After the Kansas City Chiefs made history by becoming the first team to host the AFC Championship in the same stadium for three years in a row, they’re set to make more history with a trip to Super Bowl LV after a 38-24 victory over the Buffalo Bills.
The Chiefs are bidding to become the first back-to-back Super Bowl champions since New England in ’03 and ’04 when Tom Brady was under center for the Patriots.
Ironically, the 43-year old Brady will be at quarterback when the Chiefs travel to Tampa Bay. Brady added another page of history by leading the Bucs to Super Bowl LV on their home field, which had never been done before in the history of the Super Bowl era. It will be Brady’s tenth Super Bowl appearance.
The Chiefs defeated the Bucs, 27-14, on Nov. 29. When asked after the game about a possible return to Tampa for Super Bowl LV, quarterback Patrick Mahomes said, “You get a familiarity with the stadium, with the process of going to the hotel, with the city and that’s something that eases your mind.”
It also adds to the intriguing quarterback matchup between Brady and Mahomes. The last time the two quarterbacks played in a game that decided a championship was the 2019 AFC title game when Mahomes was the NFL’s 2018 MVP in his first season as a starter.
Once Mahomes was cleared from the NFL’s concussion protocol on Friday, the question was whether or not Mahomes would be as sharp as he was before the injury against the Cleveland Browns in the AFC Divisional game.
But Kansas City’s first quarter deficit was more attributable to dropped passes and a costly turnover on a punt return rather than any fault of Mahomes.
Mahomes is the first NFL quarterback under the age of 26 to lead a team to two straight Super Bowl appearances. He finished the game with 325 yards passing and 3 touchdowns.
Most importantly, it’s his first Super Bowl appearance since signing a contract worth than $500 million in the off-season, a contract built to keep the core of a championship team together.
