Adam Teicher, ESPN Staff WriterFeb 12, 2024, 01:22 PM ET
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Covered Chiefs for 20 seasons for Kansas City Star
Joined ESPN in 2013
LAS VEGAS — Hours after the Kansas City Chiefs became the first team in 20 years to win back-to-back Super Bowls, they started aiming to become the first to win three straight championships.
“It [would be] legendary,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said Monday of a three-peat. “No one’s ever done it, and we knew it’s legendary to win back-to-back. I think eight other teams have done it. We had heard it all week. We had talked to the guys [who had gone back-to-back] about it, and we felt like we had the best opportunity that we had ever had to go out there and do that.
“We’ve got to continue to play our best football. We’ll celebrate these next few weeks, and then we’ll get right back at it.”
Andy Reid called the prospect of winning three straight “pretty neat.” But Reid, ever the football coach, was also looking more at the process of getting there.
“We’ve got a great competition in the AFC West, and we just had some hirings, coaching hirings, and these guys are good football coaches,” Reid said of the additions of Jim Harbaugh with the Los Angeles Chargers and Antonio Pierce as the full-time coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. “So it’s not going to just be easy. That’s not how this thing rolls. We’ll have changeover on our team, which every team has, so you don’t know what’s there. There’s a whole lot of unexpected, and you got to keep battling through it, have a good offseason and then a good training camp, and then that ball’s shaped kind of funny. It’s got to bounce for you in the right direction.
“The thing to do, you don’t really go there when you’re in this thing. You go back to your dark room and the film and the draft coming up and the combine, those things, that’s kind of where you go. You’re not talking three-peat.”
The Chiefs are the fourth franchise to win three Super Bowls in a five-year period, so they’ve already etched a prominent place in NFL history.
“It means a ton,” Mahomes said. “I know how hard these guys work. I know how hard these guys get after it. I know how hard the coaches work. I believe we’re the hardest-working team in the NFL, and for all of that hard work to pay off… That’s something that we always preach is we believe we work for those moments, for those end-of-game moments, and we prepare ourselves for those. To be able to have our stamp on this great NFL history is something that I’ll never take for granted.”
The Chiefs have mostly avoided referring to themselves as a dynasty. But Reid, who just finished his 25th season as an NFL coach and is a student of the league’s history, didn’t argue with the suggestion when it was raised.
“It is history,” he said. “We don’t determine if it’s a dynasty … but I would tell you that it is as fine a group as I’ve been around, and I’ve been around [for 25 seasons and], been very fortunate. We’ve been around some great organizations, good teams, and this group here and organization are tremendous.
“If somebody said dynasty and tagged us on to it, I’d be very proud of that.”
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