The Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefs dynasty is still being written

Kansas City Chiefs 25-22 San Francisco 49ers: Mahomes produced another thrilling game-winning drive in Las Vegas – but the Chiefs are not done yet as they target a historic ‘threepeat’

More than four hours after Super Bowl LVIII had begun, it was still going. Las Vegas played host to only the second overtime in Super Bowl history, ticking into its final minutes and seconds.

Almost everything that had transpired in four gruelling quarters of football was irrelevant now, however consequential it might have felt in the moment. The score at 22-19, Patrick Mahomes had the ball in his hands on his own 25-yard line and his team had to score or the San Francisco 49ers would win the Super Bowl.

At some point in every season, in every sport, it comes down to moments like these.

Binary outcomes where the nuance of San Francisco’s season-long potency on offence and the Kansas City Chiefs’ respective struggles become entirely irrelevant.

Any mistake – a fumble, an interception, a dropped pass – could mean the end.

But, of course, there is nobody on earth whose hands you would rather have the ball in than Mahomes, who had faced a similar situation inside the final two minutes of regulation and driven his team down the field for a game-tying field goal to force overtime.

How much confidence is it humanly possible to have in Mahomes, who now boasts three Super Bowl rings at just 28 years of age and passes the eye test as the greatest quarterback of his generation at the very least – and possibly even more?

Patrick Mahomes throws the game-winning touchdown (Getty)

“How much confidence is there in the world?” asked Mecole Hardman Jr.

How dark is the night? How tall is the sky?

“I guess at this point, I take it for granted,” said Travis Kelce. “I know we’re in every single game I’ve ever played in with him, no matter what the score is, no matter how much time is left, that guy’s got magic in his right arm.”

Chiefs GM Brett Veach, who traded up to draft Mahomes in 2017 when nine teams had passed on him, said he knew when San Francisco didn't score a touchdown with the first possession of overtime that he was about to win the third Super Bowl of his career.

“There was an air of confidence in our box… once they kicked the field goal we said, ‘we’re going to win this thing’ because that’s how good Pat is and that’s how much faith and trust we have in him. You can’t put the ball in 15’s hands because if you do, it’s game over.”

By the end of that 14-play drive, Mahomes would find Hardman in the end zone and the celebrations began, albeit on delay for Hardman who hadn’t fully grasped the enormity of the catch he had just made.

“I blacked out,” he said.

“I had to tell him we had won the Super Bowl,” revealed Mahomes.

Mecole Hardman Jr celebrates his game-winning touchdown (Getty)

In the end, he was far from impeccable but he was inevitable, and now the Mahomes debate has taken an irreversible turn towards all-time greatness.

Even with this win, he has some way to go to catch Tom Brady and his seven Super Bowl rings. But at 28 he is on the right trajectory to get there, and with Andy Reid as his coach, it is difficult to imagine them falling from contention and back to the pack any time soon.

Indeed, Mahomes has been a starting quarterback for six seasons, during which he has won the division every year, reached four Super Bowls and won three. There are several other statistics where he is untouchable, and many others where he pops up in the same elite company over and over; Brady and Joe Montana. This is his level, and the rest of his career will decide where precisely within that level he will one day be considered.

Signs are ominous for everyone outside Kansas City, though.

Before Kelce had even left the field he was talking about a threepeat, a sentiment echoed by Mahomes in his press conference. This is not just a team but a fledgling dynasty and, at this stage, the only debate for them, as with their quarterback, is degrees of greatness.

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his girlfriend, singer Taylor Swift, celebrate (EPA)

“I hope people remember not only the greatness that we have in the field but the way that we’ve done it,” said Mahomes.

“I feel like we enjoy it every single day. We have fun. We play hard. And it’s not always pretty but we just continue to fight to the very end... battling through the adversity that we went through this year, and the guys staying with the process, keeping believing.”

Their Super Bowl performance – at times disjointed, with a sputtering offence kept alive by a tough-tackling defensive unit overseen by Steve Spagnuolo – was in keeping with how the Chiefs have played all year. “It was a microcosm of our season,” observed Mahomes.

By beating San Francisco in completely different ways in two different Super Bowls, the dynasty becomes more like a mythological beast that is impossible to tame. You cut one head off and two more sprout. You trade for a superstar running-back and the Chiefs strip the ball out of his hands on the first possession and stuff him in overtime.

As the celebrating Kansas City locker room gradually became overpowered by the smell of cigar smoke and the Chiefs players began to think about moving the party to the Las Vegas strip, a beaming Mahomes was still doing the rounds, making sure he gave props to as many teammates as possible.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan walks off the field after losing Super Bowl LVIII (USA Today/Reuters)

“The greatest,” said running back Isiah Pacheco in return, pointing at his QB.

“Not yet,” Mahomes responded. It is that attitude, combined with that talent, that justifiably has the rest of the NFL scared.

This is not just his year, this is his decade. And, as the Chiefs eventually began to file out of Allegiant Stadium to enjoy their success deep into the Vegas night, the stadium clock served as a reminder of just how narrow the margins are: 0:03.

The great ones are not immune to fine margins, they simply find a way to come out on the right side of them.

Three seconds from not quite making it but instead, three Super Bowls and a dynasty in motion. The end of the Kansas City Chiefs’ story is not yet written.