Today marks day one of the 2024 NFL season. This afternoon, quarterbacks and rookies report to St. Joseph for a grueling summer training camp; the Kansas City Chiefs will begin their quest to become the first three-peat Super Bowl Champion.
It’s been a long and crazy offseason for the Kansas City Chiefs. After winning Super Bowl LVIII, this team is back and ready for the task ahead to accomplish something never done in the NFL. This moment is not lost on the Chiefs nor their leader, Quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Let’s be clear: Mahomes is the best player in the NFL, the leader of his team, the man most responsible for the Chiefs’ resurgence as ‘America’s Team,’ and the moniker of a man who is the face of the NFL.
That’s a lot of pressure and expectations on one man. At the ESPY Awards last week, he won two of the most prestigious honors, but he was home with his family and soon-to-be expanding family. With another child on the way, another training camp, and the drive to become a Three-Peat Super Bowl Champion, Mahomes is maneuvering a life unimaginable.
We talk about Travis Kelce’s incredible year with his relationship with Pop Superstar Taylor Swift, but Mahomes has also had a great year.
In July, he began camp with an underwhelming receiver class. The offense’s focus shifted to a more conservative grind-it-down-the-field approach. Over the season, we saw an offense struggling to make enough plays—even with Mahomes at the wheel.
It took until week sixteen before the offense gelled in a come-from-behind win against the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead. Two weeks later, they began their quest to win back-to-back Super Bowls, winning four straight games against the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, and San Francisco 49ers.
It was an unprecedented run and one for the ages. As a Chiefs fan, with this team’s offensive struggles for most of the season, they still won the Super Bowl. This should remind you of what happens when the most significant living NFL player on the planet plays for your team.
I’ve spent much of the last year praising Mahomes, but I marvel at his ability to accept the challenge every season. He has one goal: to win the Super Bowl. As long as he’s standing tall in the pocket, he has a better than 50/50 chance of doing it every season.
It’s hard to fathom the lousy luck that ran over this franchise for 50 years, and today, we are as charmed as you can get in the modern era of the NFL. With teams designed to defeat the Chiefs and stop them from becoming the best team of all time, they strive for greatness with a standing mark on their backs.
Yet, they embrace that, and Mahomes, who tells his team to be great on every snap, has their attention and that of the other 31 teams that wish they had a man of his talent and drive as their starting quarterback.
Today, he’ll speak to the media and offer insight into his off-season, the highlight, and the announcement that his wife, Brittany, is expecting their third child. Yet, today marks the start of the quest to set a new standard in the NFL that could catapult not only Mahomes but the Chiefs, who could become the most incredible team in the game’s history.
That’s a lot on the shoulders of Mahomes, and let’s be honest, as the quarterback goes, so does the team. If he fails this season, the Chiefs will lose in the postseason, and probably in his mind, because he’s as competitive as it gets, he’ll take the blame if the team fails.
As a Chiefs fan, I pinch myself knowing Mahomes is my quarterback. Yet, I marvel at the drive to be great.
Today, it all begins, and I can’t be more excited about the 2024 Kansas City Chiefs.
