Patrick Mahomes has a history of speaking dreams into existence. Roughly one year ago in Las Vegas, it seemed that he tried to do it again.
Shortly after the Chiefs claimed their second straight Super Bowl win, their star quarterback leaned over to defensive tackle Chris Jones and emphasized that this team’s work wasn’t done yet. “I want three,” Mahomes told Jones, raising the idea that Kansas City could become the first franchise to win three consecutive Super Bowls. Since Mahomes was wearing a microphone for NFL Films, the declaration was recorded for all to hear.
Consider that moment also the official beginning of the overriding storyline in Super Bowl LIX: The Chiefs’ pursuit of a three-peat when they meet the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
What’s equally intriguing is where a victory would place Mahomes — and head coach Andy Reid — in the discussion of the greatest of all time. We thought we’d seen an unprecedented run when Tom Brady and Bill Belichick led New England to six Super Bowl wins between 2001 and 2018. Mahomes and Reid have made their own noise in the last six seasons, establishing their own dynasty by winning three Super Bowls between 2019 and 2023, and a three-peat would be something the Patriots never accomplished during their own glory years.
Only one team (the Pittsburgh Steelers, from 1974 to ’79) has claimed four Super Bowl victories within a six-season period. Last season, Kansas City became the first franchise in nearly two decades to win two consecutive Lombardi Trophies — and no other repeat champion ever made it back to the Super Bowl to chase what the Chiefs covet.
“They’re doing things right now that are pretty hard to do,” said Mike Holmgren, who hired Reid as an assistant with the Green Bay Packers in 1992 and also coached the Seattle Seahawks from 1999 to 2008. “The way the league is set up, you’re going to lose players to free agency, and you’re probably going to lose coaches, too. But they’re back there because [Reid] is a brilliant mind and his players know him well. Even with all the people they’ve lost, they still have Mahomes. And that quarterback is key.”
When asked about the evolution of the legacy Reid and Mahomes have built together, the quarterback acknowledged that history has certainly been on his mind as the championships have stacked up.
“I think you always want to leave a legacy and kind of make your imprint on history,” Mahomes said during a press conference last week. “But more than anything, you just want to accomplish a goal that you have with your teammates. When you start in St. Joe (the Chiefs’ training camp is held at Missouri Western University in St. Joseph, Missouri), your goal is to win the Super Bowl. We know that’s a hard process, we know it’s hard week in and week out, but I’m proud of how our guys have gone about that process.”
It’s been six years since Mahomes sat dejected in his locker room after losing to New England in the 2018 AFC Championship Game, back when he was surprised to hear Brady was waiting to talk to him in the wake of that defeat. Brady was so impressed by what he’d witnessed from the first-year starter that he wanted to share a few words of advice on how to proceed moving forward. He told Mahomes that there would be ups and downs in this league, but to keep doing exactly what he’d done in that first year under center. The Chiefs haven’t missed an AFC Championship Game since that day — their streak is now at seven straight, and this is the fifth Super Bowl Mahomes and Reid have reached together.
Their success is notable, as Holmgren referenced, because of the consistency of that duo. When the Chiefs beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, they were a star-studded group eager to push the franchise to that game for the first time in 50 years. The victory over Philadelphia in Super Bowl LVII was a repudiation of all the skeptics who thought the offseason trade that sent star wide receiver Tyreek Hill to Miami would be the team’s undoing. Then came last season, when the Chiefs beat San Francisco again in Super Bowl LVIII after a campaign filled with so much inconsistency and uncertainty that Kansas City was sitting at 9-6 after a Christmas Day loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
It’s impressive enough that the Chiefs have won 23 of 25 games since that upset defeat. Now add in Reid moving into the 300-win club after the Chiefs beat the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round (only three other coaches — Don Shula, Belichick and George Halas — are in that select company). And think about Mahomes, who already has done more than Brady at age 29 when it comes to regular-season wins (89 to 70), playoff wins (17 to 12), Super Bowl appearances (five to three) and league MVP awards (two to zero). Brady and Belichick still maintain healthy advantages in terms of their places in history, but you could see those gaps closing in a hurry.
