Boston.com lays down the dynasty gauntlet.

[Direckshun]

https://www.boston.com/sports/new-en...triots-dynasty

Any aspirations the Chiefs have to surpass the Patriots are laughable
The Chiefs? A Patriot-like dynasty? I’d say get back to me on that in 2037, Tyreek.
By Chad Finn, Sports columnist
July 30, 2020

I get the satisfaction the rest of the NFL gets in assuming, if not outright declaring, that the Patriots’ reign is over for good, that the dynasty of all NFL dynasties is finally deceased after almost 20 years.

Hey, maybe it is over. One probably could even say it is, given that Tom Brady is now a Buccaneer and some longtime admirable Patriots, including Dont’a Hightower and Patrick Chung, have opted out of the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Me, I’m never declaring them anything less than a playoff contender so long as Bill Belichick is around. I remember what he did in 2001, and all that he’s achieved since. Last season ended badly, and the degree of difficulty for true Super Bowl contention undoubtedly has increased, unless Cam Newton is about to have a ’99 Randall Cunningham/‘13 Peyton Manning type of renaissance.

I know this, and everyone else who has been following the NFL for the last two decades should, too: Sleep on Belichick’s Patriots at your own peril.

Of course, it’s more fun for many to declare them dead, and certainly more comforting to cast them out of sight and out of mind. I get that. I remember doing it with the dynasty Yankees in 1999 … and 2000 … and 2001, when they finally did lose. There’s not much that’s more human than dreaming about all the ways your tormentor might get his comeuppance.

What annoys me is not that the Patriots are being spoken of in the past tense. It’s the failure to appreciate the magnitude of their achievement, especially from those who know firsthand how brutal and unforgiving the NFL can be on a week-to-week basis, let alone year-to-year.

You’d think they recognize how incredible it was, given how long they’ve waited for it to fade.

Yet here we are, with Tyreek Hill of the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs saying recently on an ESPN program that the Chiefs aren’t just thinking about repeating as champs. They’re thinking about becoming a dynasty and chasing … the Michael Jordan-era Bulls?

“Why not go seven rings?” said Hill last Thursday on ESPN’s “First Take.” “Right now we’re just chasing Jordan, so that’s what we do. So I’m going over five” – the number teammate Chris Jones predicted they would win – “and I’m saying seven.”

Now, Hill is not the first professional athlete to count his championship rings before the games have been played. The silly little pep rally LeBron James and the Heat threw to celebrate his signing in July 2010 (yep, it was that long ago) was so over the top in premature self-congratulations (“not one, not two, not three rings …”) that his two-title tenure there feels like an underachievement. They essentially had their championship parade before they even played together.

Hill and the Chiefs have won one title. One. They stand where the Patriots did in 2002 … with one ring, a brilliant young quarterback (Patrick Mahomes) helming it all, and a bright future that carries at least some uncertainty because everything in the brutal NFL carries uncertainty. They are in an enviable spot, but there is no guarantee that their promise will continue to be fulfilled. One cruel Sunday can change even the best-laid plans.

The Chiefs do know how hard it is to win once, having dealt with a devastating AFC Championship game loss to — hey, look, it was the Patriots — to end the 2018 season before getting over the hump last year. They have no idea how hard it is to win twice, or three times, and coming close to claiming six rings, let alone seven, should be downright unfathomable.


You’d think at the very least Hill and friends would remember to align their bold goals with the achievements of the two-decade dynasty from their own sport.

They are where the Patriots were in 2002. And the run for the Patriots, if it indeed is over, lasted more than another decade and a half beyond that. It amazes me that other NFL franchises don’t marvel at how the Patriots sustained that excellence.

You know what the best-case scenario for the Chiefs is? That Mahomes stays healthy, the majority of their core players stick around (Jones got his own nice payday after Mahomes’s record-setting $503 million deal), general manager Brett Veach drafts extremely well and is unemotional about parting ways with fan favorites … and the Chiefs end up being half of what the Patriots have been.

The Patriots weren’t — aren’t — just a dynasty. They were in essence two dynasties, the first three championships (2001, ’03, and ’04) and the next three (2014, ’16, and ’18) bookending a stretch of excellence (2005-13) in which lousy luck and other forces conspired to remind us just how hard it is to win a single Super Bowl.

Maybe, if everything goes right — and remember, the window is tight with key players like tight end Travis Kelce and safety Tyrann Mathieu becoming free agents after 2021 — the Chiefs could collect a couple more Lombardi Trophies in the next few years, and get into that conversation with the ’90s Cowboys as a three-title dynasty. But that is the absolutely best-case scenario.

There is no evidence that any current NFL franchise has the acumen and discipline to turn over the roster and adjust on the fly like Belichick’s Patriots did time and again as the dynasty evolved and shifted.

There were the early veteran-laden, defensive-focused teams with Richard Seymour and Ty Law and Tedy Bruschi. There was Brady’s evolution into an elite passer and then the best quarterback there has ever been, with favored targets ranging from Troy Brown to Deion Branch to Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Rob Gronkowski, and Julian Edelman. Sure, Brady was the constant, but the Patriots never resisted change, even if it meant saying goodbye to one favorite champion after another.

The Chiefs have a wonderful core now. To become a dynasty of the Patriots magnitude — that is, a dynasty unequaled in the annals of the NFL, for now and most likely as long as this sport lasts — it requires multiple cores.

The Patriots won their first Super Bowl in the 2001 season. Seventeen year later, with the same coach and quarterback and an ever-changing cast of admirable contributors, they won their sixth. It’s unprecedented, and I’m fairly sure it cannot be imitated.

The Chiefs? A Patriot-like dynasty? I’d say get back to me on that in 2037, Tyreek. But you’ll be long gone from the league by then. And I suspect we’ll know the truth about how short your team fell much, much sooner than that.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Ross Tucker says Chiefs aren’t a dynasty...they won’t even repeat as champs.


https://youtu.be/AC1l-HqpbN8

Bold strategy, taking the field, Ross.

Really going out on a limb there buddy.

He wrote an article for The Athletic that was just 7 types of stupid. It was funny, the guy defines a dynasty and then says "There have only been 5 of them in 50 years....the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s...."

Um....Ross, buddy, I'm not sure you just said what you thought you said. Because what you thought you said was 'this never happens' but what you actually said was 'it has happened in every single decade in the modern era'.

Literally every. single. decade. in the last 50 years, bud.

Maybe making former football players analysts isn't the most brilliant approach.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Bold strategy, taking the field, Ross.

Really going out on a limb there buddy.

He wrote an article for The Athletic that was just 7 types of stupid. It was funny, the guy defines a dynasty and then says "There have only been 5 of them in 50 years....the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s...."

Um....Ross, buddy, I'm not sure you just said what you thought you said. Because what you thought you said was 'this never happens' but what you actually said was 'it has happened in every single decade in the modern era'.

Literally every. single. decade. in the last 50 years, bud.

Maybe making former football players analysts isn't the most brilliant approach.

[Mecca]

Ross Tucker was an OT he probably has brain damage.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Look at this -- ****ing goober thought this SUPPORTED his argument...

Becoming a dynasty is even tougher.

For argument’s sake, let’s define a dynasty as three or more titles in a six-year span with the same core group of players. Again, in the Super Bowl era, that feat has only been accomplished five times. The Steelers of the 1970s, the 49ers of the 1980s, the Cowboys of the 1990s and the Patriots of the 2000s and 2010s.

It's like he didn't read it when he was done. Like...how do you write this article and make THIS a key component of it?

[htismaqe]

It's never been done except when it has been done!

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Look at this -- ****ing goober thought this SUPPORTED his argument...



It's like he didn't read it when he was done. Like...how do you write this article and make THIS a key component of it?

It's like it happens 1x per decade, usually with a team that has:

1) An elite QB (and often the BEST QB in the league)
2) A HoF coach
3) A young core controlled for a long period of time that sacrifices top dollar to stay together

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Mecca]

I'm pretty sure a lot of these guys have no desire for the Chiefs to be the next dynasty, they'd rather it be the Cowboys, a "traditional power"

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Bold strategy, taking the field, Ross.

Really going out on a limb there buddy.

He wrote an article for The Athletic that was just 7 types of stupid. It was funny, the guy defines a dynasty and then says "There have only been 5 of them in 50 years....the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s...."

Um....Ross, buddy, I'm not sure you just said what you thought you said. Because what you thought you said was 'this never happens' but what you actually said was 'it has happened in every single decade in the modern era'.

Literally every. single. decade. in the last 50 years, bud.

Maybe making former football players analysts isn't the most brilliant approach.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Mecca

I'm pretty sure a lot of these guys have no desire for the Chiefs to be the next dynasty, they'd rather it be the Cowboys, a "traditional power"

The funny thing is, until Kraft, BB, and Brady, the Patriots were in the same category.

[KChiefs1]

Doug Gottlieb on the Chiefs being a dynasty.


https://youtu.be/St0YNKOoFsQ

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

The funny thing is, until Kraft, BB, and Brady, the Patriots were in the same category.

But that's Boston so it's different.