Here’s the untold secret sauce of the Chiefs’ playoff run to another Super Bowl
The first drive in Baltimore covered 81 yards in 10 plays, so by the time quarterback Patrick Mahomes arrived to the Chiefs’ sideline after KC’s opening-possession touchdown, his voice had already elevated in volume.
“We here!” Mahomes shouted. “We’re (bleeping) here!”
Here, for the first time in Mahomes’ playoff career, actually meant just the opposite.
There.
On the road.
The Chiefs have reached the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five seasons — but their path in these playoffs has been markedly different than the previous trips. Unexpected, even.
They are underdogs, literally in the betting markets the past two weeks and, as of this writing, once more in Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers.
That’s just part of this Chiefs playoff story, but they seemed to work pretty hard to make it their defining story.
I thought.
Turns out, it didn’t require that much work at all — it already was part of their story.
After their win last weekend, I weaved through the Chiefs’ locker room in Baltimore, trying to figure out how a team that has reached six straight AFC Championship Games could make the underdog label a neat fit. Because, candidly, even if literally true, and even with a quarterback motivated by just about anything, they had virtually no experience with it.
Then a conversation with starting linebacker Nick Bolton changed that perspective.
“I think a lot of guys in this locker room have spent their whole lives as underdogs,” Bolton said. “Guys that weren’t highly recruited. Guys that didn’t come out of the draft as high picks.
“Being underdogs, I think we embody that personality, man.”
An interesting thought, but I wanted to put some numbers to it. Anecdotally, which we’ll get to, it sure seems like there’s something to the theory.
The numbers? Even more revealing.
Take a look at the conference championship games from last weekend as a prime example. The Chiefs had one top-20 draft pick play in that game, and I shouldn’t have to tell you who it was: Mahomes was the 10th overall selection in the 2017 NFL Draft.
He is, no doubt, a good name to have on the list.
But the team on the other sideline, the Ravens, played seven top-20 picks. The Lions also played seven. The 49ers played six. (Tip of the cap to Eric Eager from Sumer Sports for help in digging for that data.)
Those three teams are built, in comparatively large part, by players most people expected to be productive.
The Chiefs have built their team on the back of Mahomes, to be sure, but also on supporting players who entered the league with something to prove. It’s an unquantifiable value, but is it not a value nonetheless?
“When you don’t get the respect you deserve,” Bolton said. “you fight for it.”
The Chiefs have become the equivalent of a high-profile Division I college football program operating with just one five-star recruit on the roster. That’s part of the NFL’s designed equilibrium. When you win, you don’t tend to collect top-20 picks. It speaks to their ability to identify middle- and late-round talent int he draft.
It is worth noting, though, that the other three teams that played last weekend — Baltimore, Detroit and San Francisco — collected some of their former top picks via trades and free agency, not just the draft.
Not Kansas City.
Travis Kelce, the Hall of Fame-bound tight end, was a two-star recruit out of high school and third-round pick out of college.
Rookie Rashee Rice, the leading wide receiver for the Chiefs, was a three-star recruit who did not even ponder the NFL until his junior year of college, he told me earlier this month. He’d turn into a late second-round pick.
Isiah Pacheco, the Chiefs’ leading rusher, was a seventh-round selection. Joe Thuney, the All-Pro offensive lineman, was selected in the third round.
Chris Jones, an All-Pro defensive tackle, was a second-rounder. L’Jarius Sneed, a two-star recruit and then a fourth-rounder. Bolton, the leading tackler before he was injured, was offered an opportunity by just one SEC school, a detail he hasn’t forgotten.
That’s not cherry-picking some examples for the point. That’s the quarterback, future Hall of Fame tight end, leading rusher, leading receiver, best offensive lineman, team leader in sacks, team leader in tackles and the most valuable member of the secondary.
Here’s where I’ll drop in that, yes, all of these players did make it to the NFL. They are among the best in the world at what they do. Someone did draft them, eventually, even if later than they anticipated or later than other players at their positions.
But to NFL players, perception can be everything. And the difference between an actual slight and a perceived one is either a fine line or a non-existent one. These are professional athletes who look for edges and forget the details.
Even Mahomes. Especially Mahomes. He all but seeks out signs of disrespect, the owner of a long memory who once even counted on his fingers in Chicago to remind the Bears that being taken 10th was too late. (He wasn’t wrong.)
A slight.
Same as being an underdog a week ago in Baltimore. Or the week before in Buffalo.
That’s their connection, whether you or I deem it comparable.
“It just kind of lit a fire under some guys, including myself,” Mahomes acknowledged, before underscoring that a playoff game tends to be a big game regardless of the Vegas spread.
But did they notice the spread?
“We keep the receipts,” safety Justin Reid said.
Same as always, right?
“We’re built for this,” wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling said.
They were built on that philosophy.
How have the Chiefs so readily embraced the first-time playoff underdog role? They lived it long before as individuals.
It’s a collective fit now.
It’s worth mentioning that the 49ers are listed as a 2-point favorite in the Super Bowl.
The Chiefs? Well, they’re still here.
This story was originally published February 2, 2024 at 5:30 AM.