An NFL empire just crumbled — and unless this fatal flaw is fixed, their dynasty is over

The Philadelphia Eagles are Super Bowl champions, while the Kansas City Chiefs are left to reflect on a dominant 15-2 regular season that amounted to very little.

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For the Eagles, the words ‘next season’ won’t come up for at least a few days now. It is a very different story for the Chiefs, who have little else to think about.

Because after all, the thought of coming so close to a historic three-peat and yet saving one of their worst performances of the Andy Reid era for the game that mattered most, will sting.

Here, foxsports.com.au looks at three burning questions to come out of Kansas City’s stunning 40-22 loss.

WILL KELCE RETIRE?

Starting with the biggest question: was that the last time we will see Travis Kelce in the NFL?

Kelce is under contract next season for US$19.8 million (AU$31.5 million) before being slated to hit free agency, but there is now a question over whether the Ohio native even plays on.

Per Bleacher Report insider James Palmer, Kelce became overcome with emotion during a Sunday night (AEDT) speech to teammates, adding to speculation his time in the league may be up.

“I’m told just like last year Travis Kelce was moved to tears during his speech to the team last night at the team hotel,” Palmer wrote on X on Monday.

“He’s an emotional person, and some in the organisation don’t want to admit it, but they do believe this could be his final game.”

Speaking earlier this week, Kelce said: “Where will I be in three years? Oh man, I don’t know. Hopefully still playing football … I love doing this, I love coming into work every day, and I feel like I still (have) a lot of good football left in me, but we’ll see what happens.”

On Kelce retirement speculation, two-time MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes said post-game that his reliable tight end would now take necessary time to make a call.

“I know he still has love for the game. He’ll get time to spend with his family and make that decision on his own. He’ll be welcomed back here with open arms,” Mahomes said after Kansas City’s loss.

“I’ll let Travis make that decision on his own, man. He’s given so much to this team and to the NFL and been such a joy, not only for me to work with but for people to watch. He knows he still has a lot of football left in him. You can see it. He’s done enough to be a gold jacket guy and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.”

Kelce managed just three touchdowns this season, which ranked 81st, while his 823 yards ranked 39th. It was clear he wasn’t the same player with the same yards-after-catch ability this season than he has been in past years.

Either way, Mahomes believes youth will hold the team in good stead, with many players on the roster not used to a losing feeling after a 15-2 regular season record.

“We have a great football team, we still have a young football team, and (for) a lot of these guys it’ll be their first time having a defeat in a season,” Mahomes said.

“(It’s about) ‘how can you get better?’ (and) ‘how can you not be satisfied with just getting here?’, and taking your game to the next level, and that starts with me and the other leaders on this team.

“But it’ll feed through the entire team, and hopefully we can come back next season and put up a better effort.”

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AND IF HE DOES, WHAT DOES KANSAS CITY’S RECEIVING ROOM LOOK LIKE?

Speaking of youth, if there was one bright spot to come out of Kansas City’s loss — even if a majority of the production came in garbage time — it was rookie receiver Xavier Worthy.

Worthy struggled to find his footing at the start of the season and was regularly exposed by press off the line, which was always expected to be an issue for the speedy but skinny receiver out of Texas.

It was only even harder for the Chiefs to properly integrate Worthy into the offence after Mahomes’ top target Rashee Rice went down with a season-ending injury, forcing the rookie to operate as a more consistent option — something which he was not ready for.

But with time and reps, Worthy started to emerge down the stretch of the regular season and the Chiefs found more creative ways to scheme him open and avoid contested catch situations.

Worthy finished Monday’s game with eight catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns and Kansas City can enter the 2025-26 season confident the 21-year-old is more than just a ‘gadget guy’.

Beyond Worthy, question marks surround Rice’s availability both from an injury and disciplinary standpoint as he is facing a suspension under the NFL’s personal conduct policy for his role in a high-speed hit-and-run crash last March.

If Kelce was to retire, Noah Gray had a career year in his fourth season with the Chiefs, setting personal records in receptions (40), receiving yards (437), and touchdowns (5).

Gray has never operated as the number one option at tight end though, while he obviously doesn’t have the same chemistry that Mahomes built with Kelce over the years.

As for established veterans in the receiver room, DeAndre Hopkins, Marquise Brown, Justin Watson and JuJu Smith-Schuster are all free agents heading into the offseason.

Brown’s first season as a Chief failed to hit any heights after he suffered a serious injury in the pre-season which wiped the former Raven out of action until just before the playoffs.

He could still be a deep threat, even at this point of his career, to complement Worthy and free him up to use his speed in horizontal routes while Brown takes the top off of defences.

Watson already played that role in the past for Kansas City as more of a sacrificial X receiver, although Brown at least would command more respect from opposition defences.

Hopkins, meanwhile, also battled injuries but isn’t the same contested catch monster he was in the peak of his career while Smith-Schuster was only brought back after Rice went down injured, so he will likely be moved on.

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CAN THE CHIEFS FIX THEIR FATAL FLAW?

Even when they were winning it was a problem and on Monday, Mahomes the magician couldn’t pull another rabbit out of the hat.

This was flashbacks to Super Bowl LV in all the worst ways.

According to PFF’s initial analysis, Mahomes was pressured on 53.3 per cent of his dropbacks outside of garbage time. That was the second-highest pressure rate in his career.

The highest? Yep, you guessed it — the Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay. After that loss Chiefs general manager Brett Veach shared a private moment with coach Andy Reid.

“I’m never going to let that happen again,” he told Reid at the time. “Never again.”

So, Veach went about building the foundations of an empire which, on Monday, crumbled to the ground in the face of constant pressure from Philadelphia’s fearsome front four.

Pressure that was not brought upon by one single blitz. That’s right, the Eagles did not blitz once across 42 dropbacks, becoming just the fourth defence to do so in the Next Gen Stats era.

It was shocking, and yet at the same time really not all that surprising, the way Kansas City’s offensive line crumbled and left Mahomes exposed.

After all, left tackle had been an issue for the Chiefs since the start of the season, when they initially tried rookie Kingsley Suamataia only to quickly find out that wasn’t going to work.

They then switched to second-year pro Wanya Morris but he didn’t fare much better before finally, the Chiefs looked to have found the answer when they slid All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney out to tackle and had undrafted guard Mike Caliendo enter the line-up.

It worked for a few weeks until it didn’t and in the most important game of the year, Kansas City was left without any answers.

The Chiefs only had to look on the other side of the field to see what a Super Bowl winning offensive line looks like, starting with Australian left tackle Jordan Mailata, who is one of Jeff Stoutland’s greatest success stories.

Even when Mailata went down with a hamstring injury earlier this year, Fred Johnson slid right in and the well-oiled machine that is Philadelphia’s offensive line continued to dominate.

But perhaps Mekhi Becton, the New York Jets’ 2020 first-round draft bust who was unsigned until the Eagles took a shot on him in late April, is the shining example of what makes Philadelphia’s line so effective.

“You look at Mekhi Becton, a guy who was basically trying to re-prove himself coming from the Jets and was having a tough time, who didn’t like football because of his experience in New York and now he’s re-found himself here in Philly,” Chris Franklin, Eagles beat reporter for NJ Advance Media, told foxsports.com.au before the Super Bowl.

“Well, one of the reasons why is the way he has looked good has been the other players in that offensive line room.

“When you have Jordan, when you have Lane (Johnson), when you have Landon Dickerson, those guys all together they gel. It’s crazy because you can put different pieces in here but they’ve all gelled.”

The Chiefs, on the other hand, will have to patch their offensive line back together again.

Now, it is still too early to declare Kansas City’s dynasty over. As long as the Chiefs have No. 15 playing quarterback, they will always be a chance.

This season, in spite of Monday’s game, was proof of that given Mahomes, playing behind a broken offensive line and with an ineffective run game, still guided Kansas City to a 15-1 regular season record (ignoring the loss to Denver where the Chiefs rested all their starters).

But speaking of the run game, even if the Chiefs are able to draft a replacement for Isiah Pacheco, who did not look the same after he returned from a fractured fibula, whoever they have carrying the ball won’t look nearly as effective if the offensive line is not improved.

Only complicating matters, however, is the long list of free agents the Chiefs have entering the summer, headlined by safety Justin Reid and linebacker Nick Bolton.

In Super Bowls, the margins that define teams and games are usually razor-thin. On Monday, they weren’t so much margins as gaping holes the Eagles front four were running through.

Mahomes, who admitted he “didn’t play to my standard” after the game, simply didn’t stand a chance. The same was true in Super Bowl LV.

At Caesar’s Superdome, history repeated. The only hope for Chiefs fans is that the same is true for what now follows.