New England and Tom Brady Were an N.F.L. Dynasty. Is Kansas City Next?

Follow reside protection of Super Bowl LVIII between San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs

LAS VEGAS — Amid the alcohol and elation, Tedy Bruschi sat there and let it soak in. It used to be too quickly to seem forward, so he went again, spending the three-hour flight replaying the season in his thoughts.

It used to be February 2004, the day after the Super Bowl. The aircraft used to be a celebration. The Patriots have been flying again from Houston after their 2d name, a 32-29 win over the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII. An embarrassing 31-0 Week 1 loss preceded an implausible run of dominance: only one defeat over the following 4 months. New England had proven its surprising run two winters prior wasn’t a fluke: this championship, after a 14-2 common season, cemented the Patriots as the highest crew of the brand new century.

Bruschi, a center linebacker and crew captain, hadn’t had a possibility to take into consideration tomorrow, let by myself the following season. Then Roman Phifer walked up and left him no selection.

“If we go back-to-back, that’s three of four,” the guy linebacker informed him. “That means they gotta call us a dynasty.”

Bruschi laughs, reliving the instant 20 years later. For him, that’s when the Patriots’ pursuit become about greater than mere championships. This used to be about changing into probably the most biggest groups that ever performed. “Not even a full day had passed since we walked off the field in Houston and we’re talking about the next one,” Bruschi stated. “Already, it’s, ‘What does it mean if we do it again? Where does that put us?’

“Right now, that’s exactly what the Chiefs are playing for.”

The personalities are other. The schemes. The taste. But the similarities — above all, sustained good fortune in a league designed to advertise parity — are changing into extra placing with every yr, inconceivable to forget about because the Chiefs vie for his or her 3rd name in 5 seasons Sunday in opposition to the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. New England reigned over the league for the easier a part of 20 years. Kansas City has since assumed the mantle, and with it, the icy really feel of inevitability as soon as the playoffs start.

The nice groups — the long-lasting groups — merely refuse to depart. And with each and every name, the objective turns into extra pronounced.

“You hear people say we’re everybody’s Super Bowl,” defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo stated. “Everybody wants to knock off the top dog. We understand that.”

“That’s what makes it that much sweeter when you beat them,” Bruschi stated.

Five years in the past, Tom Brady strolled out of Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium along tight finish Rob Gronkowski after beating the Chiefs within the AFC Championship. It used to be a demise dynasty’s closing nice run. The Patriots would win their 6th and closing Super Bowl 14 days later. Brady posted a video on Instagram appearing him and Gronkowski shrugging and smiling, Diddy’s lyrics bumping within the background. It used to be a message for any person hoping the Patriots have been completed.

We ain’t … goin nowhere …

Two weeks in the past, all over essentially the most not likely playoff run of his profession — a fourth Super Bowl berth clinched after a sloppy common season and a couple of gutsy playoff wins at the highway because the having a bet underdog — Patrick Mahomes posted 4 pictures from the Chiefs’ AFC name recreation win in Baltimore. The music taking part in within the background used to be acquainted.

Among Travis Kelce’s favourite podcasts — except his personal chart-topping display — is Julian Edelman’s “Games with Names.” The Chiefs tight finish listens for what he calls “golden nuggets” from the previous Patriots receiver and three-time Super Bowl champ, the tales and scenes that outlined New England’s 2d run of titles within the 2010s.

Kelce desires to grasp in regards to the moments that constructed the Patriots’ championship DNA, those few listen about or even fewer have been there to witness. Some are reassuring, others invigorating, no longer simply home windows into greatness however reminders of the price of maintaining it. “I’m still learning stuff from those Patriots days,” Kelce stated. “It’s awesome to hear it from their point of view.”

He’s no longer in a position for the comparisons — “(that) was the best football that we’ve ever really seen in the NFL” — however he is aware of what it’s like when each and every crew desires to dethrone you, when each and every season ends with both a championship or a flurry of questions on why you got here up brief.

“The years we haven’t won it since we first won it have felt like the biggest losses of my life,” Kelce says.

It got here up just lately in a dialog between Kelce and his quarterback. The extra the Chiefs win, Mahomes stated, the extra he’s grown to realize what the Patriots did ahead of them. “To come back, be in this many Super Bowls, and to continue to get every team’s best shot and continue to get better and better and win more, it’s tough,” Mahomes stated. “It’s hard.”

Which is why Kelce, 11 years into his profession, Hall of Fame gold jacket confident, has determined a win Sunday would imply greater than the former two. It’s the similar reason why Roman Phifer identified to Bruschi at the Patriots’ aircraft two decades in the past. This championship would transfer the Chiefs into a special dialog.

He is aware of it’s been two complete a long time since a Super Bowl champ effectively defended its name. He additionally is aware of who that crew used to be.

“I want this one more than I’ve ever wanted a Super Bowl in my life,” Kelce admitted this week. “Because that tier of teams that have done it twice (in a row) have gone down in history as some of the greats.”

“Sometimes, I have to pinch myself,” Joe Thuney stated.

The offensive lineman spent the primary 5 years of his profession with Brady in New England, successful two Super Bowl rings. He signed with the Chiefs in loose company after the 2020 season and added some other ring closing wintry weather.

Just because the Patriots’ run ended, the Chiefs’ started. Thuney says gamers in New England may really feel it, particularly after an epic convention championship recreation in 2019. Kansas City used to be coming, and when they arrived, the Chiefs weren’t more likely to stumble again to mediocrity. Not with Mahomes at quarterback and Andy Reid at head trainer.

“It starts at the top, with great leadership like Coach Reid and players like Patrick who are truly about the team,” Thuney stated. “There’s no magic drills or practices. It’s the boring details we pay attention to.”

Under Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ championship run started simply because the Patriots’ dominance waned. (Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)

Both groups got here to outline the eras by which they ruled. At their perfect, the Patriots have been a mirrored image of inscrutable head trainer Bill Belichick — inflexible, unrelenting and stunningly constant. Their good fortune virtually become dull. For two decades, they have been the AFC’s immovable object. So many promising seasons in Indianapolis, Baltimore and Pittsburgh died in Foxboro.

Really, there have been two separate Patriots dynasties related by means of Belichick’s brilliance and Brady’s dependability, Bruschi stated, every netting 3 titles inside of a five-year window. The run within the early 2000s used to be anchored by means of an all-time protection, a unit that allowed Brady time to develop into probably the most recreation’s greats for the second one spate of championships.

“Tom was responsible for one touchdown with his arm in the 2001 playoffs,” Bruschi notes. “We were sort of bringing him along. He had to take care of the football and manage the game. The moment I noticed something special in him was the second half of the Panthers Super Bowl (two years later). From that point, we were off and running.

“Mahomes is sort of going backward. It’s the reverse of what we did. He won the MVP his first year as the starter. He’s been carrying that team on his back like Tom did later in his career in New England.”

Bruschi’s proper. The Chiefs have been sparked by means of their franchise QB’s fast ascent. In the age of wildly talented, cell passers, nobody does it higher than Mahomes. Paired with Reid, a few of the maximum cutting edge play-callers in league historical past, they’ve shaped a tandem the remainder of the NFL has come to envy.

*Brady performed in only one recreation all over his rookie season in 2000 and overlooked the 2008 season because of damage.

Both franchises fought the forces that derail attainable dynasties: accidents, ego, the burden of greater expectancies, the pillaging of gifted assistants, the psychological toll of advancing deep within the playoffs yr after yr, plus a wage cap built to restrict nice groups from proceeding to pay all their nice gamers.

Both needed to make chilly, calculated choices alongside the best way. Belichick famously lower beginning protection Lawyer Milloy after coaching camp in 2003, a wonder transfer that foreshadowed a flurry of high-profile exits all over his tenure — defensive lineman Richard Seymour, linebacker Willie McGinest and receiver Wes Welker amongst them. Two years in the past, the Chiefs traded away the most productive receiver in soccer, Tyreek Hill, and used the capital they won in go back to increase what’s transform a punishing protection.

“There’s a tendency to have a letdown after you’ve won a championship, after you’ve chased something for a long time,” Chiefs proprietor Clark Hunt stated after Kansas City’s first Super Bowl win in 2020. “That will be our challenge.”

They’ve met it, achieving the sport thrice within the 4 years since and including some other Lombardi Trophy to their assortment closing wintry weather. And in a single main distinction from the Patriots, the Chiefs have achieved so unstained by means of on-field scandals. Spygate price New England a first-round select and a $250,000 nice (Belichick used to be additionally in my view fined a league-maximum $500,000). Less than a decade later, Deflategate price Brady a four-game suspension to start out the 2016 season.

The Patriots grew into the NFL’s main villains, loathed by means of enthusiasts around the league. Belichick’s biting information meetings and ominous sideline presence — signature gray hoodie pulled tight, by no means a grin in sight — didn’t assist. The Chiefs had been a departure, buoyed by means of Mahomes’ childlike power, Kelce’s frat bro likability and Reid’s amiable management.

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As the highlight expanded, headlines have come off the sphere, too. Brady and Gisele Bundchen dated and married all over the Patriots’ dynasty; New England saved successful.

This season, the Chiefs have skilled a completely other overwhelm of consideration. Asked this week in regards to the added scrutiny that incorporates courting essentially the most well-known girl on the planet, Kelce smiled.

“I feel like it’s only given me more energy,” he stated.

Bruschi stated his Patriots groups by no means wore down overdue within the season as a result of that’s all they knew. The payoff got here within the little moments below the intense lighting.

He noticed the similar factor in closing month’s AFC Championship Game.

The Ravens have been the convention’s best seed, 4.5-point favorites and taking part in at house, fearful to unseat the champs. Then they melted down.

“One team looked like it had been there before,” Bruschi stated. “That was the Chiefs.”

By recreation’s finish, Baltimore dedicated 8 consequences to Kansas City’s 3. In one telling second, Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy — a former Patriot no much less — headbutted Kelce, who’d been yapping all recreation. A flag flew. Kelce laughed.

“That’s when I was like, ‘This is done,’” Bruschi stated. “These (Ravens) guys, these veterans, were acting out of their minds. Sometimes teams just lose it in big games.”

Standing at the sideline that day, Blaine Gabbert, Mahomes’ backup, noticed the Chiefs take a web page out of Brady’s outdated playbook. Gabbert sat in the back of Brady in Tampa Bay overdue in Brady’s profession and recollects his message to the Bucs ahead of playoff video games: “If you take it to them, the inexperienced teams will break.”

“You saw that very clearly last week in Baltimore, not only in the way they played but the way the fans reacted,” Gabbert stated. “It was a hostile environment and we just smiled as we walked off. We took it to them in their own house. They asked for something, they got it, and that’s the way it goes.”

Bruschi, like such a lot of others, had his doubts in regards to the Chiefs as their lackluster common season got here to a detailed. Then their playoff run reminded him of one thing.

“Here’s the secret: When winning championships is in your blood, you just don’t panic, no matter what’s going on,” he stated. “If your character’s being questioned, if your teammates are struggling, if somebody’s not getting it right, if Travis Kelce’s dropping the football — nothing makes you panic.

“You just let the other teams do that.”

In February 2005, a yr when they gained that Super Bowl in Houston, the Patriots defended their name, beating the Eagles 24-21. They stay the closing staff to move back-to-back. After the birthday celebration, a handful of gamers, together with Brady and Bruschi, flew to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl.

Before the sport, the AFC spaced out participant introductions by means of crew. Those who didn’t make the playoffs went first, then got here the ones bounced within the wild-card around. Then the divisional around. Then the convention championship. Finally, it used to be the Patriots’ flip. The gamers appeared round. The locker room used to be virtually empty. Six of them remained. Brady huddled the crowd in combination.

“You know what guys?” he informed them. “No one’s ever won three in a row.”

“I still had confetti on the bottom of my cleats from the Super Bowl, but that’s how that team thought,” Bruschi stated. “And I guarantee you if the Chiefs get this one on Sunday, they’ll start thinking about the exact same thing.”

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(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; pictures: Katelyn Mulcahy, Tom Pennington, Cooper Neill, Ronald Martinez, Jamie Squire / Getty Images)