Home of the Chiefs?

Anyone who watches Football, and the NFL, knows that there's a title given to a team in Dallas known as "America's Team". The simplest way to explain how this happened is from the brilliant marketing of Jerry Jones. We know they have not been America's Team for the last nearly three decades. They haven't been to a Superbowl, much less of a conference Championship since the 1995 season, which ended with their last Superbowl win.

I'm sure many of us would agree that America's Team should be winners! They should be a powerhouse! They should be consistently at the top!

Since then, you could argue the Patriots became America's Team, regardless of who the title is associated with. They were a powerhouse for almost 20 years, and with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, they went to ten Superbowls and won seven. On top of that they are located in New England, where everything started for the U.S. and named the Patriots!? They were deserving of the term America's Team.

In walks Patrick Mahomes after sitting his rookie season behind and damn good QB in Alex Smith who just always seemed to fall short and win the big game. Since Mahomes started from the beginning of the season in 2018 he's been on an absolute tear through the NFL. The first five years starting his seasons have ended with:

2018: AFC Conference Championship lose to eventual Champs, the Brady-led Patriots.

2019: Superbowl Champs

2020: lost the Superbowl to the Bucs

2021: lost AFC Championship to the Bengals

2022: Superbowl Champs

Since Brady retired, it has been correctly, unanimously, agreed upon that Mahomes is the best Quarterback in the league. The Chiefs are America's Team over the last five years.

Is that in danger? It seems that way as of right now. They don't look like the best team in the league, hell, not even in their conference. This team has the most dropped passes (30) in the league. The most egregious, and the one with the most media attention around it is the recent should-have-been game-winning TD pass to Valdez-Scantling in the game against the Eagles. In a one-score game, the WR got behind the defense, the ball hit him in the hands, and he dropped it as he fell into the end zone.

Now, it'll take more than just one non-Conference-Championship-game-appearance year to knock them off the America's Team pedestal, but if these receivers don't improve it's going to continue to be rough. What's interesting is their drop rate was 2.0 last year and to this point, it's 2.7. It doesn't seem like a huge change, BUT they're only four drops away from their total (34) in 2022. We still have 5 weeks left. If it's not fixed, we might see a similar Superbowl win drought the Patriots went through on both sides of the 2010 season.

All that being said I have faith Andy Reid will get everything sorted out. If not in time for this year, they'll be ready to go again next year and the years to follow. With Mahomes as the QB they have a chance every year.