On January 20, 2019, the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs faced off for the right to go to the Super Bowl.
This was familiar territory for New England. It was the Patriots’ eighth straight appearance in the American Football Conference Championship Game, and their 13th in 18 years. Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady had been under center for the entire run, and by now, he was considered the game’s greatest all-time player.
Kansas City, on the other hand, had not made it this far in the playoffs in 25 years. Yet, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes – in his first season as a starter – had outplayed Brady. Mahomes had thrown for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns, and he would later be named the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player.
The Chiefs had also won more games than the Patriots over the course of the season. So, Kansas City had the opportunity to host the contest.
All of this led to a changing-of-the-guard narrative. Brady’s legendary run was seemingly nearing its end. It was Mahomes’ turn now.
But those prognostications proved premature. It was the Patriots who prevailed in overtime.
New England would go on to win its sixth Super Bowl a couple of weeks later. Yet, the buzz remained on the team they’d outlasted on the frigid Missouri plains.
The Mahomes era was imminent. The Chiefs would be back.
Looking back at this moment, less than a decade later, this all appears so quaint.
These days, the Kansas City Chiefs are the pre-eminent franchise in football. And Patrick Mahomes is the face of the NFL.
The team has been to six more AFC Championship Games since that overtime setback. They’ve advanced to five of the past six Super Bowls, winning three championships.
The Chiefs gained pop culture status, thanks to tight end Travis Kelce’s engagement to Taylor Swift. And Mahomes has taken home a second MVP award – while appearing in countless commercials.
Brady didn’t exactly fade into the background during Kansas City’s dynasty. He moved from New England to Tampa Bay to finish out his career. And he actually beat Mahomes and the Chiefs in a Super Bowl at the end of his first season with the Buccaneers.
But the proverbial torch-pass had clearly been passed.
So yes, the pundits were right.
It was inevitable that someone with Mahomes’ talent and competitiveness would dominate the league. It was just the natural order of things.
Or was it?
On the night when Brady and Mahomes faced off in that AFC Championship Game, I was on a flight back from Miami to Dallas.
The football teams in both those cities – the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys – have suffered cascades of disappointment for decades. But the Dolphins’ plight is particularly severe.
Miami was once the toast of the NFL. The Dolphins won two consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1970s, and the 1972 squad was the only team to go unbeaten through the regular season and playoffs.
As the decade wore on, the Pittsburgh Steelers became the league’s new “it” team, winning four Super Bowls in six years. But by the time the early 1980s rolled around, Miami was ascendant – thanks to a quarterback named Dan Marino.
Much like Mahomes, Marino burst onto the scene in the NFL. In his first full season as a starter, he threw for 5,000 yards and 48 touchdowns – winning an MVP award in the process.
Marino led Miami to the AFC Championship game that season, and he proceeded to shred the Steelers vaunted defense in that game. However, in the ensuing Super Bowl, the Dolphins fell to the San Francisco 49ers.
It was a disappointing end to a stellar season. Yet, most of the fans and media in South Florida remained upbeat. It seemed it would only be a matter of time before Marino led Miami back to the Super Bowl.
But that return trip never came.
Even as he rewrote the NFL record books throughout his Hall of Fame career, Marino would never win a Super Bowl ring with the Dolphins. And Miami has fallen off even more since his retirement a quarter century ago. The team hasn’t even won a playoff game in that time.
All the elements present in Mahomes were inherent in Marino. But the story had a vastly different ending – for both player and team.
Why is that?
American football is a strange sport.
Despite its name, it relies far more on a player’s hands than their feet. And the ball that players handle is more oblong than round.
This means that there are plenty of chances for strange bounces, particularly when the ball is knocked free or kicked. Those bounces can determine the fate of a game, a season, or a career.
Tom Brady was a beneficiary of one of these bounces. Late in his first playoff game with New England, he appeared to fumble the ball away to the Oakland Raiders. But the referees ruled that Brady had lost the ball while attempting to pass, thereby nullifying the turnover. The Patriots went on to win that game, sparking a run to their first Super Bowl championship.
Mahomes and the Chiefs have also been the recipients of good fortune – lucky bounces, favorable calls, and missed opportunities for the opposition. Some have cried foul about these breaks, claiming a conspiracy. But these calls have no merit.
You see, luck is a great determinant of legacy in just about any corner of life. Talent and a good work ethic can set us up for success, but favorable winds help glide us into position.
Those bounces that determine our fate are beyond our control. There is no genie to summon, no token to cash in. We must do the best we can, while hoping that our efforts will yield the outcomes we seek.
The truth is that Dan Marino was not less of a quarterback than Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady. He just didn’t get the bounces that they did. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Indeed, Marino – a Catholic – relied on his faith to guide him through his football career. In his Football Hall of Fame speech, he recounts playing for a parochial school team in Pittsburgh during his middle school years.
Before each game, the team would go to church and pray for victory. And victory always came.
Of course, that faith didn’t lead Marino to an undefeated pro career, and it didn’t net him a Super Bowl ring. But that faith – along with fundamentals like talent and work ethic – still allowed him to realize his childhood dream. And it still enabled him to take the quarterback position to new heights.
Faith, it seems, is still worth having.
We’d all be wise to follow the lead of Dan Marino. We should try to balance fundamentals and faith.
This concept doesn’t come naturally in our society. We’re primed to either tie results to core attributes or to chalk everything up to luck. There’s rarely a lane for both.
But it’s time for us to make one.
For the by the book approach has a limited odometer in life. Airtight processes and sweat equity might point us in the right direction, but they guarantee us nothing.
It takes something beyond our grasp to get us over the top. Good fortune. Magic. Divine Intervention. Whatever we want to call it, we need it.
We can do better than to deny this basic fact. We must do better.
So, let’s make that shift.
Let’s commit to putting in the work. But let’s remember to keep the faith.