ANDY: ‘NO PLACE YOU’D RATHER BE’
Chiefs, Kansas City, celebrate their ‘rebuilding year’ crown
KANSAS CITY — Patrick Mahomes and All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce promised thousands of fans celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl championship Wednesday that the team will be back for more.
During a boisterous victory rally at downtown’s Union Station after a parade, Mahomes and Kelce joked about “experts” who predicted the just-concluded NFL season would be a rebuilding year for the Chiefs, who defeated the Eagles, 38-35, on Sunday.
“We’re back again, we’re back again,” Mahomes, the NFL’s regular season and Super Bowl MVP, told thousands of cheering fans clad in the Chiefs’ red and gold team colors.
“When we started this season the AFC West said we were rebuilding,” Mahomes said. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what rebuilding means. In our rebuilding year, we’re world champs, we’re world champs.”
Kelce noted that some “haters” predicted the Chiefs wouldn’t even make the playoffs.
“In all reality, this was this best season of my life,” Kelce said. “I owe it to (the fans), I owe it to the guys on this stage, I owe it to everybody in Chiefs Kingdom and the organization we’ve been able to create.”
Celebrating his second Super Bowl victory with the Chiefs, coach Andy Reid told the crowd that “there’s no place you’d rather be, and no greater place to be than right here, baby . ... Not very often are you able to say you’re the greatest team in the world, you have the greatest players in the world, have the greatest organization in the world and, most of all, the greatest fans in the world.”
The rally festivities wrapped up a day that began with some fans who slept overnight — and others arriving before sunrise —to get a prime spot downtown to celebrate the Chiefs’ second Super Bowl championship in four seasons.
Players, coaches, team officials, family members and others rode double-decker buses past legions of fans, sometimes standing up to 10 people deep, as the parade rolled down a main downtown street on the way to the Union Station rally.
Many players got off the buses to dance, sign autographs, take selfies and occasionally hand out beers to supporters along the route. Some lucky fans were able to touch the Lombardi
Trophy.
Most schools, many businesses and some government offices in the Kansas City metro area were closed to allow fans to enjoy the festivities. Police did not immediately report any major problems during the event.
After decades of championship drought, the city is gaining experience with victory parades. Four seasons ago, the Chiefs defeated the 49ers for the team’s first Super Bowl championship in 50 years. That followed the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series in 2015, the city’s first baseball championship in 30 years.