Hall of Fame Perspectives on Chiefs’ Historic Chase, Plus Zack Baun’s Meteoric Rise| 4 Downs

Legacies are about to be cemented in New Orleans in Super Bowl LIX

Super Bowl Sunday promises to be the ultimate battle between legacy and redemption.

Regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s game, Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes will stroll into the Hall of Fame five years after their respective retirements. Their busts will join the likes of Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, Don Shula, and the greatest legends the sport has ever produced, in Canton, Ohio five years after their retirements.

“It’s pretty clear to say that, if the Chiefs win, Mahomes will occupy a singular position in modern football history,” legendary former NFL reporter and former Pro Football Hall of Fame selector Peter King tells me. “Since the birth of the AFL 65 years ago. Chasing Brady is another matter, but no quarterback has had this level of success—reaching the conference title game every season he’s played—early in his career.”

Mahomes’ and Reid’s legacies and how this pair is viewed in the American sporting lexicon could be significantly bolstered by winning an unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi Trophy.

I reached out to some of the privileged few who cast their ballots each year as Pro Football Hall of Fame selectors to get their thoughts on how much winning a third consecutive Super Bowl, the first team to ever accomplish such a feat, would elevate Reid, Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Steve Spagnuolo, and these Chiefs in the pantheon of NFL legends.

“There are three coach/quarterback partnerships that stand above the rest,” King says. “I believe: Paul Brown/Otto Graham, Montana/Bill Walsh, and Mahomes/Andy Reid. Brown, way ahead of his time as a strategist and coach, and Graham combined forces to win seven championships in the AAFC and NFL in their 10 years together. Montana and Walsh won three in a decade and left the cupboard full for Montana to win a fourth the year after Walsh retired.

“What makes the Reid-Mahomes partnership so interesting is they’ve won as the most dominant offense in football, and they’ve won when they’ve had to scratch and claw for every win. Think how explosive they were with Tyreek Hill. Since trading him prior to the 2022 season, they’re 49-11 overall, including 9-0 in the playoffs. And Hill hasn’t won a playoff game in Miami. They win now by the brains of Reid and Matt Nagy and a smart offensive staff that throws changeups instead of just fastballs. To me, that adds to the greatness of the Reid/Mahomes partnership. I hope we see a few more years of it.”

One thing Reid, Mahomes, and the Chiefs lack—something that separates them from the Belichick-Brady Patriots—is even the aura of a scandal.

Meanwhile, the Patriots’ dynasty comes with the accompanying asterisk of Spygate— which Belichick and the Patriots were each fined $500,000 and New England stripped of draft picks for after allegedly filming the Rams ahead of the Super Bowl.

For all of the advantages Reid and Mahomes have had from a scheme and talent standpoint during this run, unlike Brady, Mahomes has never had the defensive signals in advance of a Super Bowl.

But, a formidable opponent and potential roadblock to football immortality, though, awaits these Chiefs in New Orleans.

Next week, the Chiefs face an MVP finalist in Saquon Barkley, the league’s premier defense, and a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who is eager to rewrite his own Super Bowl story for the Eagles.

A win over this franchise embodying the fighting spirit of the city of Philadelphia in almost every sense offers Reid, Mahomes, and company a chance to cement their status among the greatest in NFL history.

“I don’t think there’s any question that a Chiefs win next week puts Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes much closer to the rarified air of the Brady-Belicheck alliance,” Hall of Fame voter and retired former Newsweek columnist Bob Glauber tells me. “The Reid-Mahomes collaboration is just such a perfect blend of offensive coaching genius and a spectacularly smart athletic quarterback.

“Throw in the fact that Mahomes is much younger than Brady was when he won his fourth Super Bowl, if these guys stay together for seven or eight more years — that’s obviously a big if, given the eventual wear and tear on Mahomes and eventual retirement for Reid, you’re talking about the potential of equalling or surpassing the Brady-Belichick Markers.”

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Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

As Glauber points out, Brady had just two Super Bowl rings at age 29, Joe Montana had three, and Terry Bradshaw had only won two by this point in his career.

So, not only is Mahomes vying for the chance to win a historic and unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi, but a fourth ring before the age of 30 which has never before been accomplished.

Hall of Fame voter Jason Cole went a step further than even Glauber, in his assessment of what this accomplishment would mean for these Chiefs.

“I think it’s the greatest accomplishment in team sports,” Cole told me by phone.

Winning this particular Super Bowl may prove to be Kansas City’s most impressive accomplishment to date.

Not only are the Eagles holding opponents to just 17.8 points per game, but they finished the regular season as the NFL’s No. 1 ranked defense surrendering just 278.4 yards per game, the third-fewest yards per game of any team dating back to 2021.

Kansas City, if they win, as Cole points out, would be just the second Super Bowl champion of all time to be outgained on a yards-per-play basis. The other is Brady and Belichick’s 2021 Super Bowl champion Patriots.

“Reid and Mahomes are completely and totally in sync,” Cole says. “With the understanding that they can’t play conventional offense the way that they play, because their offensive line isn’t good enough, so this is a flawed team … And to be able to come back and do that is amazing, and an amazing mindset.

“So, I think in that way a three-peat is the greatest team accomplishment, regardless of sport. Because I think that the injury rate in football makes it almost impossible to keep teams together. I think the mental concentration that it takes to be that good for that long is so hard because I'd imagine you spend a year, you win the Super Bowl, and you wanna take a breath. And, that's what most guys wanna do, they just relax themselves because they've reached that pinnacle. To come back and do it again, and now to do it a third time, I can't imagine the mental focus and what they've gone through.”

These Chiefs made it to New Orleans on the back of 12 one-score victories and the patented MahomesMagic that this franchise has become accustomed to over the past decade.

That’s the level of greatness we’re talking about. My good friend, ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio, who has covered the league for decades, puts it in even starker terms.

"If the Chiefs win Sunday," Paolantonio tells me. "It will establish Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes as the greatest dynasty in NFL history -- an historic three straight Super Bowl titles at a time when the league has never been more competitive and the NFL season has never been more grueling.

"At a time of excessive money available to these NFL clubs, the unprecedented level of player and coaching change and the 17-game schedule, winning three straight Super Bowl titles would be a magnificent feat, something I could never see duplicated. Move over New England, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Green Bay, there would be a new sheriff in town."

If Kansas City emerges victorious, it won’t just be another Super Bowl win—it will be a moment that elevates Reid, Mahomes, and the Chiefs into a class of their own, where only the greatest dynasties in American sports reside.

Inside this column; Zack Baun’s emergence from unheralded defender to Eagles cornerstone player, the best Senior Bowl fits for the Chiefs and Eagles in this year’s NFL Draft, the biggest keys that NFL scouts and coaches say will decide this year’s Super Bowl, and more!

First Down: From Afterthought to All-Pro … How Zack Baun Became the Eagles’ Defensive Star

Zack Baun’s Super Bowl journey is one that Hollywood scriptwriters are certain to sink their teeth into, someday off in the future.

“His season has been incredible to watch,” legendary former Eagles linebacker Seth Joyner tells me, of Baun’s 2024 All-Pro campaign.