In the days before his first Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes was on a practice field with a small group of offensive players and coaches while the rest of the team worked on special teams.

In Mahomes’ early years as an NFL quarterback, the Kansas City Chiefs’ special teams period had become his personal lab — the time he could push the boundaries of what was possible, breaking rules, inventing plays, experimenting with new mechanics. Chiefs coach Andy Reid had a phrase for that way of thinking: “I’m giving you the keys,” he’d say.

At practice before the biggest game of his young career, Mahomes turned the keys and floored the gas. As he sprinted out to his right, he pulled the ball down and went full Magic Johnson, flinging a behind-the-back pass to tight end Travis Kelce. Deland McCullough, the Chiefs’ running backs coach at the time, watched in stunned silence.

“I’m not talking about Travis being 10 yards away,” McCullough said. “Travis might have been 25, 30 yards away.”

It wasn’t the last time Mahomes flirted with a behind-the-back pass. He teased the possibility in interviews and lobbied Reid to let him try it in a game, convinced he could pull it off. Last season, former Chiefs receiver Marcus Kemp was so sure that Mahomes still wanted to attempt a behind-the-back pass that he was hesitant to talk about it.

“I think Pat is still trying to get it in,” Kemp said. “He has been for probably three years now.”

When Mahomes finally pulled it out in the preseason, finding Kelce against the Lions on Aug. 17, the internet did its usual thing. But the most revealing reaction came from Reid, the man who loaned Mahomes the keys years ago.

“I’ve been telling you to do that for a while,” Reid told his quarterback.

The Reid-Mahomes partnership is already one of the most successful in NFL history.

In the six seasons since Mahomes became the full-time starter, no team in the league has won more games or scored more points. There are also the three Super Bowl trophies, the six straight appearances in the AFC Championship game and the prospect this season of the first Super Bowl three-peat, but the relationship is more than results. It is an innovative force more in line with Lennon-McCartney or Wozniak-Jobs, a prolific duo that thrives on creative collaboration.

Reid, the 66-year-old son of a Hollywood set designer, doesn’t want his players to color outside the lines; he wants them to expand the boundaries to somewhere off the page. Mahomes, the 28-year-old son of a major-league pitcher, doesn’t just want to excel at quarterback; he wants to reimagine what the position looks like.

“(Reid) has made this environment around him where he keeps people around who he believes have the same core values,” Kemp said. “I do believe he brought in Pat for that reason.”

“That environment was like, ‘Wow,’” McCullough said. “The juices were always flowing.”

Reid pushed Mahomes to think bigger from their first practices together in 2017. “I want you to stretch the offense,” the coach would tell his quarterback again and again.

That meant taking deep shots. Forcing tight-window throws. Exploring what was possible, even if it meant Mahomes might occasionally fail.

“Let’s see how far we can take it,” Reid would say.

As the two became more comfortable with each other — and as Mahomes displayed rare talent — they fostered a creative energy that allowed them to bring the most out of their individual abilities. Reid was the offensive guru who would try anything, the kind of tinkerer who once put a 350-pound nose tackle at running back and implored his assistants to follow a simple rule: “Don’t Judge.” Mahomes was the quarterback who believed he could pull off anything, a risk-taker who unleashed his first no-look pass during the fourth quarter of a close game in college.

Veteran players in Kansas City began to notice something in the early years.

“That youthful exuberance that Pat has has rubbed off on Coach and gave him some extra life,” said Mitchell Schwartz, a former Chiefs offensive lineman. “Because he didn’t have to be quite so regimented. He had this guy who was able to do what he wanted to do.”

Reid’s willingness to explore allowed Mahomes to tap into the full depth of his unique and often unconventional skills. When Mahomes was backing up Alex Smith in 2017, he ran the scout team. One day, Reid whistled and called over Brad Childress, then the team’s assistant head coach. Reid told Childress to pull out his play sheet and start marking plays: “Play 3, Play 5, Play 6, Play 8 … ”

Reid had just witnessed Mahomes throw at least four no-look passes, bewildering veteran linebacker Justin Houston and the rest of the first-team defense.

“Justin Houston’s reaction — it was unbelievable,” Childress said. “He looked in the flat. He looked at the quarterback. He looked where the ball got completed. He looked at Coach Reid. He looked back at the quarterback. He looked back at the flat. He’s like: ‘What just happened?’”

Reid kept his poker face. Just watch the film of those plays, he told Childress. But Childress had been around long enough to know: Reid was hiding a smile.

Patrick Mahomes confers with Andy Reid before Super Bowl LVIII in February. (Harry How / Getty Images)

When Schwartz played for the Chiefs from 2016 to 2020, the team held a walkthrough practice on Tuesday after they watched film. Players wore regular clothes. No cleats. Pretty casual vibe.

There was one unique feature: Every week, Reid wandered around with a little piece of paper scribbled with new plays even his assistant coaches hadn’t seen before. To players and coaches, Reid looked like a man weaving through a full-sized chess board, pulling receivers into new spots, moving a tight end a few yards this way, trying to visualize the geometry.

It wasn’t a solo process. Reid would hold a notecard up in the huddle, allowing players to, as Kemp said, “figure it out in their mind.” Then they would line up. Usually the play didn’t even have a name.

“He might go through seven or eight things and maybe four of them make the cut,” McCullough said.

The process felt so elemental — as if a play was being invented in real-time — that it demystified the process. Players were empowered to offer their own suggestions and tweaks. It was exactly what Reid wanted.

“That’s where Patrick started to feel comfortable enough to create those plays by himself,” Kemp said. “It was seeing the head man do it and work through it on the field. You didn’t have to have a perfect play that you had to bring to him.”

Under Reid, the Chiefs are famous for mining plays from anywhere: friends, rivals, college games, the 1948 Rose Bowl. Even from insane-seeming ideas during walkthroughs.

“I feel like Coach just kind of observes stuff Pat does during practice having fun and is like, ‘Hmm, that could be pretty cool,’” Schwartz said.

The most outside-the-box collaboration of the Reid-Mahomes era came on Jan. 7, 2023. That was the day the Chiefs ran “Arctic Circle” — otherwise known as the “Circle of Death” — a play that began with a spinning huddle and descended into pure anarchy.

Running back Jerick McKinnon lined up in the shotgun, ran a run-pass option, then flipped the ball to Mahomes, who stopped and threw the ball back across the field to receiver Kadarius Toney, who scampered into the end zone only for the touchdown to be wiped out by a holding penalty.

The plan was pure razzle-dazzle, but the spinning huddle was even weirder. The only people who weren’t fazed were the players on the field.

“We had seen it for pretty much for the entire year in different capacities,” Kemp said.

The play had been born at a series of Saturday walkthroughs, when the Chiefs would run through a list of Hail Marys and end-of-game trick plays. After running many of the same looks for four or five years, the staff started looking for ways to spice it up.

“That’s a time for Pat and the entire offense to get creative,” Kemp said. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s legal or not.”

At some point, someone wondered: What if we all started spinning in a circle before breaking the huddle?

What looked like chaos was actually a finely edited script: Reid took a weird idea and broke it down step by step, one of the hallmarks of his success. “He’ll poke out the details of it so he can teach it over and over and over again,” Kemp said. “He told everybody specifically what direction to turn and when to break and who was going to call it and where the receivers needed to end up and how they needed to do specific things. I think that’s why it worked out: details.”

After several Saturdays of tinkering and perfecting the circle-of-death concept, Reid signed off: Let’s put it in.

Of course, Mahomes has the kind of talent that makes any idea seem like a good one. “Pat is one of those dudes that is really good at a lot of things he does,” Kemp said, “so he’ll do something randomly and it will just click for him or a coach and they’ll find a way to incorporate it.”

When Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018, he started lobbying to throw a shovel pass underhand because he thought it would disguise the play better than a traditional shovel pass. When the timing didn’t work, Reid built a new formation over the course of two or three weeks so it would.

The play became a staple.

Around the same time, Mahomes started making center Austin Reiter practice snaps on the run. It began as another fun practice experiment, but soon enough the quarterback was asking assistant coach Tom Melvin if it was legal, and then he took it to the finishing lab — the special teams period — where he worked on plays with Kelce. All that was left was Reid, who installed a play called “Ferrari Right.”

“Coach Reid knows that fine line where he’s just crazy enough but just safe enough,” said Anthony Gordon, a former Chiefs quarterback.

“It was never a tense environment,” added Matt McGloin, another former quarterback. “It was always fun. It was always exciting. You were always learning, which was incredible. It was always a big collaborative effort.”

One day before the 2018 season, Mahomes and Reid ran through a play sheet for an upcoming preseason game. Mahomes had made one career start, against Denver the previous year, and Reid was in his 20th season as an NFL head coach. But when Mahomes said he didn’t like one of the plays in the game plan, Reid crossed it off.

“That’s the confidence that Andy had in his players,” McGloin said.

Six years later, the partnership thrives.

On the eve of last season’s AFC Championship Game in Baltimore, Mahomes sat in another meeting with Reid as the team’s offensive staff talked through end-of-game plays. If they needed to convert a third-and-long to win the game, Mahomes said he wanted a play that could beat man-to-man coverage and counter the Ravens’ pressure.

The next night, the Chiefs led the Ravens 17-10 with 2:19 left. It was third and 9. Mahomes walked over to the sideline.

“Give me the ball,” he said.

Reid knew the play Mahomes wanted. He handed the keys to Mahomes again.

The Chiefs lined up three receivers to the left, the Ravens showed Cover Zero, and Mahomes found receiver Marques Valdes-Scantling on a deep shot over the middle, sending Kansas City back to the Super Bowl.

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Ryan Kang / Getty Images; David Eulitt / Getty Images)

The Kansas City Chiefs have won back-to-back Super Bowls, so the entire NFL will be looking to knock them off their perch atop the league. What’s surprising, though, is that despite winning two titles in a row, my NFL Projection Model does not see the Chiefs as the favorites to win it all this year. That’s more a testament to the AFC, which is deep with talented teams, making the Chiefs’ march to another conference crown extremely difficult.

Then again, the road won’t be easy for any team. If it were, we wouldn’t be watching.

With that in mind, and the start of the season less than a week away, let’s examine the 10 teams most likely to win the Super Bowl and provide reasons why they will or won’t be the last team standing in February.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

The 49ers still have arguably the best roster in the NFL, with my projection model suggesting they have the best offense and fourth-best defense in the league. Quarterback Brock Purdy is 17-4 as a starter in his young career, and coach Kyle Shanahan is one of the best offensive minds in football. When you have top-five units on both sides of the ball and you’re coming off a second NFC title in three years, it’s not hard to argue for why you’ll win it.

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Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

Contract chaos. Negotiations with star receiver Brandon Aiyuk and All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams spill into the season, and without these two practicing for the majority of the summer, the offense sputters out of the gate and struggles to find a rhythm.

And if the 49ers ultimately deal Aiyuk, that will be a huge blow to the offense despite their investment in the position in the draft. The 49ers employ a rookie contract quarterback, so they have plenty of talent beyond Aiyuk and Williams, but without those two pushing the unit to full strength, it’s hard to envision San Francisco reaching another Super Bowl.

Kansas City Chiefs (11.8%)

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

You know the reasons. It’s hard not to sound like a broken record when talking about this era of the Chiefs, but here goes: They have a generational quarterback in Patrick Mahomes, an all-time great coach in Andy Reid, one of the best assistant coaches in recent memory in defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and a championship-caliber roster. If Mahomes is healthy and under center, it’s hard to see them as an underdog against anyone.

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Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

No team in the Super Bowl era has ever three-peated. It’s incredibly difficult to win the Super Bowl, and despite Mahomes and Co. making it look so easy, the AFC really is stacked this year. One thing I’m worried about is that the Chiefs kind of sleepwalked through the regular season last year. If they have to go on the road in the playoffs again, maybe the defense takes a step back (replacing star CB L’Jarius Sneed won’t be easy) and they trip up in a tough environment like Baltimore or Buffalo.

Can coach Dan Campbell lead the Detroit Lions to the franchise’s first Super Bowl title? (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

The defense becomes respectable, especially in the secondary. Last year, the Lions ranked 24th in EPA/play and 29th against the pass, according to TruMedia. They should have no problem on offense — they’re ranked third by my model — but if they’re going to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, the defense needs to take strides. And since their first two picks in the NFL Draft were both spent on cornerbacks (first-rounder Terrion Arnold and second-rounder Ennis Rakestraw Jr.), I’d say general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell agree.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

The offense becomes stale under Jared Goff, just like it did in Los Angeles. In Year 3 with the Rams, Goff reached the Super Bowl with his EPA/dropback and success rate metrics hitting a peak. In Year 4, his numbers dropped off, and the Rams went from 13 wins to nine. If Goff follows a similar trajectory in his fourth year in Detroit, with an improving division, the Lions could fall short of expectations.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

Coordinator upgrades on both sides of the ball allow the Eagles to reach their full potential. The Eagles were a mess last year, and getting the coordinator hires right could offset losing Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox to retirement. Vic Fangio should be a huge upgrade to a defense that lost its way last year. And the addition of an explosive playmaker in Saquon Barkley should allow new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore to take some of the burden off Jalen Hurts as a runner, which will help keep the quarterback healthy for the entire season en route to the Super Bowl.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

The defense just doesn’t quite put it together. The Eagles’ first three picks in April’s draft were all spent on the defensive side of the ball, and the first two — defensive backs Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean — will be expected to contribute in the secondary. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a pair of inexperienced players. My model has the Eagles defense projected to be a league-average unit as it stands right now, and if the young players in the secondary don’t show up, Philadelphia won’t last long in January.

Baltimore Ravens (6.3%)

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

The defense remains one of the best in the NFL despite losing defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald to the Seattle Seahawks. If Zach Orr can step in and keep things at the standard they were at under Macdonald, this is one of the best teams in football. Orr has been with the Ravens as a player and coach for all but one year of his career, so he will have all the knowledge needed to keep the ship on course. Also worth mentioning: Two-time MVP QB Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry could be the most dangerous backfield duo since the turn of the century, and that ends up being a huge reason for their success.

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Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

Losses on the offensive line are too much to overcome, and the Ravens find themselves struggling to fend off contenders in a deep AFC. Jackson can erase a lot of deficiencies, but replacing three offensive linemen and relying on Ronnie Stanley’s health becomes a roster-building mistake even Jackson can’t overcome. The Ravens had one of the better offensive lines in the league last year, but no offense can reach its goals if it’s struggling in the trenches. If this line fails to come together, so will the Ravens.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

Because the defense improves without Dan Quinn. Though things got stale with Mike Zimmer as a head coach in Minnesota, I still think he is one of the better defensive minds in football. Despite rostering one of the best pass rushers in the league in Micah Parsons, the Cowboys defense always seemed to come up short against great offenses during Quinn’s tenure —  especially against those running the Shanahan/Sean McVay schemes. If Zimmer gets a little more out of this talented unit, the Cowboys offense has enough firepower to take them to their first Super Bowl since 1994.

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Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

Because Dak Prescott can’t overcome negative plays in big games. Listen, Prescott is a good quarterback and I think he’s one of few capable of leading an NFL team to a ring. But he tends to throw interceptions and take sacks at a higher rate than the league’s elite when it matters. Last year (playoffs included), Prescott ranked 13th in sacks plus INT rate at 7.4 percent. Against 2023 playoff teams (eight games), he ranked 26th at 10.3 percent. If Prescott and the Cowboys offense can’t avoid the disaster plays in the big games, they will endure yet another disappointing end to their season.

Buffalo Bills (5.6%)

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

Because Josh Allen is the second-best quarterback in the NFL and lifts a Bills offense that no longer has star wide receiver Stefon Diggs. The Chiefs traded away Tyreek Hill and won back-to-back Super Bowls, and while I don’t think Allen is Mahomes, he’s the next closest thing. The Bills look to be following the Chiefs’ blueprint of keeping the roster healthy for the long term rather than spending too much on one position (Diggs/Hill). If Allen can rise to the occasion like Mahomes has, there is no reason the Bills can’t finish on top in February.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

The defense isn’t deep enough to carry its weight. Linebacker Matt Milano, a vital member of the Bills defense, is going to miss extended time recovering from a torn biceps injury he suffered earlier this month. With Milano in the lineup, my projections have the Bills as a fringe top-10 defense. Without him, they look more like an average unit, as the model is not overly fond of the remaining back seven. Without depth in that area, I’m afraid that hill will be too steep to climb for Buffalo.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

Quarterback Joe Burrow plays a full season. Burrow has been one of the league’s best quarterbacks when healthy, but he’s struggled to stay on the field. The offense has the weapons in place to be one of the best units in the league, and if Burrow is out there, it’s a good bet that unit will be near the top five. Factor in the fourth-place schedule the Bengals will play this season, and there is an easier-than-expected path through the stacked AFC. In fact, Burrow has a chance to lead the Bengals to a first-round bye.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

The defense isn’t championship-caliber. The Bengals ranked 25th in EPA/play on defense last year, so it’s going to take an awful lot to get back into the top 10. My model has them projected to be an average unit entering the season, and that’s likely not good enough considering where the offense is. Burrow is a great quarterback, but I don’t think he’s shown the ability to carry an average defense to a Super Bowl.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

Because coach Matt LaFleur, quarterback Jordan Love and this offense dismantled the Cowboys in the playoffs last year and took the 49ers to the wire in the divisional round. And that was no fluke. Another offseason for Love and the ceiling for the Packers on that side of the ball is as high as anyone’s in the league. If they come close to reaching that ceiling, they have a great shot to go all the way.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

Because while the offense was a top-five unit by EPA/play in the second half of last season, the defense ranked in the bottom 10, and the special teams was the worst unit in football during the same period. Changes have been made at defensive coordinator — Jeff Hafley replaced Joe Barry — and the talent is there, but can it all come together for Green Bay? It’s a tough thing to bet on. Even if the defense is average, combined with horrible special teams play, that’s just too much burden for the offense to carry.

Why they’ll win the Super Bowl

The easy answer here is that Aaron Rodgers plays like an MVP, but I think the more glaring issue is the offensive line, which allowed pressure at the sixth-highest rate last year. The Jets addressed this by upgrading the unit in free agency (Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses, John Simpson) and the draft (Olu Fashanu). Even though Fashanu hasn’t played an NFL snap yet, he’ll serve as crucial depth behind the oft-injured Smith.

If the Jets keep Rodgers upright, all he needs to do is be an above-average quarterback, and the Jets can make a run with their elite defense.

Why they won’t win the Super Bowl

Because having an elite defense year over year is tough. The New England Patriots are the only team to rank in the top five  of EPA/play on defense in each of the past three seasons. And you could argue the quarterback play in the AFC East during the stretch has inflated the Patriots’ ranking. The Jets defense enters the season in the top three, per my model. If the unit were to slide down, even to seventh best, that could too big of a hill to climb for an offense that has uncertainties.

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(Photo illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic;
photos: Lauren Leigh Bacho, Ryan Kang and Ric Tapia: Getty Images) 

Are you middle class? Am I? Is everybody?

In American politics, “middle class” doesn’t just name a particular segment of the population, a demographic group whose votes are necessary to electoral success. It represents an ideal, a moral principle, a set of values and interests that are not particular but universal.

At the Democratic convention, the phrase seemed to pop up in every other speech. Full-throated tributes to the middle class were offered by, among others, a governor who is also the billionaire scion of a hotel empire, an actor who happens to be a son and grandson of Hollywood moguls, and a congresswoman who once worked as a bartender.

And also, of course, by Vice President Kamala Harris, a daughter of an economist and a medical researcher, who was portrayed by speaker after speaker as both a product of the middle class and its champion.

Allegiance to the middle class doesn’t define the left or the right; it transcends such divisions. Political parties are expected to move to the center, and to prioritize the needs of Middle America, which both is and isn’t a geographical designation.

Nearly a century ago, the sociologists Helen Merrell Lynd and Robert Staughton Lynd called their classic study of the American heartland “Middletown.” It was about Muncie, Ind., but there are plenty of actual Middletowns out there. The one in Ohio is Senator JD Vance’s hometown.

The middle is everywhere. Which, when you stop to think about it, is odd, even illogical. The creme may be the best part of the Oreo, but it exists only in relation to the wafers that surround it. If it’s only middle, it isn’t a cookie at all, just a blob of sweet goo.

That may be why politicians seek out the middle so eagerly.

The rest of our culture often goes in the opposite direction. In art, up high is where the masterpieces are; down low is where the fun is.

The middle — the midlist, the middlebrow, the just plain mid — is a dead zone. Average. Ordinary. Common. Median. Mediocre. Meh.

The middle is not good enough to be great, not bad enough to be trash, and thus comes in for a special kind of contempt. Middle of the pack. Middle of the road. Middle seat. Middle school is miserable, and so is middle age. So were the Middle Ages!

Which, as it happens, is when the middle class got started, as a kind of catchall category between the established feudal ranks. There were people who owned the land and people who worked on it, and then there were people who did other things. Across Europe, those merchants, manufacturers and, well, middlemen tended to congregate in market towns. The French word for that kind of place was bourg, and so this class of non-peasants and non-aristocrats came to be called the bourgeoisie.

Everybody hates the bourgeoisie. Maybe not everyone, but you rarely hear “bourgeois” used as a compliment. The word connotes priggish respectability, pomp and pretentiousness, a way of life lacking the elegance and distinction — the class — of the old landed elite. It also referred to the ruling class, the factory owners and capitalists whose historic antagonists were the workers they employed, also known as the proletariat.

That isn’t a word you hear much anymore. Working class — a term favored by some of the speakers at the Republican convention as well as a few Democrats — is now a synonym for middle class, which only heightens the contradiction. The modern-day middle class now somehow includes both sides of the historical class struggle.

The middle is divided against itself — an aspirational ideal and a default setting, a state of equilibrium and a place to get stuck. The center cannot hold.