- Coming of Age
- 26 JAN 78 The Great Lakes Blizzard
- Dynasties Are Hard To Come By
The sporting press has been very quick to declare the Kansas City Chiefs a budding dynasty, and with good reason. This is a team that has a lot going for it: Head Coach Andy Reid is one of the more brilliant offensive minds in NFL history whose offense is led by Patrick Mahomes, who is not only the most dynamic quarterback the league has seen since Michael Vick he is a quarterback blessed with a goodie bag of offensive weapons: WR Tyreek Hill and TE Travis Kelce stretch the field both horizontally and vertically, making the Chiefs offense damned near unstoppable. That alone should make the Chiefs a perennial Super Bowl contender.
As a Chicago Bears fan coming up in the 1970s and 80’s I sure know that feeling.
After demolishing the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX it seemed for all the world that the Bears were on the cusp of a dynasty. The 1985 season was a victory lap: the Bears rolled through their schedule posting a 15-1 record with no team in the NFC playing anywhere close to them. Even the defending champion 49ers offered little resistance in an early season matchup and by the end of the NFC Championship Game it appeared as though the Bears were in a position to dominate the Conference- and by extension the NFL – for years to come.
And why not? The offense literally ran through Walter Payton, the most productive running back in NFL history who finally had the support he needed: an outstanding and young offensive line to run behind, dynamic 26 year old QB Jim McMahon and Olympic speedster Willie Gault to stretch the field and open up lanes for Payton.
Even scarier was the thought that the offense was the weak link on the 1985 Bears: the famed 46 defense had youth, speed and an insane scheme wreaking havoc on opposing offenses. This video is from 1984 (the year before the Super Bowl run) and gives you an idea of just how dominant the 46 was.
It was all there for the Bears. But they only made a single NFC Title Game after the 1985 season (a 28-0 whitewashing by the 49ers in Chicago) and by trhe early 1990’s The Monsters of the Midway had descended into mediocrity:
| W | L | ||
| 1984 | Conference Runnerup | 10 | 6 |
| 1985 | Super Bowl Champion | 15 | 1 |
| 1986 | Division Title | 14 | 2 |
| 1987* | Division Title | 11 | 4 |
| 1988 | Conference Runnerup | 12 | 4 |
| 1989 | Out of Playoffs | 6 | 10 |
| 1990 | Division Title | 11 | 5 |
| 1991 | Wildcard | 11 | 5 |
Here’s how the Chiefs match up at the start of their run:
| W | L | ||
| 2018 | Conference Runnerup | 12 | 4 |
| 2019 | Super Bowl Champion | 12 | 4 |
| 2020 | Super Bowl Runnerup | 14 | 2 |
| 2021 | Conference Runnerup | 12 | 5 |
| 2022 | Super Bowl Champion | 14 | 3 |
To make things worse after the 2020 season, the defense is aging at the linebacker and safety positions and the offensive line resembles a MASH unit going into the offseason. That’s a ton of uncertainty for a potential dynasty.
I’m not making any dire predictions. And there’s a slight chance that I’m a battered sports fan. But I do know better than to start believing the Chiefs will win another Super Bowl much less three, four or five more. Too much can go wrong in a sport where almost everything has to go right.
UPDATE: A second Super Bowl title- this on a 38-35 win over Philadelphia- has taken some of the bite out of the past two seasons. Defeating the Bengals (a recent nemesis) along the way has reestablished the pecking order in the AFC at least for the short term and wither a reasonable roster structure the Chiefs are poised for a few more deep playoff runs as long as Mahomes, Kelce and Chris Jones are healthy and productive.
As always, uneasy is the head that wears the crown