Sam McDowell: The NFL hasn’t had a repeat champion in 16 years. But Chiefs have one advantage.
Article 16 #Article16
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Chiefs wide receiver Mecole Hardman slammed his helmet on the back of the team’s bench, then tossed a jacket over his head to cover his face.
His fumbled punt had set up a Bills touchdown last weekend, offering the visitors an early nine-point lead in the AFC Championship Game. And while he could hide his face, he couldn’t conceal his frustration.
Over walked Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes removed the jacket and leaned down closer to the second-year receiver.
“We good. Be you. You’re gonna make a play this game,” he said.
As he walked back toward the field, Mahomes turned to the offensive linemen and other players sitting on the bench.
“Be us. We’ve been here. Be us,” he said.
One year earlier, on that same sideline, Mahomes had delivered a speech that his teammates kept talking about in the postgame locker room. The Chiefs had trailed by 24 points that day, a comedy of errors the culprit, and Mahomes huddled the offense together.
“Let’s do something special,” he said.
The two instances shared results.
A comeback.
A swift comeback.
A proverbial shrug of the shoulders to all that had gone wrong.
That became a defining element — maybe the defining element — of last postseason, with the Chiefs using three comebacks to win a Super Bowl. It’s already returned once these playoffs, with the Chiefs dominating the Bills after that 9-0 deficit last weekend.
But it’s more than a couple of good memories. There’s an actual lasting effect, one that perhaps gives the Chiefs a small advantage as they prepare for a second straight trip to the Super Bowl. The on-site hoopla surrounding the game is gone. The fans? Some of them are gone, too. The magnitude? Every bit present.
It’s still the biggest game in North America. And in such instances, there will be an added emphasis this week to, as Mahomes put it, simply be you. Yes, even if things go south. Especially when things go south.
The Chiefs know that. They’ve experienced it before. And therein rests the advantage.
“At the end of the day, we practice so hard (that) I think our preparation is so important, not only to the players but the coaches. And I think ultimately that’s what we fall back on,” Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “We fall back on our preparation — the little things, the little nuggets that our coaches have told us throughout the weekend. I think all those little things give us the sense that we can settle down and get back into any football game.”
There’s also the history. Oh, and the quarterback.
Mahomes has a way of brushing off a bad play, a bad drive or even a bad quarter. Over a six-snap streak in Miami, for example, Mahomes threw two interceptions, fumbled a snap and took a 30-yard sack (the longest in NFL history). Yet by halftime, the Chiefs led, and Mahomes finished with 393 yards and two touchdowns.
Ho, hum.
When the Chiefs beat the Chargers in Week 2, Mahomes set an NFL record with a sixth straight wins after trailing by double digits. He’s since won two more this season under those circumstances — the Panthers and Dolphins — though the Chiefs sandwiched a loss to the Raiders in there.
Still, that’s 8-1 over the past two seasons when trailing by double digits, including the playoffs. Conversely, in games in which Mahomes has started, the Chiefs have led by double digits in 27 games. They’ve lost just three.
“I take him,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said after one comeback this year, “over everybody.”
There’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg thing at play. The speeches and the positivity in the face of adversity have preceded the comebacks, to be sure. On the other hand, it’s certainly easier to display all of that when you know you’ve done it before and when you have the talent to do it again.
But that’s the whole point here. It’s only bolstered the Chiefs’ identity ahead of the Super Bowl. It prompts less panic in the season’s biggest games, when emotions can run the highest.
If you’re looking ways in which returning to a Super Bowl can actually provide an edge, that’s not a bad place to start.
“Luckily for us, we got tremendous leaders (and) we got tremendous coaches on this team,” wide receiver Tyreek Hill said. “Pat, (Travis) Kelce being those on the offensive side. Everybody knows (offensive coordinator) Eric Bieniemy — he’s very vocal on the sideline, picking the morale up of the team. We’re very fortunate to have those guys in this organization.”