What makes this Super Bowl run different from the other two in recent years?
Two Super Bowls in 50 years. Three Super Bowls in five years. When times change, they change fast. After languishing away in football purgatory for half a century, Kansas City Chiefs fans are enjoying the golden age of Chiefs football.
As I’m sure any player who has been to multiple Super Bowls can attest to, each one is different though. During Monday’s ‘Super Bowl Opening Night’ Travis Kelce was asked, “Does this one feel different?”, he answered with a resounding “yes!”
Kelce is one of the few players still on the team to experience that first Super Bowl win—as well as the loss the very next year. In fact, that was the one he referenced in that same interview saying, “The last Super Bowl left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Every Super Bowl is different. Some end in celebration, others in heartbreak. So how is Super Bowl LVII different from Super Bowls LIV and LV?
The Chiefs aren’t unknowns anymore
When the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2020, they had been to back-to-back AFC Championship games, and their relatively new quarterback was starting to make a name for himself. But overall, they hadn’t quite established themselves yet. Even the first playoff game that year against the Texans indicated that maybe the Chiefs weren’t for real, yet.
Ten quarters after that fateful divisional round game started, the Chiefs had ‘planted their flag on football’s highest mountain.’ And people were starting to take notice.
Three years, three more AFC Championships, and a second Super Bowl appearance later, everyone knows the Chiefs are legit. Like the Patriots before them, they get everyone’s best shot every week. They aren’t unknown anymore. They are known and feared, and that also means the expectations are higher than ever.
The Chiefs fought through a much tougher AFC
One of the more frustrating facts of life is that during Tom Brady’s reign as AFC king, there were only a couple of other quarterbacks that ever really challenged him: namely, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger. Occasionally a spunky quarterback like Joe Flacco might cause an upset, but for the most part, it was pretty slim pickings.
Now? The AFC is loaded with quarterback play. Which makes getting to the Big Game difficult enough on its own. The AFC Championship against the Cincinnati Bengals felt like the real Super Bowl in terms of toughness. That’s not to take away from the Philadelphia Eagles, but the NFC just doesn’t seem as challenging as the AFC.
That’s why the Super Bowl doesn’t quite feel as ‘major’ as the AFC Championship did. The American Football Conference bracket was brutal and taxing. The NFC? Well, their champs game through by eating a toothless New York Giants and a quarterback-less San Francisco 49ers team. They just aren’t the same.
The Chiefs are a more complete team
The early years of the Patrick Mahomes era featured an all-world offense coupled with a questionable defense. The year they won the Super Bowl, Steve Spagnoulo pulled the defense together just enough to get a win. But to say they were ‘balanced’ would be an understatement.
The next year when the Chiefs played the Buccaneers, they once again featured a high-powered offense, with another questionable defense, but then add in a terrible offensive line and disaster predictably followed.
This year? The team feels much more balanced. Yes, trading away Tyreek Hill seemed to predict doom for the offense, but instead, it got better by all accounts. Patrick Mahomes was forced to pass the ball around, and some semblance of a run game came to life.
On the other side of the ball, the defense hasn’t been great, but they’ve been pretty darn good. The running joke has always been, “If we can just get Mahomes an average defense, we’ll win.” Well, we’ve gotten him an average defense, and guess what? We are winning, baby.
How sweet it is
Whatever happens on Sunday, it seems like most Chiefs fans are still content with where the team is at. Going 1-2 in Super Bowls over the last five years would suck, but let’s be honest, defeating Joe Burrow and the Bungals was pretty satisfying and fulfilling. That’s what truly makes this Super Bowl different. It doesn’t feel legacy-shattering. But it could be legacy-making.