Bowl title in over a half-century, they sure are easy to dislike.

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