History shows that Kansas City’s Super Bowl LIX loss will have little to do with how the team is finally remembered.
Midway through the fourth quarter of the Kansas City Chiefs’ stunning 40-22 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, Fox Sports analyst Tom Brady remembered a painful moment from his own career: the New England Patriots’ 14-7 loss to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.
The Patriots — winners of three Super Bowls during Brady’s first six seasons as a starter — were trying for the NFL’s first undefeated season since the Miami Dolphins won Super Bowl VII to finish their 1972 season 17-0.
“We were on the precipice of history,” recalled Brady. “We faced a team that played their hearts out that day and beat us. And I still haven’t really lived it down — because you care so deeply — and I know this Chiefs team does as well. Patrick [Mahomes] is the ultimate competitor. But the reality of a loss in this game is [that] you don’t ever get over them.”
From these remarks, it’s clear that Brady now takes little consolation from the fact that his 2007 teammates won one more game than Miami’s 1972 squad.
So it is with the Chiefs. When they stepped onto the field at Caesars Superdome on Sunday evening, they had already come closer to a three-peat than any of the previous eight back-to-back Super Bowl winners — not a single one of which made it to the following season’s championship game.
Few of the team’s players will probably take much solace from that, either.
But just as with the New England dynasty that Brady and his head coach Bill Belichick ran from 2001 through 2019, the Kansas City dynasty will ultimately be judged not on the outcome of Sunday’s game but on the totality of what Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid can ultimately accomplish. This is because dynasties are about history — not the outcomes of individual games.
It’s impossible for us to know how long Mahomes will play — or perhaps more significantly, how long Reid will coach. But Brady’s career history suggests Mahomes could easily continue to succeed after Reid steps away from the game. We should also remember the San Francisco 49ers’ 17-season dynasty, which featured three head coaches and two starting quarterbacks.
So, in the final analysis, what happens in the years to come will probably have much more to do with how the Chiefs’ dynasty will finally be remembered — something that I have learned to more fully appreciate during the last two weeks.
About five hours after the end of the Chiefs’ 32-29 win over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship, I shook my wife Terri awake, asking her to take me to the emergency room.
Over the previous month, I had experienced multiple incidents involving shortness of breath and chest tightness. So we had already made an appointment to see my doctor the following Tuesday. Before that moment, however, these episodes had all occurred after some kind of physical exertion.
Before awakening Terri, I was experiencing one while lying flat on my back in bed.
The doctors now tell me that I was days — if not hours — from a major heart attack that could easily have killed me.
After tests that ran through Monday, we cancelled my Tuesday morning doctor appointment. Instead, I underwent a coronary double bypass surgery. Once they were inside, doctors also found my aortic valve needed repair. The procedure scheduled for four hours lasted six — and for more than two of them, I was kept alive by a heart-lung machine.
It’s all a little unclear now, but I think it was the following Friday that I suffered a surgical complication: a pulmonary embolism (blood clot) in my lungs. I can tell you this, though: I’ve never experienced worse pain than I did over a terrible eight hours.
Still, day by day, I have been getting better. I returned home this past Thursday — and although it was in a limited capacity, I was able to contribute to Arrowhead Pride’s Super Bowl coverage. While it will be months before I am fully recovered, I will get there — and will continue to serve you on these pages.
I am eternally grateful to cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Pulkesh Bhatia, pulmonary specialist Dr. Patrick Perkins, cardiologists Dr. Tehmeena Shah and Dr. Tapas “Joey” Ghose — and in the emergency room, Dr. Michelle A. Spieker. They — along with dozens of Liberty Hospital’s nurses, aides, therapists and support staff — are the professionals who worked together to save my life.
When you’re an old man like me, you can’t go through an experience like this without understanding you have been given a special gift: an opportunity to leave a larger mark on the world. I don’t know exactly how much time I have left — or how much change I can make. But I am certain that it’s significantly more than I had two weeks ago.
Like with the Chiefs, what happens next is going to make the greatest difference.