Sorry about this Kansas City Chiefs Nation – and apologies for another Swift reference – but in the world we live in now, get ready because “the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” You’ve put up with a lot of vitriol this past week as pundits pilloried the defending Super Bowl Champions and heir apparent to the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick New England Patriots. And after winning again Sunday, more is on the way.

The good news for Chiefs fans was that while the haters were busy loathing the Chiefs and their consummate-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes, all Chiefs fans had to do to feel better was recall another line from the same song: “Players gonna play, play, play, play, play.” And that’s what happened at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas as the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime, winning the third of the last five Super Bowls.

The players played, played, played, played.

Mahomes threw and ran for 399 total yards and led the Chiefs on a 13-play, 75-yard overtime drive that had ended with a touchdown pass completed with three seconds on the clock. And he did so with the kind of cool, clinical focus we’ve come to expect of him when the game is on the line. Mahomes’ leadership earned him his third MVP trophy but made me ask afterwards, why were Kansas City and Mahomes cast as villains in the week leading up to the Championship?

Yes, I made the case for cheering on San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy because of his truly extraordinary and historic rise from being named Mr. Irrelevant as the last player drafted in 2022 to being a Super Bowl starting quarterback less than two years later. But we never implied that pulling for the underdog meant diminishing the legacy of resiliency and adaptability that distinguish the Chiefs.

In a sit down with CBS Sports Nate Burleson, Mahomes reflected on the emerging portrayal of his team as the team everyone loves to hate—a designation formerly given to the Patriots.

“You definitely have gotten that sense this year,” Mahomes said. “I think this is the year that has actually kind of come out that way. That’s part of it — you turn into that villain. You turn into that team that everybody doesn’t want to win. You have to embrace that, too, in order to be great.”

That’s a very sporting reply from Mahomes who spent a healthy chunk of last week being interviewed about taking on this new role as “villain.” But I would argue that we should be marveling at what the Chiefs have achieved rather than lining them up as the latest, greatest collection of bad boys on the block.

On Sunday, Mahomes was the better quarterback, Reid the better coach and the Chiefs were the better team. But their example of greatness extends beyond the game. What is fascinating about the Chiefs is that they have found different ways to win depending on the people who were available to them. For example, in their first Super Bowl season, they could draw from the talents of wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who is so fast his nickname is “Cheetah.” After he left to play in Miami, Reid and his staff identified new talent to help Mahomes carry the offensive load and secure a second Super Bowl ring.

This time around, it wasn’t the offense but the defense that kept Kansas City in the hunt for the Championship as the Chiefs experienced the unfamiliar challenge of having to win playoff games on the road. This year’s edition of the Chiefs included plenty of dropped passes and penalties, including late in the season when most championship bound teams are riding momentum. As late as Christmas Day, for example, Kansas City turned in a complacent underperformance against the Las Vegas Raiders, getting pushed around the field and ultimately losing 20-14.

That might have finished off a lesser team, but the sign of a great team is that it uses its setbacks as fuel for learning and making adjustments and doubling down on its efforts. Coach Reid described the game as “a good wake-up call for us. We were able to learn from it and move on. I felt all along, though, we had the ability to do that. We just, like I said, we needed a little kick in the tail there.”

During his team’s pre-Super Bowl training sessions in Las Vegas, Reid texted Raiders head coach, Antonio Pierce, thanking him for the “beautiful facility” and for “kicking our tail (on Christmas Day) because you taught us a lesson.”

And so on Super Bowl Sunday, Reid’s troops were fired up, not complacent, and after the 49ers had them against the wall in the first half of the game, he knew when to take the brakes off Mahomes as a serious running option and Mahomes, backed by a defense that made Purdy & company’s life very, very hard, ran and passed like the MVP he is.

I have learned from the Chiefs in the past and I look forward to learning more from them in the future. I do not despise their greatness; I relish it. Or as Swift might say from her vantage point in the box seats:

I never miss a beat.

I’m lightning on my feet.

And that’s what they don’t see.

That’s what they don’t see.

– Shake It Off, Taylor Swift

Relative Articles

None found