As the three-time defending AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs have gotten off to a slow start this year, a lot of guessing has ensued over what is causing the Super Bowl hangover? My answer: Tom Brady.

A pattern like this has evolved before.

Between 1999-2001, the St. Louis Rams were the hottest team in the league and featured many aspects of the modern-day Chiefs.

That Rams team, dubbed “The Greatest Show on Turf,” featured Hall of Fame players in Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce, while featuring other dynamic talent such as Tory Holt and Orlando Pace.

They had the league’s best offense and won Super Bowl XXXIV at the end of the 1999 season.

Similarly, the Chiefs have had a consistently top-ranked offense with young stars in Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

In 2001, St. Louis returned to the big game, facing off against the underdog New England Patriots and surprise superstar Tom Brady in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Needless to say, this was the beginning of Brady’s run as a dominant athlete, winning his first championship by toppling the Rams 20-17.

The next season the wheels fell off the Rams’ wagon. Warner was injured for most of the season and the Rams fell from 14-2 in 2001 to 7-9 and out of the playoffs in 2002.

Aside from a rebound, division-winning season in 2003, the Rams never made the playoffs again the remainder of their time in St. Louis.

Now, this isn’t me arguing that the Chiefs are about to descend into a state of hell that the Rams experienced all the way up to their relocation to Los Angeles.

However, this is an argument that the Chiefs, like the Rams, were a team full of superstars that looked like a dynasty waiting to happen, all until a hungry and talented Tom Brady stepped up and stole victory.

Time will tell if the Chiefs can right the ship and get back atop the AFC West, or it will spell out the doom of a promising core, all at the hands of the GOAT.

MICHAEL GUIDO

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