Why a Kansas Town Chiefs Tremendous Bowl Win Would Be Unhealthy for the NFL

But every other Tremendous Bowl is upon us, this means that it’s time to talk about, in an incessant loop, the Biggest NFL Groups of All Time. In particular, because the Kansas Town Chiefs shoot for his or her 1/3 directly championship, we will have to analyze the that means in their dynasty. Debate the place they stand within the pantheon of soccer excellence. Is Patrick Mahomes the most productive quarterback the sport has ever observed? Is Andy Reid — who’s received 3 of the final 5 Tremendous Bowls with Kansas Town and leads all energetic coaches in postseason victories — on par with Vince Lombardi himself? We will have to do that as a result of, smartly, that is what it way to be an NFL-worshiping American within the Lord’s 12 months of 2025.

And but, the Tremendous Bowl is a perennial letdown. Particularly the place dynasties are involved.

Let’s return to the Eighties. You’re me — Jeffrey Pearlman, spending your early teenagers at 8 Emerald Lane in Mahopac, New York. You’re a soccer diehard, and each and every Tremendous Bowl Sunday your oldsters will let you throw a big-ass celebration in your pals. So that you order a 48-inch hoagie from Rodak’s Deli. You pick six or seven two-liter bottles of that (typically) forbidden liquid, soda. You turn at the 21-inch Zenith six hours earlier than the sport and take in the banal research whilst dreaming of last-minute drives, box targets with one 2nd at the clock, a Hail Mary plummeting from heaven into the fingers of a few plucked-out-of-Department-II-obscurity third-string flanker who, inside per week, is doing late-night displays and a Cheerios business.

Then the sport begins, and your friends go away halfway during the 1/3 quarter. As a result of, as soon as once more, it blows.

Within the 12-year span between Tremendous Bowl XVIII (hung on Jan. 22, 1984) and Tremendous Bowl XXIX (Jan. 29, 1995), most effective two of the matchups had been even relatively aggressive. As an alternative, we had been proficient such spell binding nail-biters because the Bears’ 46-10 destruction of New England in Tremendous Bowl XX and Washington 42, Denver 10 in Tremendous Bowl XXII. 

Because of all of the routs and blowouts, then again, we started to regulate our expectancies and grasp our hopes on a unique issue that might save the game: dynasties. Even though San Francisco performed in two of the dullest Tremendous Bowls on document (they beat the Dolphins by means of 22 in XIX, then the Chargers by means of 23 in XXIX), the 49ers received 4 titles between 1982 and 1995. It felt like we had been witnessing a run that sports activities historical past would by no means overlook. Within the mid-Nineties, the Dallas Cowboys picked up the thread, scoring 3 Tremendous Bowl championships over a four-year span. Troy Aikman! Michael Irvin! Emmitt Smith! Those had been epic figures having their legends forged in bronze earlier than us.

However in the end, all of it were given stale. The 49ers dynasty ended in the Cowboys dynasty. The Cowboys dynasty ended in the Patriots dynasty. And now, with Tremendous Bowl LIX upon us, we’re at the verge of gazing the dynastic Kansas Town Chiefs emerge, on this golden age of soccer parity, as in all probability the best reign of all of them.

But what was once as soon as novel and football-redeeming has grew to become uninteresting and unimaginative. This Tremendous Bowl particularly appears like a spear to the spleen of any gridiron-loving American who craves originality and spark and, smartly, funky contemporary helmets. At first of the playoffs, we had been introduced with a string of engaging, never-before-witnessed doable matchups. The unhappy-sack Minnesota Vikings (0-4 in Tremendous Bowls) vs. the sad-sack Buffalo Expenses (0-4 in Tremendous Bowls). The Detroit Lions, birthed in 1929 and plagued by means of a century of incompetence, assembly the Los Angeles Chargers, 1960-made and the poster youngsters for ineptitude. We will have had Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson slashing thru an beaten protection; Expenses gunner Josh Allen throwing darts around the box. The Denver Broncos have an out-of-nowhere sign caller, Bo Nix, who would had been the flavour of the month. The Los Angeles Rams characteristic a rookie move rusher named Jared Verse who conjures up reminiscences of the KC nice Derrick Thomas. 

There have been such a lot of terrific conceivable matchups that includes such a lot of breathtaking groups. This isn’t the Eighties, the place a small handful of franchises ruled, and the remaining had been liquid crap. The 2024 Lions received a league-high 15 video games. The Vikings received 14, the Expenses 13. Those are elite golf equipment with dazzling stars and fan bases that go back and forth. That might have proficient us with a superbly contemporary and engaging Tremendous Bowl combatant.

As an alternative, we once more have the Chiefs.

To be transparent, there’s not anything flawed with Kansas Town. What the franchise has completed is past spectacular — possibly much more spectacular than New England’s contemporary run. All through the season, it automatically felt as though the Chiefs had been at the verge of falling aside. They just about misplaced to the lowly Panthers and (two times!) to the similarly lowly Raiders. They regularly regarded gradual and unmotivated. Different golf equipment looked as if it would have stuck up. We, as a sports activities collective, felt satisfied they had been outdated product, in a position to get replaced.

And but … Mahomes is the most productive quarterback maximum have ever witnessed (apologies, Steve Pisarkiewicz) and Reid has earned his spot at the training Mt. Rushmore. The staff performs exhausting, performs speedy, makes valuable few errors, and owns the fourth quarter. The Chiefs need to be in New Orleans, and after they (inevitably) beat the Philadelphia Eagles, it’ll be exhausting to begrudge the most productive staff profitable the most important sport.

However, until you are living in Missouri or differently love the Chiefs, what’s to in reality like about this? If the Chiefs win the Tremendous Bowl, the sports activities media will rave about historical past being made and “the force for 5.” There might be journeys to Disney International (that’s nonetheless a factor, proper?) and headache-inducing Stephen A. Smith GOAT diatribes and ceaseless Mahomes vs. Tom Brady arguments and each and every unmarried member of the paparazzi spontaneously climaxing as Travis Kelce kisses Taylor Swift atop a flow.

The 510,704 citizens of Kansas Town, Missouri, will as soon as once more revel of their giddiness and thank the nice lord for making them Chiefs lovers.

I and numerous different soccer lovers around the nation, however, can have fallen asleep by means of halftime.

Jeff Pearlman is the creator of 10 books together with Boys Will Be Boys, in regards to the Nineties Dallas Cowboys, and Showtime, in regards to the Eighties Lakers, which was once tailored into the HBO collection Profitable Time.