"Break up the Kansas City Chiefs."
That's what all other 31 teams in the NFL might say when the Chiefs repeat as Super Bowl champions as the league's best team for a second consecutive season.
Sporting News is officially picking the Kansas City to win Super Bowl 55. Although that might seem "chalky," consider no team has won back-to-back Super Bowls going on 16 seasons.
SN is simply correcting the mistake from last season, too, when we had the Chiefs losing to a surprise NFC team (ahem, the Cowboys) in Super Bowl 54. Like the Chiefs did for real in that game, rallying against the 49ers (ahem, a surprise NFC team) in Miami in February, they will beat another team from the mighty NFC West in Super Bowl 55 — the Seahawks.
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The marquee will shine brightly with "Patrick Mahomes vs. Russell Wilson" and call for another roaring finish with everything on the line in Tampa, even if there are none of the extremely loud fans from both proud fan bases allowed to be incredibly close to their favorite teams. But football is a team game, and Kansas City and Seattle go into 2020 with strong teams to support their elite quarterbacks, offensively and defensively. Andy Reid and Pete Carroll are now both coaches who have been there, done that in winning and losing Super Bowls.
The Chiefs, despite their salary-cap concerns, lost very little around Mahomes. They found good replacements for their two starters who opted out because of COVID-19 — running back Damien Williams and left guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif — with rookie Clyde Edwards-Helaire and veteran Kelechi Osemele. Before paying Mahomes unprecedented money, the Chiefs also were able to lock up the dominator of their defense, Chris Jones. Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu will continue the charge in helping him out with big plays.
This is the pretty much the same Chiefs team that rallied around Mahomes and lifted the Lombardi Trophy. Reid also kept both of his coordinators, Eric Bieniemy and Steve Spagnoulo. The champs have rare continuity for the modern free-agency NFL. They didn't just go all in for 2020 — they went all in facilitating Mahomes to shoot for a follow-up season to be just as special.
The Seahawks lost a tight home game to the 49ers in Week 17, and a tough road game to the Packers in the divisional playoffs. With a couple more bounces in a different direction, they probably get to the Super Bowl after the 2019 season as a No. 1 seed.
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Here's seeing to Seattle's unfinished business of winning the NFC for the first time in six years, after reclaiming the West title over San Francisco and Los Angeles for the first time in four years. Wilson is back to having top downfield weapons to deliver in the deep passing game, playing off the pounding running game. Defensively, the Seahawks still have linebacker Bobby Wagner as their anchor in the middle in front of a promising sequel to the "Legion of Boom." Their pass rush is one question, but there's a fair chance Jadeveon Clowney returns to boost that soon.
Wilson is overdue for a third trip to the Super Bowl. Mahomes is right on schedule for a second one, after just falling short of a first in 2018.
Mahomes vs. Wilson will live up to the high-scoring hype with wide receivers and tight ends making plays all over the field, and backs finishing quick drives by their QBs. Reid, 62, and Carroll, then at 69, will use every bit of their experience to bring the necessary exuberance out of their teams.
The Chiefs will prevail with — what else? — a late Mahomes game-winning drive. Look for more points and equal excitement as Chiefs-Seahawks becomes a worthy sequel to Chiefs-49ers.
Mahomes is the magic MVP man once more, living up to being the new needed face of the entire league. It's Chiefs 34, Seahawks 31 in an instant classic. With everything that's happened in the world since the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2020, that winning smile and championship enthusiasm of Mahomes is what we need again early in 2021.
