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That's a tough one to bounce back from, but it's not going to be impossible for the Kansas City Chiefs. Their blowout loss at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 59 had to have been hard to stomach — especially with a historic Super Bowl three-peat on the line — but this is a team that does have the pieces to rebound and make another run in 2025.
The sting of the loss takes away from the very fact that Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, head coach Andy Reid, and crew were 60 minutes away from making NFL history. The very fact that they made the Super Bowl this season tells you everything you need to know about that locker room, as this was far from the most talented team of their current dynasty.
Even the fact that they had to scratch and claw their way through most of their games this season but never lost the heart of a champion points to this being a franchise that can get off the mat. That's small consolation when you're in the loser's locker room at the Super Bowl for the first time in three seasons, though, as Mahomes noted after the game.
“It's going to hurt for a while, but how can you respond from it?” Mahomes said after the game via ESPN. “And how can you get better? How can you not be satisfied with just getting here and taking your game to the next level?”
Responding from this loss is now the Chiefs' No. 1 goal. It's hard to win one Super Bowl, let alone two. Now consider the fact that the Chiefs have been to five Super Bowls in the Mahomes era, and they've won three. They're a dynasty, all right, but with NFL immortality so close to their grasp, how do they respond to this absolute shellacking they took from the Eagles?
Patrick Mahomes needs to use the Super Bowl loss as fuel
Everything revolves around the quarterback when you have a superstar like Mahomes, so what the Chiefs end up doing in 2025 and beyond will solely depend on how he's able to move on from this loss. He's an incredible competitor, so the chances are high that he's going to use this loss to fuel the fire.
The strange reality for Kansas City is that Mahomes certainly does have room to improve on the 2024 season, though. His 3,928 yards and 26 touchdowns thrown in the regular season were pedestrian by his standards. The Eagles' defense was electric, but Mahomes' performance in Super Bowl 59 was still awful for a future Hall of Famer.
“These will be the two losses [including the Super Bowl loss to Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers] that will motivate me to be even better the rest of my career because you only get so few of these, and you have to capitalize on these,” Mahomes said after the game. “They hurt probably more than the wins feel good.”
The Chiefs need Travis Kelce for one more season
Travis Kelce is far from the perfect tight end at this stage of his career and his performance in the Super Bowl was even worse than Mahomes'.
He's also 35 years old and arguably distracted by a different lifestyle that has been offered to him by his growing celebrity status. Whether or not he wants to keep up the NFL grind after 12 Hall of Fame seasons is the question now, according to Mahomes.
“He knows he has a lot of football left in him. You can see it, he always makes plays in the biggest moments, but it’s if he wants to put in that grind. It's a grind out there to play 20 games, or whatever it is, and get to a Super Bowl,” Mahomes said via FOX Sports.
Kelce may want to retire and if so, good for him, but if he wants to come back in 2025, the Chiefs need to open him back with open arms.
First, his chemistry with Mahomes is legendary. That's something that can't be discounted as the Chiefs try to bounce back. Second, and perhaps most importantly, this Super Bowl was one of the rare instances of Kelce not stepping up in the big moment.
Kelce has always been a gamer, so even if he only does it a few times for the Chiefs next season, that could make all the difference between making a Super Bowl run and missing the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
Chiefs need to figure out their offensive line
Mahomes was under fire for the duration of Super Bowl 59. Part of that was the fact that the Eagles have built a defense specifically designed to dominate in the trenches, and they've got one of the best defensive coordinators of all time on their sideline in Vic Fangio.
Much of that was Kansas City's protection absolutely falling apart, though, and that's something the Chiefs must address in order to bounce back in 2025.
Mahomes was sacked a career-high six times despite the fact that, per Next Gen stats, the Eagles didn't blitz once.
The Chiefs will have pick No. 31 as the Super Bowl runner-up, and that's a prime-time position to take an offensive lineman who can help return stability in front of Mahomes for years to come.