PHOENIX – Andy Reid posed with the Lombardi Trophy as he took the stage the morning after his second Super Bowl win and simply said: “It never gets old standing right here.”
As long as Reid is dialing up plays and Patrick Mahomes is executing them, the Kansas City Chiefs will be in contention to get right back into this spot.
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The duo — an innovative play-caller and a young quarterback whose achievements already rival some of the game's greatest ever — won their second Super Bowl together in the past four seasons when Kansas City beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Sunday.
"As long as Andy Reid is coaching us, we'll always have a chance,” Mahomes said Monday at a news conference honoring the Super Bowl winning coach and MVP. “I’ll keep the big guy around a couple more years at least and we’ll try to be back at this game as many times as possible.”
Since Mahomes became the starter in Kansas City in 2018, the Chiefs have made it to the AFC championship game every season, the Super Bowl three times and won it twice.
This title might have been even sweeter than the first following the 2019 season as Mahomes overcame a high ankle sprain that limited him in the playoffs and quieted the skeptics who doubted whether he could have the same kind of success after the Chiefs traded away game-breaking wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
But with a strong offensive line that held the Eagles' vaunted pass rush to no sacks, All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce and a cast of mostly young receivers who stepped up in the Super Bowl, the Chiefs still had the league's top offense thanks mostly to the combo of Reid and Mahomes.
“It’s hard not to hear that stuff, especially in today’s age and social media and everything like that,” Mahomes said. “You hear how not good we’re going to be. All you can do is prove it on the football field. I’m not a guy that’s going to respond and say stuff back to people. I’m just going to go out there and prove it on the football field. Once you do that, there's nothing they can really say."
All that's left to ask about Mahomes after a week in which he won his second regular-season MVP award and second Super Bowl MVP is where he will eventually rank among the game's greatest quarterbacks.
Mahomes is already on a pace no one else has set.
He joined Hall of Famer Joe Montana and Tom Brady — considered by many the best quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era — as the only players ever to win multiple MVP awards in the regular season and Super Bowl.
Mahomes did it in his sixth season, while it took Brady 11 years and Montana 12 until they accomplished the feat.
Mahomes became the seventh player to win the NFL regular season MVP and Super Bowl MVP in the same season — with the first six already enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Super Bowl win by Mahomes also broke some hexes as he became the first MVP to win the title since Kurt Warner in the 1999 season and the first player ever to lead the league in yards passing and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
The decision to trade Hill has set the Chiefs up well as they head into the offseason in good shape on the salary cap, with 12 projected draft picks, and a strong rookie class from 2022 that only should improve.
But most importantly, they have the coach and quarterback, with the 64-year-old Reid pointing to Mahomes when he said he has no plans to step down any time in the near future.
“I'm enjoying what I’m doing,” Reid said. “I have this guy over here who is a pretty good player, so I'm doing OK.”
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