Why the Chiefs are the new Patriots … and how they could dominate the next decade
Credit to Author: Jeremy Fowler| Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 08:19:38 EST
Domonique Foxworth, Jeff Saturday and Dan Graziano discuss the likelihood of the Kansas City Chiefs finishing the regular season undefeated. (1:42)
PATRICK MAHOMES SAT across from Tom Brady and stared into the face of his future. Their one-on-one interview for Fox’s Sunday NFL show took place within the strange setting of a hotel balcony — Brady wasn’t allowed in the pregame production meeting for Week 7’s Chiefs-49ers matchup because he’s a minority owner of the Raiders — but the common ground they shared was undeniable.
Brady sat in the 29-year-old Mahomes’ chair (so to speak) 18 years ago, during the 2006 season. Like Mahomes, he had already won three Super Bowls by that stage. The NFL shorthand had established him as an all-timer at a relatively young age. The direction Brady’s next decade would take was uncertain, but it would have been fair to say he had little to prove. It also would have been fair to say his New England Patriots had high expectations for what could still be accomplished — and they met them. Brady would play 14 more seasons in New England, winning three more Super Bowls, going to 11 Pro Bowls and earning first-team All-Pro honors three more times.
Mahomes turned 29 on Sept. 17, seven months after he won his third Super Bowl. His Chiefs are 7-0 in the final season of his 20s. The possibilities for the next decade of his career are enticing if you’re the Chiefs, concerning if you’re the rest of the league. And while the presence of Mahomes is as galvanizing as Brady’s was, continuing to win big is going to require not only a generational quarterback but also the stability of a well-run organization to facilitate his strengths.
Brady needed the ecosystem around him to function at a high level, and it did so for a long period. In interviews with industry sources throughout the NFL, the similarities noted between Brady’s Patriots and Mahomes’ Chiefs are many. Those sources also noted that the league is different than it was in 2006 and highlighted the many ways the ecosystem that can produce an ultrarare, multidecade NFL dynasty is fragile. Kansas City does not have the league’s deepest resources and has a reputation for being cautious in how it uses them. Andy Reid, its 66-year-old head coach and organizational architect, has an uncertain retirement timetable.
But all agree the Chiefs are set up for greatness, perhaps on an unprecedented scale. Mahomes and Brady know it, too.
“It gives me something to chase,” Mahomes told Brady on that balcony, referencing the latter’s seven Super Bowl rings and numerous accolades. “It’s going to be hard to get there, but I’ll do my best trying to get there.”
THE CHIEFS ARE better positioned for success than any other team in the NFL, and there are three reasons why:
Mahomes just turned 29.
His contract doesn’t expire until after the 2031 season.
That contract is tied for 12th in per-year money average, thanks in part to a ballooning NFL quarterback market that has increased 33% in four years.
Like Brady’s before him, Mahomes’ contract can help the team build a supporting cast.
“It’s a gift,” former Philadelphia Eagles president Joe Banner said. “Having the most important player under contract for the long term and planning around that is a massive advantage.”
Mahomes’ 10-year, $450 million deal with Kansas City, signed after his third NFL season, is not only central to the franchise’s long-term strategy but also is unique in nature due to its length and total value. Most extensions for star quarterbacks are four or five years, with players opting to stay a step closer to free agency and circumvent team control over non-guaranteed years. The last player to sign a 10-year deal before Mahomes was Michael Vick in 2004. The flip side is that Mahomes leads the NFL in total contract value by a large margin. Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence is the next highest at $275 million.
“None of it works if you don’t have a really good QB, which is why teams are willing to pay the premium to secure it,” an NFC executive said. “But what shows in what Kansas City is dealing with is that both sides are working with each other to stay together and remain nimble. He’s clearly willing to work with them. If you have a top-paid quarterback and they take a big chunk of this cap, you are having to figure out which three or four or five guys are at the top, then a big gap. The Chiefs can work the middle class a little bit more than others.”
While Brady opted for shorter-term deals than Mahomes, his pay was consistently below that of his peers, failing to crack the top 10 in per-year contractual average from 2013 to 2019, his final seven years with the Patriots. (He did rank in the top three in 2011-12.) That helped New England put a championship roster around Brady during that stretch, when the Patriots reached four Super Bowls and won three.
The advantage Brady held over the years is that he could leave when his shorter-term contract expired. And he eventually did, winning a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay after playing out a final one-year deal in New England in 2019.
Meanwhile, when Mahomes signed his deal in 2020, some around the league wondered whether the lengthy pact would become obsolete due to mushrooming salaries leaguewide, rising salary caps and the escalating importance of the position.
Four years later, those questions have not entirely disappeared — nine quarterbacks have surpassed the $50 million-per-year mark since Mahomes reupped.
What the Chiefs do, however, to bring Mahomes closer to the top of the market before his contract is set to expire is crucial. Kansas City reworked his deal in 2023, upping his pay to $59.35 million that year, second in the NFL behind Lamar Jackson. His total payout from 2023 to 2026 will be $211.85 million, tops in the NFL and slightly ahead of Jackson ($207.25 million), who signed an extension in 2023. The scale drops substantially in the final years, which the Chiefs must address, but the sides plan to revisit the deal no later than after the 2026 season.
Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt remembers a 10-year extension feeling like “a very long time” when general manager Brett Veach first pitched it to him after the 2019 season, but Mahomes’ special qualities were obvious, and the quarterback seemed excited about staying in Kansas City for the balance of his career under a deal that gave the team flexibility to address other positional needs annually.
“Patrick is about winning,” Hunt said in regard to Mahomes’ contract. “That’s one of his greatest qualities. It’s not about him but about the football team and what he can do to help us win championships. When we went into the contract in 2020, we knew we were going to have to adjust it. And we did that a year ago. We brought up his current compensation so he was in line with the newer quarterback deals. That was certainly part of the deal from the beginning.”
It’s not as if the Chiefs didn’t take on any risk. If Mahomes were to struggle or get hurt, they would be saddled with massive cap issues that would be a hurdle in building a competitive team. Mahomes’ dead cap hits over the next two years are $113.6 million and $77.8 million.
But for now, Mahomes is only growing in stature, on a trajectory similar to Brady’s. That reality raises the stakes for the brain trust charged with assembling a team around the star.
THIRTEEN YEARS INTO Reid’s tenure as coach, Kansas City has a clear operational structure that is the envy of teams marred by dysfunction.
In contrast to the way New England operated during the Bill Belichick era, it’s a setup that has seen Reid relinquish some control. Despite any revisionist history that Belichick attempted to spin during his failed search for a coaching job this past offseason, he called all the personnel shots with the Patriots.
Reid and Veach, a former Eagles scout during Reid’s tenure who came with him to Kansas City and took over as general manager in 2017, are considered very close. It’s not that Reid took over a depleted roster — the 2012 Chiefs featured six Pro Bowlers. But Reid’s ability to identify talent and maximize it paid off quickly. And Veach knows what Reid wants in players thanks to his long history with the coach. It’s one reason Veach had full license to pursue last week’s DeAndre Hopkins deal. Reid deadpanned “I know nothing” to reporters Wednesday when asked about the Hopkins trade. The deal hadn’t been finalized, but the quote helps emphasize the full trust the Chiefs’ coach has in his general manager.
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Though Reid has final say on the roster, multiple sources say he has given Veach more responsibility in recent years, which Hunt corroborates. Reid is “very comfortable” letting Veach make decisions as he has grown into his role, Hunt said.
The Chiefs have what many teams don’t but the Super Bowl-era Patriots also possessed: one agenda.
“They know who they are, probably more than any other team,” a veteran NFL agent said. “With most teams, what people don’t realize is the disconnect between GM, personnel, scouts, coaching staff. Even good teams don’t always have connection there. The Chiefs do.”
Banner echoes what observers have said about Reid: He values the quarterback and offensive line, despite his love for offensive playmakers. Kansas City’s spending affirms that, with $66 million of its 2024 cap attributed to the offensive line. It has six players making at least $15 million per year, and three of them — Joe Thuney, Jawaan Taylor and Creed Humphrey — are along the line, which also features guard Trey Smith, who will thrive in 2025 free agency unless the Chiefs use the franchise tag on him. All of these players were signed after a Kansas City offensive line, featuring several late-round or undrafted linemen, was exposed in a Super Bowl LV loss to Tampa Bay.
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Hunt employs Veach to consider the Chiefs’ two- to three-year roster future, while the owner’s job is to look five years out and beyond. That has led to low-cost rentals or draft picks at key positions. Journeymen such as Darrel Williams and Damian Williams have led the team in rushing during the Mahomes era. Save for defensive tackle Chris Jones (who signed a record-breaking deal in March) and safety Justin Reid, no Chiefs defender ranks inside the top 25 of his position in per-year earnings. And when injuries mount, the Chiefs often turn to retreads. Kareem Hunt, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman are thriving in their second chances with Kansas City.
This was a blueprint partially drawn by New England, which used a variety of low-cost running backs over the years and, save for Randy Moss and Rob Gronkowski, rarely relied on big-money names at skill positions. As one NFC executive pointed out, Patriots owner Robert Kraft was willing to spend but often didn’t need to because Belichick could maximize young and cheap talent. That worked for a long time … until the Patriots missed on too many draft picks, namely wide receivers. That hasn’t happened to the Chiefs. Not many teams draft better than Kansas City, which has 2021-23 classes that have produced 11 starters and other key contributors out of 23 total picks despite established talent already entrenched throughout the roster.
“You’re just not going to be able to sign everybody,” Clark Hunt said. “I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is. Each year you’re going to have to make the tough decisions to let some of those players go so you can keep the rest. Therefore, it becomes very important to draft well. There’s no way to stay anywhere near the top unless you’re drafting really well.”
THE CHIEFS’ DECISION to trade Tyreek Hill to Miami in March 2022 sent shock waves through the NFL. Banner was not surprised.
The longtime Eagles president, working in lockstep with Reid over more than a decade, drew from what he considers Reid’s biggest strength as a coach: foresight.
“Andy has always approached everything with a long-term perspective,” Banner said. “He’s always making decisions that support two to three years down the road. It’s hard to get coaches to think about anything other than the immediate future, but Andy has the ability to do both, prioritizing the decisions that matter most.”
That leads to a hallmark under the current Chiefs’ regime, the willingness to move on from marquee players before their contracts restrict the salary cap. As one team source put it, the ability to “eliminate emotional ties” and make sound decisions has been a critical component of Kansas City’s success.
Hill and current Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed are among the stars who helped the Chiefs win a championship before they were unceremoniously traded.
“You can’t keep everyone,” Hunt said. “I think that’s true of any NFL team, but particularly one that’s having a lot of success.”
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A certain ruthlessness in personnel decisions was also a trademark of the Belichick-era Patriots.
Belichick cut popular safety Lawyer Milloy when he wouldn’t take a pay reduction, traded future Hall of Fame defensive end Richard Seymour on the eve of the 2009 season, dealt Super Bowl MVP wide receiver Deion Branch and cornerback Stephon Gilmore during the season when they couldn’t come to contract terms with the team, and allowed All-Pro guard Logan Mankins to hold out into November without giving him a new deal (years later, the Pats would trade him in a late August move). Perhaps most famously, Belichick was reportedly ready to move on from Brady in favor of younger Jimmy Garoppolo, which was a source of his ultimately untenable friction with Kraft.
New England’s moves sometimes shocked those inside the building. One source with direct knowledge of the Patriots’ and Chiefs’ runs said trades or releases out of New England would sometimes hit the media before the team knew. The 2014 Mankins trade, in particular, rocked the entire team. The Chiefs’ moves are often less surprising, the source said, because of the team’s belief in clear internal communication.
As a former league executive, Michael Huyghue has seen the Chiefs follow the blueprint of the great Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers teams before them: walking away from beloved players when they can be replaced in the draft.
Huyghue represented Sneed, whom the Chiefs franchise-tagged, then traded to the Titans this offseason. The Chiefs didn’t want to pay him top-of-market money, despite the universal respect he had won in the locker room, and Sneed had no interest in playing on the tag. So, the Chiefs said goodbye in exchange for a third-round pick.
“The mistake most of the teams make is they cling to their stars, and they do it at the expense of developing young players,” Huyghue said. “When you have effective drafts, you’re not beholden to your best players and the financial demands.”
When you go this route, however, it can play into a reputation that has plagued the Chiefs in league circles, even as they’ve built a dynasty with no foreseeable endpoint: They’re cheap.
TO BE SURE, the Chiefs are not known as major spenders within player, coaching and scouting circles.
“They are a bit of a penny-pincher organization,” a veteran NFL agent said.
While Huyghue wouldn’t go that far, he recognizes that the Chiefs drive value as hard as anyone, a luxury that championships afford.
“When you win Super Bowls, you feel like you have more leverage than teams that are constantly trying to woo people to their organization,” Huyghue said. “That’s a strategy of theirs that they’ve used to leverage players.”
Multiple agents noted friction from players over the franchise’s haggling over small details in a contract, hanging Mahomes’ 10-year, $450 million deal over negotiations with other players, the relatively bare-bones training camp setup at Missouri Western State University, and the franchise’s poor grades in the annual NFLPA report card on team facilities, training rooms and ownership, among other areas. Players gave Chiefs ownership an F-minus this year, due in part to a lack of investment in facilities and the player experience.
Hunt has stressed publicly that the Chiefs are making significant upgrades to facilities. An NFLPA source said the Chiefs have acknowledged they need improvements, without stating that the NFLPA survey might have influenced change.
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The penny-pinching label reaches different levels of the organization, similar to the Patriots’ situation. Multiple coaching sources with knowledge of the Chiefs’ and Patriots’ hiring practices say they would not rank highly among 32 teams in coaching and executive pay. Under Belichick, New England was known to hire coaches recently fired by other teams, pro or college, who tend to be cheaper as their former employer still pays them.
On coaching pay, one of the sources said the Chiefs “are improving in that area but are not at an elite level.” Another coaching source considers Kansas City’s pay below average but said the allure of rings, playoff bonuses and a positive work environment helps offset the scale.
This became a tension point the same week the Chiefs defeated the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game to secure a berth in Super Bowl LVIII earlier this year. Questions about the future of the Chiefs’ decision-making battery had “reached a crescendo,” as one league source said.
Reid, who had two years left on his contract, ranked toward the bottom of the top 10 in coaching pay, according to an NFL coaching industry source, while Veach was considered underpaid based on his market value as a key decision-maker for a perennial contender. Both were headed to their fourth Super Bowl in five years.
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And then the kicker: Two of the highest-paid coaches at that time, the Denver Broncos’ Sean Payton and Los Angeles Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh, who was hired four days before that title game, earned massive deals within the same AFC West division Reid has dominated. The rest of the division has cycled through 15 permanent coaches since Reid got the Chiefs job in 2013, as organizations have been forced to spend to compete.
“That’s why I call him pink-slip Andy,” a league source said. “He fires [opposing] coaches. So it reached a point where something had to get done.”
The Chiefs delivered with a contract that made Reid the highest-paid head coach at around $20 million per year, with Veach and team president Mark Donovan reaching new deals in a joint announcement in April.
Hunt said he “absolutely” feels the pressure of rising expectations that come with championships as it pertains to ancillary items off the field such as adequate pay and facility upgrades.
Several other family-run organizations — the Arizona Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cincinnati Bengals — also earned low marks in similar areas of the NFLPA survey, perhaps reflecting the increasing divergence in resources between the old guard and the private-equity-blessed franchises of the 2024 NFL. The Washington Commanders, Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers are among the newer, bigger-money ownership groups the old guard must compete against.
“When you’re winning, going to a Super Bowl, nobody really picks you apart for those little details,” the veteran agent said. “I think agents and people in the league see it, but the general public wouldn’t see that. They [the Chiefs] don’t get put in that Cincinnati and Arizona group of being cheap. But they are.”
THE KRAFTS AND the Hunts, two venerable football families that have mainly allowed their coaches to run the organization without major interference, have a combined nine championships to show for that strategy this millennium.
Good owners toe the line between participating in big decisions but not meddling, which Kraft and Hunt balance well, according to multiple industry sources.
“To me, they both ask questions, which at times felt like they were pushing back, but actually it gave us more confidence in the decisions we wanted to make,” said Scott Pioli, who has intimate knowledge of both operations as Patriots director of player personnel from 2000 to 2008 and Chiefs general manager from 2009 to 2012. “They didn’t stop us from doing it. It became part of the process.”
Clark Hunt and Robert Kraft took different paths to the top. Hunt was 4 years old when the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV in 1970 under the leadership of his father, Lamar. He became an SMU soccer captain and investment banker, worked his way up the family business hierarchy and navigated lean years as CEO and chairman only to orchestrate a reemergence thanks in part to the best coaching hire of the past two decades. Kraft was the self-made newspaper salesman who made billions in business and bought the Patriots outright in 1994.
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Despite any tensions around coaching salaries or other financial aspects of the team’s stewardship, the Chiefs’ rise to the top of the league has played out amid a climate of collegiality.
Hunt acts as overseer but implicitly trusts his tandem of Reid and Veach, getting involved on “very expensive contracts” but giving Veach the green light on day-to-day personnel matters, he says.
“I feel my role is to hire the best people that I can for the Kansas City Chiefs, give them the resources that they need, set the vision and then let them do their jobs,” Hunt said. “Having said that, I talk to Andy and Brett and our president every week about subjects related to the business, the football team. I’m involved, I know what’s going on, but I really want to let the experts in their respective fields do their best. They have that opportunity if I’m not meddling.”
Hunt said he hasn’t thought to compare notes with Kraft about the challenges that come with a dynasty but acknowledges that both “understand why it’s so hard” due to mounting issues that “make it hard to keep everyone together.” For players, that means increased off-field opportunities or pressure to outperform the previous year. For Hunt, those issues include a stadium dispute with the city that he says he’s trying to shield the football operation from to ensure the focus remains on the field.
This is where Hunt clings to the family-run blueprint that has served the Chiefs, Steelers and others well. As team valuations have grown by billions and private equity firms have entered the fray, Hunt does not see those trends as a disruption to the Chiefs’ process.
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“The great thing is my three siblings and their families are really committed to the business,” Hunt said. “Will things ever change at some point down the road? Who knows. But in the short term, and probably for the next several decades, our family is all-in on the Chiefs.”
Hunt’s demeanor should help. As multiple league executives pointed out, Hunt is understated and doesn’t seek credit, which only strengthens the Chiefs’ operation. While Kraft was known to trust Belichick with nearly all personnel matters, it’s widely believed that the fractured Belichick-Kraft dynamic, despite unparalleled success, played a pivotal role in the demise. Kraft’s alleged interference in the Brady-Garoppolo matter was considered a boiling point.
“Bill never gave Robert enough credit, and Robert wanted too much credit,” a league source said. “Andy and Clark give each other credit.”
Mahomes’ age means Hunt appears to be years from confronting any such drama at quarterback. What might happen if he’s forced to consider a succession plan at head coach is another matter altogether.
WHISPERS FROM CERTAIN league circles persisted in September 2021, when Reid felt ill at the conclusion of a loss to the Chargers and was hospitalized for dehydration. Will Andy be forced to retire?
There was no evidence such a move was being considered by Reid, but the question was being asked. His name sometimes comes up in discussions about the coaching carousel as agents and media try to forecast upcoming openings.
It has become something of a futile exercise. Here Reid sits in 2024, at age 66, with zero signs of slowing. Hunt told ESPN that Reid, who by all accounts is in good health, could “absolutely” be the Chiefs’ coach for another five years.
Reid doesn’t drink or smoke and works on football nearly year-round.
“He certainly seems rejuvenated, I would say, by the success of the team in the last few years and having one of the most special quarterbacks of all time,” Hunt said. “I have no sense that he has any interest in retiring any time soon, which is fantastic.
“But I think any leader needs to be thinking about succession. … Eventually that day will come.”
How the Chiefs — and Reid himself — plan for that moment will send a ripple effect through the NFL.
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Such a process is rarely clean. The Patriots attempted to be proactive, promoting Jerod Mayo to coach-in-waiting before the 2023 season, though the move was believed by many around the league to be driven by Kraft, not Belichick.
Reid has qualified candidates on his own staff. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has more than 40 years of coaching experience, resetting his career after a failed stint as Rams head coach (2009-11) to become one of the game’s premier defensive minds, a catalyst for Reid’s Chiefs run.
Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy’s 34-31 head-coaching record in Chicago has aged reasonably well, and he has helped the Chiefs’ offense thrive since rejoining Reid’s staff in 2022.
Working closely with a championship coach doesn’t guarantee much, though. Just look at the Steelers, who, when replacing Bill Cowher in 2007, eschewed perceived front-runners and in-house candidates Russ Grimm and Ken Whisenhunt for a bright upstart from the Vikings staff named Mike Tomlin.
Reid also has a successful coaching tree, featuring Super Bowl winners such as Baltimore’s John Harbaugh and Jacksonville’s Doug Pederson, and others who have enjoyed a lesser degree of success, including Buffalo’s Sean McDermott.
The challenge will be replacing not only a legendary coach but also the synergy that comes with Mahomes having operated Reid’s system for his entire career. Reid has had minimal turnover on his staff while giving Spagnuolo autonomy over the defense.
While Hunt has final say on the next Chiefs coach, Reid will care about shepherding any coaching transition, Banner says. In Philly, Banner said Reid spoke often behind the scenes about “leaving the organization in good hands” when he was done, and Banner believes Reid has given thought to who he would prefer to succeed him.
“He will have an answer to that question,” Banner said. “Who that is, he might be the only one who knows.”
Luckily for Reid, he won’t have to plan for that just yet. The Chiefs are busy building a dynasty.
Not that everyone is embracing the term.
“I’m staying away from it,” Hunt said of the word. “I think that’s for other people to say. It’s one of those things that are probably best said after the fact. When you can look back and sort of see the totality of what the organization has achieved.”