Patrick Mahomes' bold statement about the Chiefs after Super Bowl LVIII is overwhelmingly true
In the postgame ceremony at Allegiant Stadium, a still fully-uniformed Patrick Mahomes held his third Lombardi Trophy in his hands before delivering an epic line on live television. "Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs," he told Jim Nantz and everyone watching around the world in the most-watched telecast ever. "Just know […]
In the postgame ceremony at Allegiant Stadium, a still fully-uniformed Patrick Mahomes held his third Lombardi Trophy in his hands before delivering an epic line on live television.
"Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs," he told Jim Nantz and everyone watching around the world in the most-watched telecast ever. "Just know that."
Don't confuse his words with arrogance, smugness, or over confidence. Take them for what they really are: Truthful.
Perhaps the most epic aspect of the Chiefs' latest Super Bowl win was precisely that they were road underdogs in the betting world versus the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, and San Francisco 49ers. They beat all of them. It might not have been blowout wins, but they hung around long enough for Mahomes and friends to do their part and get the Ws every single time.
But there's an additional overwhelming reality to Mahomes' message. It's a quality of a dynasty type team, which they now indisputably are: You just get hurt picking against them. And a quick look at the numbers proves it.
- Chiefs are 4-0 straight up as postseason underdogs.
- With Mahomes, the Chiefs are 11-1-1 against the betting spread when they're underdogs.
- With him starting, in those games they're 10-3 straight up.
- Two of those loses took place in 2018.
I remember growing up knowing that if a game was close, then I was picking the Tom Brady-led New England Patriots every time. No matter what.
And that's an overlooked aspect of this trend: The above records are in big part thanks to the fact that when the rare moment comes for them to be underdogs, it's usually by a very, very low spread because we refuse to make them underdogs in the first place. Deep down, we know what's up.
The Chiefs' highest spread as underdogs with Mahomes starting is 4.5 points and that was against the 2018 Pittsburgh Steelers, Pat's first year as a starter in the league. It was a game played in September. Since then, the number didn't reach four points again until this year's AFC Championship Game versus the Baltimore Ravens.
Five of the 13 times they've been underdogs happened before the 2019 season. Another three happened in this year's playoffs. That means, calendar-year wise, between 2019 and 2023, they were underdogs a grand total of five times.
This is all to say, we're uncapable of making them large underdogs because we know what Mahomes said in celebration of another Super Bowl win is a fact more than an opinion: They are never underdogs, even when the sportsbooks claim they are here and there. By now, we just know better.
