The Kansas Chiefs are favored to win Super Bowl LIX and if they do they will become the first team in National Football League history to win three straight Vince Lombardi Trophies. I have a natural instinct to not bet on something happening that has never happened before.
But, this is the Chiefs.
Since Patrick Mahomes took over their quarterbacking duties the Chiefs have had a number of accomplishments that break the mold. Last year, they became only the second team in history to lose at home on opening day and go onto win a Super Bowl. For the record, the only other team that accomplished that rarity was the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who opened at home with a loss to the New Orleans Saints and ended the season with a win over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII.
Last year, the Chiefs lost their season opener at Arrowhead Stadium to the Detroit Lions and ended the year with their second straight Super Bowl triumph, their third such achievement over the past five seasons.
I have two members of my Qoxhi Picks staff that I rely on for handicapping edges. One of them, Paul, has his money on the Chiefs with the claim, “I just think Mahomes makes the difference.”
My other partner in handicapping, Kevin, likes one of the teams that rolled down the stretch last season and gave the San Francisco 49ers all they could handle after blowing out the Dallas Cowboys to open their postseason. That team, the Green Bay Packers, kick off their 2024 campaign on Friday night against the National Football Conference Champions from two years ago, the Philadelphia Eagles.
While the Packers surged down the stretch last year, winning six of eight games to close out their regular season and earn a playoff spot, and then handed the Cowboys an embarrassing loss on their home field, 48-32, the defending NFC Champs faded like a cake in the rain. The Eagles lost five of their final six matchups, all half dozen on the short end of the point spread result. In the process, Philadelphia gave up a promising position to earn home field advantage in the playoffs to not being included among the six NFC teams that advanced to the postseason.
Will the Eagles reignite their recent success, or is the seat Philadelphia Head Coach Nick Sirianni sitting on hot enough to have him be the first head coach fired this year? It could happen if he doesn’t regain the stride that had the Eagles in the playoffs before the 2023 collapse.
As far as a Super Bowl pick goes, I don’t like taking odds on a season long wager less than 10 to 1. The Chiefs, the current favorite, are 4 to 1 to complete their record third straight triumph. Kevin’s Packers choice delivers a solid return of 18 to 1, which by my count has always been in the sweet spot for a Super Bowl prediction of between 12 and 20 to one. My choice, this year, is currently posted at 12 to 1.
Like Kevin, I’m on a team that came into Levi’s Stadium last January and almost eliminated the 49ers before they advanced to the Super Bowl. While the Chiefs and Packers played in the first ever Super Bowl, and both teams have multiple Vince Lombardi Trophies, I like a team this year that has never even played in a Roman Numeral game.
In 2017, the Kansas City Chiefs became only the second team in history to knock off the defending Super Bowl Champion on their home field since the NFL initiated the champ opening the season on Thursday night at home in 2004. That night, the Chiefs routed the New England Patriots, 42-17.
It was a sign of good things to come for Kansas City and it was still before they added Mahomes to their mix.
Last year, the Lions went on the road and knocked off the Chiefs in defense of their Super Bowl title at Arrowhead.
I suggest that too is a sign of good things to come for the road winner.
The Lions head coach, Dan Campbell, appears to have the perfect temperament to take advantage of situations with his game strategy whether they agree or disagree with conventional wisdom. And his players respond big time.
In addition to a Super Bowl caliber coach, a team needs a quarterback capable of taking a team all the way. Jared Goff had guided the Rams to a Super Bowl in his third professional season but had a horrible day in a contest that is still the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history. The Rams thought they had a Super Bowl winning formula but considered Goff a liability in reaching the mountain top. In a huge trade, the Rams shipped a bevy of high draft picks and their starting quarterback to the Lions in exchange for veteran signal caller Matthew Stafford.
The trade got the Rams what they wanted in Stafford’s first season in Los Angeles, a victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
But that trade also got the Lions what they wanted, an influx of blue-chip talent in the draft and a quarterback that I still maintain is good enough to win it all.
And this year, I think he will.
Qoxhi Picks: Detroit Lions (12 to 1) to win Super Bowl LIX