Super Bowl-winning combo will be leading Chiefs into future

As long as Reid is dialing up plays and Patrick Mahomes is executing them, the Kansas City Chiefs will be in contention to get right back into this spot.

The duo — an innovative play-caller and a young quarterback whose achievements already rival some of the game’s greatest ever — won their second Super Bowl together in the past four seasons when Kansas City beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Sunday.

“As long as Andy Reid is coaching us, we’ll always have a chance,” Mahomes said Monday at a news conference honoring the Super Bowl winning coach and MVP. “I’ll keep the big guy around a couple more years at least and we’ll try to be back at this game as many times as possible.”

Since Mahomes became the starter in Kansas City in 2018, the Chiefs have made it to the AFC championship game every season, the Super Bowl three times and won it twice.

This title might have been even sweeter than the first following the 2019 season as Mahomes overcame a high ankle sprain that limited him in the playoffs and quieted the skeptics who doubted whether he could have the same kind of success after the Chiefs traded away game-breaking wide receiver Tyreek Hill.

But with a strong offensive line that held the Eagles’ vaunted pass rush to no sacks, All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce and a cast of mostly young receivers who stepped up in the Super Bowl, the Chiefs still had the league’s top offense thanks mostly to the combo of Reid and Mahomes.

“It’s hard not to hear that stuff, especially in today’s age and social media and everything like that,” Mahomes said. “You hear how not good we’re going to be. All you can do is prove it on the football field. I’m not a guy that’s going to respond and say stuff back to people. I’m just going to go out there and prove it on the football field. Once you do that, there’s nothing they can really say.”

All that’s left to ask about Mahomes after a week in which he won his second regular-season MVP award and second Super Bowl MVP is where he will eventually rank among the game’s greatest quarterbacks.

Mahomes is already on a pace no one else has set.

He joined Hall of Famer Joe Montana and Tom Brady — considered by many the best quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era — as the only players ever to win multiple MVP awards in the regular season and Super Bowl.

Mahomes did it in his sixth season, while it took Brady 11 years and Montana 12 until they accomplished the feat.

Sunday’s Super Bowl was the third most-watched television show in history, with an estimated 113 million people watching the Kansas City Chiefs rally to defeat the Philadelphia Eagles.

Fox said Monday that the preliminary numbers include the broadcasts on Fox and Fox Deportes as well as streaming on Fox and the NFL’s digital sites.

The figures are via Nielsen’s Fast National data and Adobe Analytics. Final Nielsen data will be available on Tuesday.

Rihanna’s halftime show averaged 118.7 million viewers, making it the second-most watched in Super Bowl history behind Katy Perry’s 2015 performance.

Patrick Mahomes rallied the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory and led a comeback for the sportsbooks.

The 38-35 win over Philadelphia meant the books were winners on the betting line. That line generally favored the Eagles by 1 1/2 points and drew plenty of wagering on the NFC champions.

The victory on the point spread by the sportsbooks offset a loss on the total points, which was 51 1/2 points at many places.

Conrad Dobler, one of the NFL’s top offensive linemen with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1970s, has died. He was 72.

The Cardinals announced Dobler died Monday in Pueblo, Colorado. No cause of death was given.

Dobler played left guard on an offensive line that included Hall of Famer Dan Dierdorf for a St. Louis team that became known as the “Cardiac Cardinals.”

Dobler earned three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances from 1975-77 while playing under Hall of Fame coach Don Coryell. He played for the Cardinals from 1972-77 before moving on to play two seasons with New Orleans and Buffalo.

Quarterback Derek Carr turned down a trade offer from the Las Vegas Raiders to the New Orleans Saints, a person with knowledge of the decision said Sunday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly.

That person said Carr wouldn’t accept a pay cut to help finalize the deal, and the Saints were the only team interested in making a trade with the Raiders.

Carr has a no-trade clause in his contract. Given those circumstances and Wednesday’s deadline for the Raiders to trade or release Carr, it appears Las Vegas will cut the QB.