The NFL’s next dynasty: from the Bills to the Eagles to post-imperial chaos

Some believe Kansas City’s reign at the top of the NFL is over after they were thrashed in the Super Bowl. Who will dominate the league next?. NFL fans are spoiled when it comes to dynasties this century. Just as Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots ran out of gas after two decades of dominance, along came the Kansas City Chiefs to replace them. But the manner in which the Eagles destroyed those Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl – and the way in which general manager Howie Roseman has apparently set-up Philadelphia for long-term success – has called Kansas City’s dominance into question. Here are a few candidates for the NFL’s next dynasty.

What they have: Let’s start with the Chiefs, who may not be done quite yet. Yes, the Eagles utterly outplayed them in the Super Bowl, but one game (or one season) is a small sample size. The Chiefs, after all, have head coach Andy Reid, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and Patrick Mahomes. That’s three future Hall of Famers, which is a nice place to start. If Travis Kelce returns for his 13th NFL season, that’s four guys who will eventually have busts in Canton. The Chiefs also have defensive lineman Chris Jones, who is on a Hall of Fame track too. Reid’s team have an unusual knack for pulling the right things out at the right times to win one-score games. That’s enough to put them right back in the running for their sixth Super Bowl appearance in the last seven years, which is just as unprecedented as it sounds.

General manager Brett Veach has done masterful work in teaming with Spagnuolo to create a defense that is top-notch at every level, and it’s young enough to sustain itself over time. Also, 2024 first-round receiver Xavier Worthy started to come on near the end of his inaugural campaign as the deep threat he was supposed to be. What they need: A better and more consistent foundation beyond the Hall of Famers and good fortune. While the Chiefs have plenty going for them, there’s also the matter of an offensive line that has alternated between problematic and horrible over the last couple of seasons. The Eagles didn’t blitz the Chiefs once in that Super Bowl demolition – and still sacked Mahomes six times – a damning indictment of KC’s pass protection. The run game could also use a boost, and there’s the matter of Mahomes’s targets not named Kelce and Worthy – especially if Kelce, who admits he is not the player he once was, decides to move on from football.

In the 2024 season, Mahomes was the NFL’s worst deep passer by any metric you care to choose – he had a completion rate of 29.6%, and a passer rating of 78.7, on throws of 20 or more air yards, and that includes the 158.3 passer rating on deep throws he put together in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl when the Eagles’ defense was in celebration mode. Mahomes had never been remotely as bad a deep passer before, and it’s time for Veach and Reid to get reinforcements to help him out.

They could also use a jump start at edge-rusher, but the offense has most of the problems here. There’s only so much Mahomes can do, and the wear was showing long before what happened in New Orleans on 9 February. What they have: The Super Bowl champions have Saquon Barkley, who set the single-season NFL record for rushing yards (including the postseason) with 2,507. Had the league’s MVP been taken after Super Bowl LIX, Barkley may well have have won it. The Eagles also have the NFL’s best offensive line, and run game coordinator/offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland is starting to look like one of the best assistant coaches… well, ever.

Speaking of legendary assistant coaches, the Eagles have defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who took the players he had and created perhaps the most dominant defensive performance in Super Bowl history. They also have three top-tier targets for Jalen Hurts in AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert. Finally, they have Roseman, who has been the NFL’s best personnel and salary cap guy for a while. This team is locked and loaded from top to bottom, and there shouldn’t be any talk of fluke around this Lombardi Trophy.

What they need: The primary thing the Eagles need is the version of Hurts who turned the Chiefs’ defense out after it loaded up to stop Barkley. Hurts was named Super Bowl MVP with a bravura performance after a regular- and postseason in which things were not as stable in the passing game as they should have been. If the Hurts we saw in his last game is the Hurts we get from now on, stopping Philly from repeating will be exceptionally tough. But Hurts still needs development when it comes to reading the field, and that process may be affected by the loss of offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who is now the New Orleans Saints’ head coach.

What they have: Lamar Jackson, the two-time NFL MVP, who could easily have won the award again in 2024. Jackson’s running ability has always been one of one, and he’s improved exponentially as a pure passer throughout his NFL career. Then there’s Derrick Henry, who set every opposing defense on edge in 2024, because now, they had to deal with Jackson’s known abilities and Henry’s intelligent smashmouth style. Pair that with an outstanding group of pass-catchers in tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, along with receivers Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman, and this offense is built to both grind and bomb opponents into submission. Unless Henry starts to fade after a career full of workload worries, and there isn’t an impetus to either re-sign or replace left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who may test the market in free agency, there isn’t a ton to worry about on this side of the ball.