Proof NFL is about to see something ‘never done before’
Only a few hours after the red and yellow confetti had fallen and the Vince Lombardi trophy had been lifted, attention already turned to what could come next.
“It would be legendary,” Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said when asked about the prospect of a three-peat.
“No one’s ever done it, and we knew it’s legendary to win back-to-back. I think eight other teams have done it.”
No team has ever won three in a row and yet the Chiefs, fresh off their third Super Bowl in five years, are favourites to do just that.
Not only are they favourites but they look to be markedly better placed to do so, with new weapons in a passing game that should be a lot more explosive and potentially put Mahomes in a position to throw for 50 touchdowns and over 5,000 for the first time since his rookie season.
One of those new weapons, Marquise ‘Hollywood’ Brown, will be sidelined for Friday’s season opener against former team Baltimore with a shoulder injury.
But the other one, rookie Xavier Worthy, is good to go.
And, if reporting from The Athletic’s Nate Taylor is anything to go by, the plan is to get the electric rookie involved right away.
“You just know what Andy Reid wants against the Ravens,” Taylor said on The Athletic’s ‘Scoop City’ podcast.
“They are looking for one highlight. Xavier Worthy catching a deep pass. That is the message.”
A message that the Chiefs of old and, specifically the deep ball, are back.
Not that Kansas City has necessarily struggled in the days since trading away Tyreek Hill, Mahomes’ one true deep threat. After all, they’ve made two-straight Super Bowls.
Mahomes and the Chiefs found other ways to get it done, as was the case when teams started to throw more two-high safety looks at him, forcing the Kansas City quarterback to more patiently work his way down the field.
However at times last year, Mahomes’ patience was well and truly tested after the Chiefs went through the regular season averaging the second-least points per game (22.2), most turnovers (26) and drops (34) in 10 years under Andy Reid.
In many ways, the 2023-24 season-opener foreshadowed what was to come for Kansas City, who recorded eight drops in that 21-20 loss to the Detroit Lions.
But this time around, the defending champs are looking to send a very different message — to set the tone for what could potentially be a historic season.
That starts with Worthy, although the Texas wideout who Kansas City traded up to draft with the 28th overall pick in this year’s draft doesn’t even need to have the ball in his hands to be making an impact.
That is what happens when you have speed — record-breaking speed to take the top off of the defence and clear out the rest of the field for the underneath receivers to feast in open space.
In case you missed it, Worthy set an NFL combine record with the fastest 40-yard dash in history, completing the sprint in just 4.21 seconds.
It is the kind of blistering speed that allows Worthy to breeze past defenders for big chunk plays, as was the case in the pre-season game against the Lions where he got open for a 37-yard gain.
It is also the kind of blistering speed that has a gravitational pull, sucking in two Detroit defenders and leaving Justin Watson wide-open in the middle for the field.
“Once you hit him over the top with that speed, it helps open up the whole entire football field,” Mahomes said after that pre-season game.
“I was looking right through Xavier on that play knowing that same type of thing, it’s an alert that I kind of look at and if I get the right coverage go to him and he clears out two or three guys and I can hit J-Wat (Justin Watson) in that medium range.
“It’s going to help everyone in the offence, having him, having Hollywood, having Rashee (Rice) be able to break loose. It opens up the entire offence which is going to be big this year.
“Even if it didn’t work, you know it gets noted by the defence.”
This is, of course, a Kansas City offence that for the past few years has run through tight end Travis Kelce with the ancillary pieces mixing in to varying degree.
And yet, even with the defence knowing the ball was going to go to No.87, Kelce still found ways to get open and Chiefs coach Andy Reid still found creative ways to scheme him open too.
Now, opposition defences will have to contend with not just Kelce and Worthy but ascending second-year receiver Rashee Rice, another solid outside receiver in Brown, fast-improving running back Isaiah Pacheco and even hulking rookie UDFA Carson Steele.
Worthy specifically should thrive under Reid’s play-calling given he uses plenty of motion, which will help get the speedy receiver open and avoid putting the 5-foot-11, 165-pound rookie in too many contested-catch situations.
While the offence looks in a much stronger position to produce earlier this season, the secondary without L’Jarius Sneed still looks to be a question mark after none of the cornerbacks outside of established starter Trent McDuffie stepped up in the pre-season.
Rookie left tackle Kingsley Suamataia, who Kansas City took in the second round in this year’s draft, will also be under plenty of pressure to protect Mahomes after winning the battle against second-year player Wanya Morris for the starting gig.
Because as much as the new pieces around Mahomes should raise Kansas City’s ceiling this season, it all starts and ends with number 13, and while Mahomes doesn’t have Seven Super Bowls to his name yet, he could be on the verge of doing what Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw couldn’t in their Hall of Fame careers.
Mahomes is already synonymous with greatness and yet, as if he had not already achieved enough in his short career, now he is chasing history.
He is chasing an “obsession”, as former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovksy put it earlier this week.
“It is odd to think that the team that won the Super Bowl is a better football team than they were last year but I don’t think it’s even close... as long as Hollywood and Xavier Worthy are healthy just because of the addition of the speed,” Orlovksy said on the ‘Dan Patrick Show’.
“I think it’s an obsession to three-peat. Patrick has long been different when it comes to the way he viewed his career, I think that’s why he took that long contract. The same with Travis, the same with Andy Reid.
“I think there’s this obsession to go do it because no one has done it. I think for Patrick he realises that places me firmly into the conversation with Tom Brady because I’ve done something he’s never done.”
Brady still has the best quarterback resume in history, but Mahomes is fast catching up and already has the same aura of invincibility and inevitability that comes with being one of the greatest of all time.
He may not be the greatest of all time yet, but like Mahomes himself, there is a sense of inevitability.
And this year, with all the additional weapons, there is that same feeling of inevitability that Mahomes and the Chiefs will be there again, on the biggest stage of all, waiting for the red and yellow confetti to fall.
