{"id":188027,"date":"2024-09-02T17:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T21:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=188027"},"modified":"2024-09-02T16:51:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T20:51:01","slug":"espn-smith-chiefs-super-bowl-mahomes-kelce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/09\/02\/espn-smith-chiefs-super-bowl-mahomes-kelce\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Slams Chiefs&#8217; Chances at History-Making Feat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Kansas City Chiefs are not shy about their desire to reach and win a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/30\/chiefs-jones-dolphins-mcdaniel-contract-extension\/\" target=\"_self\">third consecutive Super Bowl<\/a>. The latter feat would be a first in NFL history. All-Pro defensive lineman Chris Jones has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cRgMUbSEi8A\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spoken openly<\/a> about the team&#8217;s conversations about it behind closed doors. Jones says that it has been a source of motivation for the group. They seemingly beat the odds to win their second Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone is on board with the idea that the Chiefs can secure the Lombardi again.<\/p>\n<h2>Stephen A. Smith Doubts Chiefs\u2019 Potential for NFL\u2019s 1st 3-Peat<\/h2>\n<h3>Stephen A. Smith Taking \u2018Field\u2019 Over Chiefs<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cDid anybody ever think about employing this strategy: as great as Patrick Mahomes is, you know the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ph9JqtqhaGw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">one thing he can&#8217;t do<\/a>? Catch the football for you. We know that from the 44 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/11\/04\/kelce-details-chiefs-successful-mahomes-dolphins\/\" target=\"_self\">drops that Kansas City Chiefs committed<\/a> last year, alright? Maybe if Travis Kelce wasn&#8217;t open all the damn time, maybe if Xavier Worthy isn&#8217;t considered the second coming of Jerry Rice,\u201d ESPN&#8217;s Stephen A. Smith said on &#8220;First Take on September 2.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can look at a Patrick Mahomes, know how <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/21\/chiefs-mahomes-doucette-flag-football-olympics\/\" target=\"_self\">phenomenal and great he is<\/a>. But because you got studs on your crew as well, okay, you can find a way to soften up the other cats around them, okay? Because Kansas City didn&#8217;t look great last year throughout the regular season because cats were dropping passes. And oh by the way, that defense led by Spagnola that has elevated themselves to a top-two defense in the National Football League. There&#8217;s some potent offenses out there that got the potential to expose them. I&#8217;m going with the field because I respect the players the other players in the NFL and their greatness as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u2019s take included chiding of fellow panelists Marcus Spears and Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, who agreed he could not bet against Mahomes and the Chiefs but did note that there is a reason no team has won three straight Super Bowls.<\/p>\n<p>DraftKings listed the Kings as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/nfl\/2025-super-bowl-lix-odds\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">favorites to reach the Super Bowl<\/a> as of August 29.<\/p>\n<h3>Marcus Spears Backs Chiefs for Super Bowl 3-Peat Due to Patrick Mahomes<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cI believe so. Look, I bet against the Chiefs last year,\u201d Spears said. \u201cAnd let me be clear: the Chiefs were not the best team in the NFL last year. They weren&#8217;t they just have a guy that can overcome anything and I&#8217;m going to go ahead and fall into the vein of, \u2018Patrick Mahomes can&#8217;t be stopped unless <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/07\/mahomes-chiefs-offense-brown-worthy-pacheco\/\" target=\"_self\">Patrick Mahomes stops him himself<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mahomes admitted to being <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/02\/08\/chiefs-mahomes-game-manager-49ers-purdy-newton\/\" target=\"_self\">more of a game manager<\/a> in 2023. The season saw the Chiefs deal with several signs of a Super Bowl hangover. Most notable among them was inconsistency, especially at wide receiver.<\/p>\n<p>Jones also missed the entire offseason, preseason and Week 1 with a contract dispute. The two sides only reached a true resolution with a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/30\/chiefs-jones-dolphins-mcdaniel-contract-extension\/\" target=\"_self\">historic contract extension<\/a> this offseason.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs still won, though, and Mahomes was certainly the catalyst offensively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is real evidence that we may be in an era right after Tom Brady that we may see the a better quarterback than him. There&#8217;s a real possibility of that happening now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it&#8217;s a real chance \u2026 that 15 may <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/01\/22\/chiefs-mahomes-reacts-kelce-record-brady-gronkowski\/\" target=\"_self\">supersede all of the greatness<\/a> that we saw from Tom Brady in his run of winning Super Bowls, and doing it in an era where it&#8217;s a lot of really good quarterbacks. Remember when we were used to have these conversations with Tom Brady? It was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2019\/06\/15\/tom-brady-peyton-manning-aging-quarterback\/\" target=\"_self\">him and Peyton Manning<\/a>. It was him and a couple other guys would ascend every once in a while.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere wasn&#8217;t a constant quarterback situation like you have right now with the athleticism, the way the game is changed, the way the game is being played.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have a clear goal in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2879,"featured_media":188028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[7811,1576,339],"class_list":["post-188027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chiefs","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-travis-kelce"],"modified_by":"Josh Buckhalter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}