The Kansas City Chiefs have already made history by reaching Super Bowl 59—just not the type they’ve been chasing all season.
Kansas City needs to knock off Philadelphia at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans to become the first team to ever three-peat as Super Bowl champions. But even if the Chiefs lose, they’re now in a category of their own.
Kansas City is the first back-to-back champion to ever reach a third straight Super Bowl, with only three of its eight predecessors even managing to get to the conference championship round. It’s also the first team to reach the Super Bowl five times in six years, with a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Super Bowl 55 in 2021 mixed in between three other total victories.
“It will be awesome I think if we somehow look back at the end of my career if we’re able to go out there and get that three-peat,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said in a news conference when asked if this year’s Super Bowl felt more monumental. “But at the same time, you just treat it as one season and one Super Bowl run, which is always hard to do.”
The perception is that the third straight Super Bowl title should be a little easier for the Chiefs to corral than the first two. They’re favored in the betting market, by 1.5 points, after entering both Super Bowl 57 against the Eagles in 2023 and Super Bowl 58 against the 49ers in 2024 as small underdogs.
Most fans freely admit that, at this point, they can’t pick against Mahomes, the consensus best player in the NFL who’s proven it with three Super Bowl Most Valuable Player trophies.
But don’t tell Mahomes he’s the favorite, as he’s laser-focused on the task at hand and has hinted that this year’s Super Bowl matchup might represent the Chiefs’ toughest one yet.
“We played (the Eagles) in a close Super Bowl a couple years ago but they’ve added players and gotten even better,” Mahomes said. “It will take our best football to win.”
Mahomes had to engineer a 10-point second-half comeback and a game-winning drive in the final minutes for Kansas City to beat Philadelphia 38-35 two years ago. Eagles counterpart Jalen Hurts outplayed Mahomes for most of the game with one of the best individual performances in Super Bowl history.
Hurts tied the Super Bowl record by scoring 20 points, off three rushing touchdowns and a two-point conversion, while also throwing for 304 yards and another touchdown.
And Mahomes is right—the Eagles’ offense is arguably more dynamic this year.
That’s largely because of the free-agent addition of running back Saquon Barkley, who led the league with 2,283 all-purpose yards this regular season.
Barkley, not Hurts, is priced as the Eagles’ most likely Super Bowl Most Valuable Player at +275 (i.e. risking $100 to win $275) behind only Mahomes at +120.
But he’s not the only weapon the Chiefs must contend with. The Eagles have one of the best one-two punches of wide receivers in the league in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, a duo that tore the Chiefs up for a combined 13 catches for 196 yards in the teams’ last Super Bowl meeting.
And tight end Dallas Goedert has actually outpaced both Brown and Smith this postseason as the Eagles’ leading receiver with 15 catches for 188 yards.
The Chiefs have the most imposing forces on both sides of the ball in Mahomes and defensive tackle Chris Jones, a future Hall of Fame disruptor in the middle of the line.
The only other position player who’s been a member of all their recent Super Bowl teams is tight end Travis Kelce, who’s still a gamebreaker but has seen his on-field production go the opposite way of his fame.
The 35-year-old slowed in his 10th NFL season with career lows of 8.5 yards per reception and three touchdowns.
Mahomes, Jones and Kelce remain a legendary and formidable core, but few would characterize Kansas City’s overall roster as more talented than Philadelphia’s.
The NFL, with its salary-cap rules, isn’t designed for one team to stay on top as consistently as the Chiefs have since Mahomes took over seven seasons ago.
Win or lose, Kansas City has secured a dynasty. Super Bowl 58 will determine whether it has any competition as the greatest run ever.
“You think of all the ups and downs and arounds that you went through during the season, the injuries, all those things that have to just happen the right way,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid said of advancing to a third straight Super Bowl. “The margin to win or lose in this league is so small. The parity is unbelievable and that’s the way the commissioner and the owners wanted that so that every city had a chance. … You really have to hit it right.”
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