In the rosy view of the rear view sits a Super Bowl championship and a most memorable run to it for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Reigning champions or not, the Chiefs cannot rest upon the greatness of yesterday in coach Andy Reid's view. And on April 20, the Chiefs began their virtual offseason program and another quest for glory.
"You have to focus in on trying to be better and trying to challenge yourself to be even greater than what you were that previous year. It's a mindset and it starts now," Reid said Friday via the team website. "Even though we're doing this thing virtually, it starts now. There's no time to waste.
"We're not going to just go, 'OK, we have everybody coming back and we'll just run the same plays.' No, we're going to keep growing. I don't think we came near to what we could be last year."
If complacency can be a champion's worst adversary, Reid is looking to defend against it from the onset.
With nearly every starter returning to the Chiefs, expectations will be lofty.
"I think [general manager Brett Veach] and his guys did a nice job of getting and retaining our players. That's not an easy thing to do with the way the salary cap is set up in today's world, but they balanced it out and we were able to bring our guys back," Reid said. "Listen, we've attacked this thing the best way we possibly can with virtual technology. We're still doing our installs, we're doing our scheme evaluations, we have two-hour meetings with the players Monday through Thursday, and we're going to start with the rookies [on Friday] and have a three-day virtual rookie minicamp. So, we're staying on top of all of it and using all the technology we possibly can to help communicate things to guys."
In the NFL and beyond, the future is an arduous, if not impossible, aspect to predict.
Nonetheless, Reid has K.C. thinking repeat, his Chiefs guarding against the pitfalls of going through the motions and preparing to take on the challenge of being the reigning and defending NFL champions going forward -- with no looking back.
