Tonight, Patrick Mahomes is playing in his fifth Super Bowl. He has played in four of the last five. He has led his team to seven consecutive AFC Championship Games.

He already has three rings — and by the time the lights go out on Bourbon Street, Mahomes could have won his fourth.

He’s 29 years old.

Win or lose, what the Andy Reid–Patrick Mahomes Chiefs have accomplished over the last decade simply shouldn’t be possible in a league that is designed to encourage parity: The draft, the salary cap, and free agency should, in theory, have already brought the Kansas City Chiefs back down to average. But they just keep winning.

Football is a game in which too much glory — and blame — is heaped on the starting quarterback. Without a championship defense, without superior offensive linemen, without dynamic skill players, and without a coach as good as Andy Reid, it’s possible that Mahomes would have been remembered alongside players like Dan Marino, the best QB to never win a Super Bowl.

But . . . that’s not the way sports work. We remember champions more than anything, and Patrick Mahomes has a chance to leave behind the category of the merely great and join Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, and the GOAT, Tom Brady, in the category of elite.

If he wins tonight, and stays healthy over the second half of his career, Patrick Mahomes will have a chance to push Tom Brady (who won seven titles in a 23-year career).

It shouldn’t be possible. But that’s why we watch the games.

Prediction: Chiefs 30, Eagles 27. Update: I’m not sure who had a worse night — the Chiefs or the penny.