Patrick Mahomes: Chiefs ring ceremony 'last night to celebrate' before moving on
The Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl LVII celebration continues Thursday when the team gets their championship rings. It also marks the final celebration of the franchise's third Super Bowl, according to Patrick Mahomes, who is ready to turn the page and focus on the upcoming 2023 season.
"Tonight is the last night you get to celebrate it," Mahomes said to his teammates ahead of Thursday's minicamp workout. "Then we're moving on to the next season."
Even though Mahomes is ready to shift his focus toward the upcoming 2023 NFL season, he is anticipating Thursday's ring ceremony, as K.C. puts a bow on its Super Bowl LVII celebration.
"I'm very excited," Mahomes said. "That's what you work for — to win a Super Bowl and get those rings. They last a lifetime.
"I haven't gotten to see the final product, but I got to see the process of it and gave some ideas and stuff like that," Mahomes added. "Like I said, whatever they look like, you get to have them forever and they mean the world. It's cool to have two of them now."
Thursday's ring ceremony will likely bring back several players who left the team over the offseason. Frank Clark, for instance, said he would be at the team's ring ceremony after signing with divisional rival Denver earlier this month.
As Thursday will likely mark the final time the 2022 Chiefs will be together, Mahomes recognized that championship windows come and go in the NFL and shared why he's so motivated to win another Super Bowl.
"For me, it's about maximizing the moment," Mahomes said. "I know I'm not always going to have this team around me. … All of these guys are at the prime of their careers. You never know if you're going to have this team [again].
"I'm not going to have regrets if I play my best and we lose, but I don't want to have any regrets where I wasn't giving my best every single day and looking back and say, ‘We had the team and I didn’t do what I needed to do to put us in the right position.'"
Mahomes expects his Chiefs teammates to be ready to hit the ground running when training camp starts in late July.
"I told the guys that are going to be at the ceremony tonight, ‘This is it. You're celebrating. This is your last thing. Get your ring,'" Mahomes said. "We've been working this entire time, so you still have in the back of your mind, ‘We're getting our rings. We're Super Bowl champs.'
"But now, it restarts. That's how the NFL is. It's time to move on, and you're going into training camp next. You want to repeat. No one's done it since 2003 and ‘04 with the Patriots. So, you know how hard it is to do. We had a chance a couple of years ago, and it didn’t go our way."