NEW YORK — The Kansas City Chiefs have every right to call out the haters and doubters. Not many people in the NFL predicted them to win Super Bowl LVII.
“Not one of y’all said the Chiefs were gonna take it home this year,” tight end Travis Kelce said after taking down the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35.
His sentiment isn’t wrong.
The Buffalo Bills were the chalk favorite as AFC and Super Bowl champs before the 2022 season began. The Chiefs weren’t even getting picked in many places to win their own division.
While K.C. had traded explosive star receiver Tyreek Hill to Miami, the rest of the AFC West seemingly had improved.
The Denver Broncos had traded for Russell Wilson. The Las Vegas Raiders had picked up Davante Adams and Chandler Jones. The Los Angeles Chargers had Justin Herbert.
It wasn’t wrong to doubt that the Chiefs would win the whole thing, even with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.
They started four rookies in Super Bowl LVII, four more players in their second NFL seasons. And their fourth-quarter gamebreaker, ex-Giants wideout Kadarius Toney, was also in Year 2.
“This is what a rebuilding year looks like, right here,” Chiefs GM Brett Veach boasted at Wednesday’s parade.
That said, claiming this was called a “rebuilding” year is pushing it towards some revisionist history for one of the top-five Super Bowl preseason favorites. It also wouldn’t hurt the Chiefs to be more gracious as victors than they have been the past week.
Wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster went way too far with his “Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody” tweet that mocked Eagles corner James Bradberry for his late and costly holding penalty on the Kansas City pass-catcher.
Smith-Schuster tweeted a meme that read: “I’ll hold you when it matters most” with Bradberry’s photo.
Compare it to Bradberry’s graciousness in the losing locker room in Phoenix, when he was thanked for taking the time to talk at such a difficult time.
“Of course,” he told the New York Daily News. “That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was right to lash out and defend his teammate.
“First off congratulations,” Brown wrote. “Y’all deserve it .This is lame. You was on the way out the league before mahomes resurrected your career on your 1 year deal Tik-Tok boy . He admitted that he grabbed you but don’t act like your like that or ever was. But congratulations again!”
Brown is right. And be sure: players around the league took notice of Smith-Schuster’s disrespectful potshot and of the Chiefs’ incessant boasting about their doubters, including Mahomes feeding into the “rebuilding” trash talk.
They are not acting like they’ve been there before.
The one refreshing and glaring exception was Mahomes’ extremely gracious postgame comment in crediting Eagles QB Jalen Hurts with an all-time performance in Philly’s loss.
It was a reminder that the league is in good hands with Mahomes as its face.
“If there [were] any doubters left, there shouldn’t be now,” Mahomes said of Hurts. “That was a special performance. I don’t want it to get lost in the loss that they had. Make sure you appreciate that when you look back on this game.”
Around the league
The only way Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy’s lateral move to the Washington Commanders makes any sense is if Bieniemy believes that there is a chance he could be promoted to the head coaching post if Ron Rivera, who is on the hot seat, gets jettisoned by the club’s eventual new ownership. It could just be that Bieniemy thinks calling his own plays and running his own offense will help him get out from under Andy Reid’s shadow to earn him a head coaching post. But there is too much for Bieniemy to lose if the bottom falls out in his first season as OC with a Commanders team that presently has Sam Howell at quarterback. It only adds up if Bieniemy thinks that the support of Rivera and team president Jason Wright might earn him a promotion under the new ownership — whether it’s Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or 76ers/Devils owner Josh Harris — if Rivera and D coordinator Jack Del Rio are shown the door but the offense shows some promise in 2023. …
Chiefs inside linebacker Nick Bolton turned in one of the most impressive individual performances in Super Bowl LVII despite his defense surrendering 35 points. The second-year, second-round pick out of Missouri led Kansas City with nine tackles. He hassled Hurts into the fumble Bolton returned for a TD in the first half, and Bolton returned a second fumble by Eagles RB Miles Sanders for a TD until the play was overturned as incomplete. Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata said the fumble wasn’t on Hurts. It was “on the offensive line” and “not really Jalen” because “there was somebody that we had to account for and ended up making a great play.” No doubt Giants DC Wink Martindale — and every defensive coordinator — would love to have a player like Bolton in the center of their defense next fall. …
Veach, the Chiefs GM, said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that the Giants and Chiefs were talking about a Kadarius Toney trade as far back as “the spring,” confirming The News’ initial report from the spring of 2022. …
The NFL combine is suddenly right around the corner the week of Feb. 26 from Indianapolis. The 18-week NFL schedule and Feb. 12 Super Bowl means barely any gap between the season and NFL draft/free agent season.
They said it
“I ain’t talkin’. We lost.” — Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson after Super Bowl LVII
