Defending a championship is difficult in any professional sport. In a world full of alpha athletes, you become the hunted, the one against which other great teams and players – all of whom are, by nature, far more competitive than you or I could ever dream of.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the NFL, by far the most physical team sport in America. And 16 games of being hunted, of getting the best shot from the other guys, is … well, exhausting. Especially in today’s game, where players have never been bigger, stronger and faster.
That’s just one reason why we haven’t seen an NFL team win consecutive championships since the Patriots 2003-2004. It is so difficult in the NFL, where parity reigns supreme.
Entering the 2020 season, the Kansas City Chiefs had the best chance of any team to repeat in recent memory. They have a Hall of Fame coach (Andy Reid), a generations quarterback with Michael Jordan’s proven postseason ability (Patrick Mahomes) and, oh yes, 18 participants in last year’s Super Bowl winning group.
Their continuity was also shown throughout an exciting regular season of 14-2, while they used the arrogance “that’s why we are the champions of shit” – summed up by a feeling of inevitable victory in Kansas City whenever games were close. – to a degree that we haven’t seen since the ’04 Patriots and ’98 Broncos, consecutive champions who also achieved 14-2.
While the Chiefs check all the boxes to see if there is a consecutive candidate, there is one more element they need, one that was tested on Sunday and will continue on. And that is luck.
No team can win anything significant without an element of it, especially in a league where revolutionary injuries lurk around every corner. Neither the Broncos of 98 nor the Patriots of 2004 would have won anything in those years if their starting defenders, Tom Brady and John Elway, had been injured in the playoffs.
On Sunday, the bosses’ sense of fate was tested. Although they took care of business in the divisional round, holding a 22-17 win over a rising Cleveland team with a bright future, they had to survive late without Mahomes, who left the game in the third quarter during a concussion and ended up discarded for the rest of the game.
“He was hit in the back of the neck and kind of ran out of breath,” Reid told reporters later. “He is doing very well now, which is very positive, he has approved all the deals he needed, so we will see what will happen from here.”
When pressed for more, Reid added: “I just talked to him – he’s doing well. We will see how he is doing tomorrow, but now he is feeling well. “
What does this mean for the availability of Mahomes next Sunday against Buffalo in the AFC championship game? Who knows. He was staggering as he got up before running back to the locker room. Reid and his teammates did not look devastated in Zoom’s so-called postseason, whatever that is worth.
If there is a way for Mahomes to play, he will. The word “warrior” has been used to describe him by those who know him – he is proud to play through pain – and Mahomes was tweeting a lot after the game, an indication that hopeful people will notice that he is feeling well.
So now, Kansas City looks forward to news about Mahomes’ status. If the news is good and Mahomes can play against the Bills, that news will be seen as the last adversity they overcame on their journey. Along with the way the Chiefs found a way to win on Sunday without him, thanks to some clever moves by Reid, some courageous moves by reserve Chad Henne and a defense that stepped up in the clutch.
If so, no one in the Chiefs – or any Chiefs supporter, by the way – should take it for granted. The only thing more difficult than winning a Super Bowl is winning two in a row, and for that, a team needs talent, great training and luck, specifically in the variety of injuries.
Very soon, we’ll know if the Chiefs have enough of that final ingredient to dodge a few more bullets on their way into history.
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