An NFL three-peat should be impossible. But with Patrick Mahomes there is no such thing

Sound the alarm: The Chiefs have that look again.

The most stunning thing about Kansas City’s Super Bowl victory last season was that it came in what should have been a rebuilding year. Sure, when you’ve got Patrick Mahomes, every season brings championship expectations. But last year, the Chiefs had a lot of that not-quite-good-enough vibe of the mid-dynasty New England Patriots. Their defense was excellent, but the offense had become watered down: Their receivers couldn’t catch; the offensive line struggled with injuries; 34-year-old Travis Kelce was showing inevitable signs of decline.

If ever there was a year to dethrone the Chiefs, this was it. And yet the Chiefs emerged as champions and are now aiming for an unprecedented three-peat.

It’s hard to make too much of a single week. But of all the early storylines—the return of Aaron Rodgers, the debut of Caleb Williams, the Patriots’ valiant effort, Baltimore’s stymied offense—none is as impactful as the idea that the Chiefs’ offense has rediscovered its mojo. Winning with a nail on the head against a Ravens team with a first-year defensive coordinator and traffic cones along the offensive line isn’t a sure sign of a behemoth. But the seeds of things to come were there.

Over the past two seasons, the Chiefs have gone back and forth between a group led by Mahomes and the offense and one that relies more on defense. Two years ago, a mediocre defense was lifted by Mahomes’ once-in-a-lifetime Super Bowl performance. Last year, the defense kept games tight while Mahomes sealed the deal.

This season, both sides of the ball are rising together. What was the league’s youngest defense last season continues to improve, with stars at all three levels. With Aaron Donald retiring, Chris Jones is the league’s most dominant interior tight end—and he’s paired with former undrafted free agent Tershawn Wharton, one of the NFL’s best-kept secrets. Behind them is a malleable, athletic linebacking corps. And behind them is a deep and talented secondary headlined by star corner Trent McDuffie.

As if that wasn’t enough to worry the rest of the league’s contenders, an offense that faltered last season showed newfound momentum against the Ravens. With the addition of first-round pick Xavier Worthy at receiver alongside Rashee Rice, the fireworks have returned to Kansas City.

In the early days of the Mahomes-Andy Reid partnership, the Chiefs were an explosive game waiting to happen. When Mahomes, Kelce and Tyreek Hill were rolling—when the aggressive plays, speedy weapons and off-script creativity were working in harmony—the offense was less about executing football plays and more about waging psychological warfare. At their peak, the Chiefs were smarter, faster and more talented than anyone they faced. But losing Hill forced Mahomes and Andy Reid to adapt, shifting from a bomb-dropping approach to one based more on timing and efficiency, relying on the telepathic connection between Mahomes and Kelce to keep the chains moving and placing greater emphasis on the run game.

That foundation has stuck. But Worthy, thanks to his record breaking speedhas gotten things moving again a bit.

The Chiefs lacked reliable playmakers around Mahomes last year. If Worthy can stay healthy and Rice can remain in the fieldthen the Chiefs have surrounded their quarterback with his best collection of weapons since 2021. Add it all up and it’s not a stretch — even at this early stage — to think this is the best Chiefs team of the Mahomes-Reid era. Only once with Mahomes at quarterback have the Chiefs ranked in the top 10 in DVOA on offense And defense, a measure of a team’s down-to-down efficiency. That was last year, when the Chiefs’ defense finally showed up to the party, but the offense dropped out of the top three for the first time with Mahomes at quarterback.

Winning three in a row will still be incredibly difficult: The Chiefs could be a stronger team this season, but ultimately fall short in the playoffs. After all, no team has won three straight titles since the Super Bowl era began in the 1966 season.

This past summer, Apple TV+ debuted The Dynasty, a look at the rise and fall of the Brady-Belichick Patriots. It laid bare all the problems that can derail a championship: egos, injuries, bad officiating, fumble luck, mental and physical fatigue, the need to maximize every personnel choice given the constraints of the salary cap. It’s hard enough to align all the ingredients for a single season. Aligning all three for three years is almost unimaginable. And that’s before we even get to the single-elimination format of the playoffs: a great team can have a bad day against an average team that has a brilliant day.

But here’s the thing about the Chiefs: there are enough did against them last year. And yet they still ended up with one drive to win the Super Bowl and the ball in Mahomes’ hands — and that was all that mattered.

The AFC’s top echelon remains loaded. The Ravens, Texans, Bills, Bengals, Dolphins and even—don’t laugh—the Jets entered this season with Super Bowl aspirations, and they can all convince themselves they’re on solid ground. But winning has a way of perpetuating itself. Unlike teams that have fallen behind, the Chiefs didn’t panic this past offseason; they continued to refine the margins, retaining their core pieces while addressing their most pressing need at receiver.

For the AFC’s other contenders, it’s a different story. They all face tough questions. How will the Dolphins’ revamped defense fare? Can Josh Allen drag down the under-exposed receiver room? Will Aaron Rodgers be a team-wide contender? bone broth cleanse? Can the Ravens defense match last year’s performance now that defensive guru Mike Macdonald is in Seattle?

The top contenders, aside from the young Texans, are all undergoing some sort of roster or coaching shakeup.

That’s one of the least talked about elements of this Chiefs run. For a dynasty, they’ve suffered relatively little from brain drain. During the Brady-Belichick years, the Patriots had a revolving door of coaches. Franchises across the league cut staff at all levels of the organization in an attempt to import the Patriot Way. Assistant coaches were happy to flee Belichick’s authoritarian style and forge their own paths. Fourteen former assistants left New England for head coaching jobs in the professional or college ranks; countless other lower-level staffers left for positions higher up the coaching food chain. When one coach left in later years, he even took a chef and a couple of secretaries with him.

The Chiefs’ championship run is unique: They keep winning and yet the band has stayed together. Steve Spagnuolo, the league’s best defensive coordinator, didn’t interview for head coaching vacancies during his time in KC – and signed a three-year contract extension this offseason. Andy Heck, one of the league’s most respected offensive line coaches, has been with the Chiefs for Reid’s 11 years as head coach. So has special teams coordinator Dave Toub. The only person who has left is former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. The stars are the same, but so are most of the backup players. How does that bode for coaching continuity:

• Tight ends coach: 11 years

• Head of Analytics: 11 years

• Passing Game Coordinator: Eight Years

• Strength and conditioning coach: eight years

• Linebackers coach: five years

• Coach of the defensive backs: five years

• Coach wide receivers: five years

In a league that’s falling over itself to hand jobs to anyone who’s ever been anywhere near Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan, it’s remarkable how Reid has kept his staff intact. When you combine that cohesion with the best quarterback in the world, it increases the margin for error.

Look at the staff and the additions in the off-season and it’s hard to see where there’s going to be any sort of dip. There are elements of the roster you can criticise – are they strong enough at left tackle? What if Rice misses time? – but for a team hoping to win a third straight title, those are minor criticisms.

And then you have this. According to Pro Football Focus, the Chiefs have the 10th easiest strength of schedule this season, which almost feels unfair for the back-to-back champions. The toughest stretch on that list is their first four games. One of those is already checked off, and based on early showings in Weeks 2 and 3 against Cincinnati and Atlanta, that’s not going to be giving anyone in Kansas City any sleepless nights. Outside of a tricky Week 11 trip to Buffalo and a late-season game against the Texans, it’s hard to find a spot where the Chiefs aren’t heavily favored.

Even the most overwhelming champions experience serious hiccups along the way. But last season was The Chiefs’ hiccup. They hadn’t assembled an Avengers-style roster, and they showed vulnerabilities throughout the regular season—and in the Super Bowl itself. After patching those holes this offseason, it’s hard to see how anyone in the AFC can keep up.

A triple win, in any era, let alone one with a salary cap, should impossible. But Mahomes has already shown that such a thing does not exist with him. Why should we expect anything different this time?