Morning Coffee: The road to Super Bowl 59 will run through Kansas City

Unparalleled greatness is more than doing something that’s never been done before.

It’s about redefining what is possible.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the NFL in recent years, then you’re really missing out.

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs just celebrated their third Super Bowl ring in five seasons.

The Chiefs have been to six straight AFC Championships.

They won four of them.

When you break it all down, there are literally two quarterbacks that got in the way of Mahomes potentially leading Kansas City to six straight Super Bowl wins.

Tom Brady and Joe Burrow.

So, while they might not be the betting favourite to win Super Bowl 59 at FanDuel, there’s absolutely no doubt that the Chiefs remain the gold standard as we turn the page and start to look ahead to the 2024 NFL season.

The road to Super Bowl 59 will run through Kansas City.

This is the Morning Coffee for Friday February 16^th, 2024.

The Road To Super Bowl 59 Will Run Through Kansas City

So about last night.

For a moment, I thought I would watch the Leafs on TSN.

You know, the same Toronto Maple Leafs that everybody on X told me have “zero chance” to win the Stanley Cup this season the other morning?

FYI, the Buds are 2-0 since I wrote that column.

I’d prefer not to jump too far ahead, but I might have ended the curse.

Leafs Nation, DM me for my PayPal information.

Let’s manifest this parade together.

Also, I did consider picking up where I left off with the True Detective: Night Country on Crave.

I’m only a couple of episodes in, but I’m intrigued enough to see where the show is headed.

Anyways, as tempting as the Auston Matthews-Jodie Foster parlay was on paper, I decided to see what was behind Door No. 3 instead.

It didn’t disappoint.

Super Bowl 58 Rewatch No. 4 was remarkable.

Believe it or not, rewatch No. 2 and No. 4 were even better than the original, and not just because I had better snacks available.

If you’re a regular here, then you already understand that I believe identity is an underrated factor for any championship team.

So is obsession.

Take Mahomes and the Chiefs for example.

Winning isn’t the goal.

Winning is everything.

The same was true for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots, which was the main reason why I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of their unprecedented run over two decades of dominance.

Only four teams in NFL history have ever won three Super Bowls in a five-year span.

The Pittsburgh Steelers did it twice in the 1970’s.

The Dallas Cowboys did it in the 1990’s.

And the Patriots did it twice – once in the 2000’s and again in the 2010’s.

Now it’s the Chiefs turn as a modern-day dynasty.

I certainly don’t believe they are done just yet.

Mahomes is still only 28-years-old.

He’s already joined Brady and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks in NFL history with three Super Bowl rings and two NFL regular season MVP awards.

Brady (35) and Montana (16) are the only quarterbacks with more playoff wins than Mahomes (15).

Perspective is important when considering how impressive the Super Bowl 58 victory truly was.

We can look at it from a few different angles.

First and foremost, this was the year that the Chiefs were supposed to be most vulnerable.

Travis Kelce turned 34-years-old and fell short of the 1,000-yard receiving mark for the first time since 2015 as fans wondered whether time had caught up with the star tight end.

The Kansas City wide receivers struggled with drops while the coaching staff groomed a rookie as the WR1.

The offensive line struggled to protect Mahomes.

The Chiefs looked awful in losses to the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders, which led to them finishing as the third seed in the AFC behind the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills.

The regular season struggles meant that Kansas City’s path to the Super Bowl included having to travel to Buffalo and Baltimore in back-to-back weeks.

In early January, the Chiefs could be found as high as 10-to-1 to win the Super Bowl at FanDuel.

Then Mahomes and company upset the Bills and the Ravens as road underdogs in the Divisional Round and AFC Championship.

As if that run wasn’t improbable enough, Kansas City was an underdog against the San Francisco 49ers entering Super Bowl 58, which was even before they trailed the Niners by double-digits in the third quarter.

Weakest roster of the Mahomes era?

No problem.

Road playoff games against Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson?

Easy.

Trailing by double-digits as an underdog in the Super Bowl?

It didn’t matter.

The Chiefs faced their most difficult road to the Super Bowl in the Mahomes era.

They still won it all.

So, what’s next?

The 49ers are the early favourite to win Super Bowl 59 at 5-to-1 at FanDuel.

However, as I wrote in Thursday’s column, that’s in large part because the NFC appears to be wide open on paper, while the AFC will feature an absolute gauntlet of elite quarterbacks once again.

The Chiefs are the second choice to win it all at +650.

Regardless of the numbers, there is absolutely no doubt about the team to beat entering the 2024 NFL season.

Mahomes and Reid have built a modern-day dynasty.

That tandem is redefining what is possible.

And they aren’t done yet.