With a little more than seven minutes remaining in Super Bowl LIV, Patrick Mahomes dropped back to pass on a third-and fifteen from his own 35-yard line, and, as it had been all evening, the San Francisco 49er pass rush descended upon him. Nick Bosa was essentially tackled on his direct path to the QB, but DeForrest Buckner looped around and crashed into Mahomes just as he launched what looked, for all the world, like a last-ditch desperation downfield heave.
Freeze that frame for a moment. With seven minutes to play in the Super Bowl, the 49ers had indeed "kept Mahomes from taking over the game." In fact, they had gone a long way toward taking him out of the game. Kansas City had not scored a touchdown since the first quarter. At the moment he threw that pass, Mahomes had fewer passing yards than had Jimmy Garoppolo. He had been intercepted twice, sacked three times, and had not thrown one touchdown pass. The 49ers had indeed "compressed" the Chiefs' possession time to less than 23 minutes. And they held a 20-10 lead; "close,"certainly, but in control. There had been missteps along the way, but at the time it looked as though Kyle Shanahan's team would get by with them. A few moments prior, the officials had ruled, correctly, that Tyreek Hill trapped what had looked like a first-down catch in 49er territory. The challenge by coach Shanahan had just been upheld. It is not a stretch to say the Chiefs, at that moment, were in, or at least near, the final extremity, the point at which a game can become irrevocably lost.
And then, as we all know, Hill, whose track-star speed and that of his teammates had not yet been a factor in the game, suddenly made it so. He blew past three defenders and was so wide open he was able to wait for Mahomes' mortar lob to land in his hands, and he still had time to make a spin move and gain more yards, which he would have save for a solid tackle by Jimmy Ward, the man beaten on the play. That's how quick he is, that's how quickly it happened, and that's how quickly this game turned.
It wasn't a done deal by any means at that point, but it was a different game, and a different Chiefs offense that lined up at the 49er 21-yard line on the next snap. Mahomes tried for the end zone and missed, he then tried for the quick slant but short-armed it into the turf. On third down he went over the middle to Travis Kelce in the end zone and Tarvarius Moore broke it up. There was minimal contact but Moore face-guarded Kelce with his back to the ball, and drew the flag. Mahomes, who had scored on a one-yard keeper in the first quarter, rolled right and found Kelce for the touchdown and it was a 20-17 game-- and it was also a new game, one that would turn for the first time on the fortunes of the 49er offense, not their defense.
The first crucible for that offense began with six minutes left and a three-point lead. The most belligerent and effective rushing offense in football had 80 yards, three timeouts, and plenty of clock to compress the game down to a mite. Raheem Mostert, who had 36 rushing yards to his name after gaining 220 against Green Bay, punched right up the middle for five. Thirty seconds later it was fourth down and the 49ers hadn't gained a centimeter, two Garoppolo passes, to the overcrowded right side, having fallen incomplete. It was the first three-and-out of the game for the Niners, and they could not have picked a worse time for it.
Kansas City's next possession, starting at that familiar 35, was essentially one big play again, but there was nothing desperate about this one. Mahomes sailed a beautiful rainbow pass to the fleet Sammy Watkins, who easily outran Richard Sherman and made a perfect over-the-shoulder catch. Only the sideline limited him to 38 yards. From the 49er 10, Mahomes made one of his few planned runs to pick up six, taking a hard hit in the process, and then Damien Williams, one of the Chiefs' unsung heroes of the game, took a short pass to the corner pylon. Maybe he scored, maybe he was out of bounds; in any case the touchdown call stood, and in any case it did not decide the outcome. The Chiefs had the lead, 24-20, but the 49ers, again, had the ball, the clock, and the best running game in the NFL, which the Chiefs had not been able to stop.
The second crucible, with 2:39 remaining, saw Mostert break right through that soft run defense for 17 big yards. Jimmy G followed with two razor-sharp passes to George Kittle and Kendrick Bourne, and with 1:49 remaining and a first down on the KC 49, the game was in the 49ers' hands. One more rushing play, and Andy Reid would begin burning timeouts. A few more rushing plays, and Jimmy G would be in the red zone, with his chance to "pull a Montana" and win or lose the game on his and his coach's terms.
It didn't happen. It didn't happen for Kyle Shanahan three Super Bowls ago in Atlanta, and it didn't happen for him here. With Mahomes where he needed to be, on the sideline, with Reid and his reputation for indifferent clock management defending a slim lead against the clock as well as the opponent, the 49ers called four successive pass plays and not only didn't gain yardage, they lost yardage-- and lost time. The first two pass attempts were well-defended. On third and ten Emmanuel Sanders was wide, wide open over the middle, open enough to take it 49 yards to the Lombardi Trophy. Frank Clark, who could have been the Super Bowl MVP, got in Garoppolo's face. The pass sailed yards over Sanders' reach. On fourth down, Clark sacked Jimmy G; the Chiefs' only sack of the game reverberated far more loudly than the 49ers' three. It was over.
And so, on the biggest stage of their lives, with the game on the line and their team trailing late in the fourth quarter, the fortunes of the two quarterbacks diverged. Mahomes was asked to win the game, and he obliged, with yet another stirring comeback performance that belies his tepid 78.1 passer rating. He showed the poise of a veteran, shrugging off the first three quarters, the pressure of the best defense he'd ever faced, and the pressure of tremendous expectation. He may not be unstoppable, but he's unsinkable, and our hats, as promised, are off to him. He made the plays. He's the best in the game.
Jimmy Garoppolo also was asked to win the game, and it's fair to ask whether that was necessary. The 49ers rushed 22 times in the game, against 31 pass attempts. Jimmy G's numbers after three quarters were 17-of-20, 183 yards, one TD, one interception. But they look like this in the fourth: 3-for-11, 36 yards, one sack, another interception. Even if you discount the last two throws in garbage time, it's pretty bad. On the two most important drives of his life, he was 2-for-7 plus a sack. He didn't make the plays. But should he have needed to make so many of them? On those "drives," out of nine plays, the 49ers ran twice. Twice. For 22 yards. 11 yards per attempt. The best rushing attack in football was not asked to win the game-- or even to help win the game.
The final minute was a desultory reminder of the Atlanta fiasco; Williams, running to the edge on second down and working to stay in bounds, found himself all alone down the left side for a gimme touchdown. Garoppolo's second interception and the obligatory kneeldowns followed, and the Kansas City Chiefs, after fifty years of waiting, hoisted their first Vince Lombardi Trophy. (The trophy did not exist in 1969, when they won the fourth "World Championship of Professional Football," still informally called the "Super Bowl" and unencumbered by Roman numerals.) Do they deserve their fourth league championship? You bet they do. They're the better team.
And so we move on, waiting 'til next year, and all that.
Deebo Samuel, whom we thought might end up the 'Bowl MVP, did his part, with three carries on the 49ers' version of the "Jet Sweep" for 53 yards as well as five catches for 39. We would expect Steve Spagnuolo is awfully relieved Number 19 wasn't called upon more often in the second half.
The 49er pass rush lived up to its reputation, and the most startling development of the game, even acknowledging his winning heroics, was Mahomes' scattered, frustrated play for most of the evening. Constantly pressured, he couldn't stand in the pocket nor had he time to look deep over the middle, his sweet spot. Again and again he was flushed out and obliged to scramble, Russell Wilson-style, and make late throws to the sideline. That simply is not the Chiefs' game, and during the third quarter we were saying things like, "We're making these guys play like Seattle! Even if they win, we've taken them completely out of their game!" Ultimately, the final seven minutes proved that would not be the case, but regardless, Nick Bosa and DeForrest Buckner, who got the big third-quarter sacks, as well as Arik Armstead, Sheldon Day, Dee Ford, and Solomon Thomas, all did their part.
We can say the same for Fred Warner, who was in perfect position to intercept Mahomes' ill-advised third-quarter pass. It immediately followed Bosa's sack and a recovered fumble, and was thrown hastily under heavy pressure. Warner also made one of the game's best solo tackles, throwing Mecole Hardman for a six-yard loss and killing a Kansas City drive at the 49er 46 two minutes before halftime. And at the time it seemed Tarvarius Moore's heads-up interception on a deflected pass, eight short minutes after Warner's pickoff, might have been the play that decided the game. Keep in mind Mahomes threw five interceptions all season and none in the AFC playoffs.
George Kittle had a quiet day by his standards. But it's the play he didn't make that everyone will remember, With a minute left in the first half, the ball on the 20 and the score tied 10-10, coach Shanahan, aware the 49ers would receive the second-half kickoff, decided to let the clock run down to 20 seconds, perhaps intending to ensure Mahomes would not get another chance before the long halftime break. Reid at first obliged, but then he called timeout with third down coming. Jimmy G promptly zipped a perfect pass over the middle to backup halfback Jeff Wilson for a first down at the 45. Shanahan then finally called a timeout, and with 14 seconds left Garoppolo made him look like a bloomin' genius with perhaps his best pass of the night, a deep sideline shot that Kittle grabbed before going out of bounds at the Kansas City 13. Safety Daniel Sorensen had grabbed at Kittle as George turned downfield, Kittle pushed back, then pushed back again. He was flagged for offensive pass interference, killing the play and a certain score. Any hope of "let 'em play" or "the defender initiated contact" this time went by the board. But bad call or not, it was a generally well-officiated game, and it's worth noting Kittle himself didn't complain about it afterward. For his part, Shanahan was a lot more incensed over a non-call on a sideline hit on Garoppolo later in the game than he was about this one.
The idea of "deferring" after winning the coin toss is for a team to come out in the second half, march down the field, and score. That choice paid off beautifully for San Francisco. Not only did the 49ers hold Mahomes & Co. to three-and-out on the game's opening possession, their five-and-a-half-minute drive to open the third-quarter may have been their best of the game. Jimmy G was 5-for-5, Deebo Samuel broke a 14-yard run, and Robbie Gould gave the 49ers the lead they'd hold for the next 20 minutes. On their two scoring drives in that glorious third period, Garoppolo was 8-of-9 for 94 yards, and his best completion of the night was a 26-yard over-the-middle beauty to Kendrick Bourne. Their second-quarter touchdown drive was a portrait in balanced offense, too: four rushes for 38 yards and three passes, all complete, for 42 yards and the touchdown to Kyle Juszczyk. We suppose coach had these drives in mind during the game's final five minutes, but we also know he knows his situational football. Well, that's enough of that.
Indeed, much has been made about how Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garoppolo will deal with this, losing a game that not only seemed eminently winnable but was, even after the Chiefs' offense found itself. And more will be made about the 49ers' chances of coming back to the Super Bowl next year and winning it, or whether they'll endure a season of disappointment and near-misses, as did the Rams in 2019. That's not our thing and we won't dwell on it.
But we've always liked the Kansas City Chiefs, ever since that great win over Minnesota in the fourth Super Bowl, and we have no problem congratulating a great organization, a great team, a great coach, a great fan base, and the game's greatest quarterback. Enjoy the spotlight, Chiefs; it's been a long time coming, and it's well deserved. See you next season.
