For the third time in the last five seasons, the Kansas City Chiefs were the final team standing as winners of the Lombardi Trophy. Unfortunately for LA Chargers fans, it was another year of having to watch a division rival win the Super Bowl. That is four AFC West Super Bowls in the last decade, with none going to the Chargers.
Having to not only play the Chiefs twice a season but get past them in the same division is a big ask for the Chargers. Kansas City has absolutely dominated the AFC West over the last decade, with the Chargers only really coming close to winning the division once in that span in 2018.
While the Chiefs have undoubtedly dominated in recent history, Chargers fans can still feel better about the future. The Chiefs can never be underestimated and the Chargers will never do that, but the team at least has the right pieces to eventually knock Kansas City off the throne.
The Chargers have all the right pieces to be the next version of the Chiefs
The Chargers have the franchise quarterback
There is no denying that Justin Herbert is a top-five quarterback in this sport. And while he has picked up his fair share of naysayers, you can make a real case that he is the second-most talented quarterback in the entire league.
Patrick Mahomes is on his own level, that goes without saying. As great as Herbert is, he is not going to usurp Mahomes as the best quarterback in the sport. But with the right pieces around him, Herbert could at least start knocking on the door of being on Mahomes' tier.
What Mahomes has done is beyond impressive as he has a real chance to eventually catch up to Tom Brady in Super Bowls after winning his third. Herbert may never do that, but he is undoubtedly talented enough to win one (or more) Super Bowls.
The Chargers now have the right coach
This is the thing the Chiefs had for several years before getting the right quarterback. Andy Reid is the best active head coach in the game right now and will go down as one of the best head coaches of all time when it is all said and done.
Andy Reid elevated Alex Smith and made many of those Chiefs teams better than they had any right to be. Once he finally got the franchise quarterback in Mahomes the rest was history as their stretch of domination ensued.
The Chargers haven't had the right head coach, but now they do. Jim Harbaugh has won every single place that he has coached in his career and just like Chiefs fans when Reid was hired, Chargers fans can be optimistic that the winning will continue.
The Chargers are (hopefully) building the right front office
This is the third aspect that the Chiefs have, that the Patriots had before them, and that teams like the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers had before them. In order to truly maximize a championship window, a team has to make the right decisions around its head coach and quarterback.
Good draft classes are what kept the Chiefs in the title picture even after the team traded Tyreek Hill. There are a lot of teams in the league that would make that Hill trade and never reach the Super Bowl again because they were unable to build the talent. While there are some holes in the Chiefs roster, the team has been able to mostly do that.
The jury is out on the Chargers front office, so we cannot count the eggs before they hatch. But the Chargers are hiring a lot of talented people who are coming from notorious winners in the NFL. That is a big difference from the Tom Telesco-led regime of the last decade.
Chargers fans can be far more optimistic about this Chargers front office making the right moves to reach the Super Bowl. That is for certain.
Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL and just because the Chargers have all the right pieces does not mean that they will definitely reach the Super Bowl. But out of all the teams in the league, they have the best chance of emulating what the Chiefs have done the last five years... at least once.