Tag: Mecole Hardman

NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LVIII

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

Super Bowl LVIII was in fact a race to 24 points, but I’m not sure anyone imagined we would be 3 seconds away from double overtime, making this the longest Super Bowl ever played by game time (74:57).

But the Kansas City Chiefs are all about making history. It has been that way since Patrick Mahomes took over as the full-time starter in 2018, and it is only fitting that this team is now officially an NFL dynasty with 3 Super Bowl wins in the last 5 seasons. The longest drought in NFL history without a repeat champion is over at 18 seasons (2005-22).

The Chiefs have done it a little differently each time, though the ending that links all three has been Mahomes rallying the team back from a 10-point deficit in the Super Bowl and being named MVP. He joins Bart Starr (1966-67) and Terry Bradshaw (1978-79) as the only players to win Super Bowl MVP in back-to-back years.

But 2023 was just a season-long epic performance from Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, fairly reliable special teams, and Mahomes’ receivers did not screw up the games in the postseason like they did in the regular season. Ending things with a touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman, one of those scrutinized targets, was just the cherry on top to another year where the Chiefs beat the odds to finish with a championship.

This was a wild Super Bowl. If you ask me:

  • First 42 minutes – a bottom 5 Super Bowl all time with a bunch of fumbles (indoors to boot) and drive-killing plays
  • Last 33 minutes – a top 5 Super Bowl all time with 7 straight scoring drives to end it (minus a kneeldown)

I’d like to try to get into bed by 8 AM, so let’s jump into the recap and put this season to rest after another historic Super Bowl.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

The First Quarter: Scoreless

The 49ers came out strong doing exactly the things I thought they needed to do to win this game. That meant quality runs by Christian McCaffrey and easy completions to help Brock Purdy’s nerves. They chewed up 46 yards in 4 snaps before an unexpected blunder when the Chiefs forced CMC to fumble at the Kansas City 27, and they were able to jump on top of it for a shocking turnover.

The Chiefs had that incredible streak going of 8 straight playoff games with an opening-drive score (6 TD, 2 FG), but that came to a screeching halt with a 3-and-out. It was almost doomed from the first snap when Isiah Pacheco was stuffed for a 3-yard loss. Little did we know the 1-yard screen to Travis Kelce would be his only catch of the first half.

While Kelce sorted himself out later, George Kittle never got going in a hugely disappointing game for the other star tight end in this matchup. Kittle had an 18-yard catch wiped out by a holding penalty on Trent Williams, who was also called for a false start before the play. When that sets up 2nd-and-27, you might as well forget it against this blitzing defense.

Penalties didn’t become a huge story on the night – thank God – with both teams getting flagged 6 times. The Chiefs actually had more penalty yardage than the 49ers (55-40), so we can put the conspiracy theories to rest on the Swifties getting the calls.

But right from the second drive you could see pass protection was going to be an issue for Mahomes. Left tackle Donovan Smith was beat cleanly for a sack by Chase Young, and the 49ers almost brought Mahomes down for another sack before he scrambled for 4 yards on 3rd-and-14 on another short drive.

While the quarter ended scoreless, the 49ers had a drive going and it was actually the secondary receivers who were making the big plays. Chris Conley (18 yards) and Ray Ray McCloud (19 yards) pulled in back-to-back plays that gained more yards than the Chiefs had in the entire first quarter (16 yards).

Things were looking like 4 years ago when the 49ers played very well on defense and the game swung on a crucial 3rd-and-15 in the fourth quarter. But so far, Purdy was holding up very well and Mahomes wasn’t able to get in a rhythm.

This was only the 10th scoreless first quarter in Super Bowl history. The previous 5 all involved the Patriots.

The Second Quarter: Strange

After Kansas City corner Trent McDuffie made a great play to prevent a long touchdown to Deebo Samuel, the 49ers decided to try a 55-yard field goal. I’ve been hammering on Jake Moody being problematic as a rookie kicker, but he made me eat crow in this game. He calmly hit a 55-yard field goal, which was a Super Bowl record (for the time being) to get the first points on the board.

I’ll bemoan the Chiefs and their short-yardage flaws later, but they were getting creative with Rashee Rice taking a handoff on a 3rd-and-1 to convert on the ground. He actually looked like he tried to pitch it forward on the play, which should have been a penalty in my book, but nothing was said or flagged. Instead, it goes down as a fumble in the play-by-play that the Chiefs recovered, a theme of the night as they would recover 6 of the 7 fumbles in this game.

After Rice’s odd play, Mahomes went deep and found Mecole Hardman for the longest play of the game at 52 yards, which was hilarious since he is usually so awful at tracking the ball in the air. But he made that play work and the Chiefs had life. However, Pacheco continued what turned out to be a bad game for him and he fumbled from the 9-yard line, making sure the obligatory fumble was alive and well for Kansas City.

This kicked off a series of strange events, including Kelce’s meltdown on the sideline where he approached coach Andy Reid and was visibly frustrated with not being on the field for the Pacheco fumble:

We know he’s an emotional player, but this was a bad look for Kelce. The Chiefs followed that play up with a horse collar tackle of Purdy, but the defense delivered with a third-down pressure that led to a sack of Purdy. The Chiefs lost out on points on the Pacheco fumble, but at least it was still 3-0.

But the pressure on Mahomes was becoming the story again in a Super Bowl. The next drive was torpedoed from the first snap when Mahomes was pressured, held onto the ball a bit too long, and he tried to throw the ball away in the vicinity of his receiver. The officials didn’t agree and flagged him for intentional grounding, bringing up a 2nd-and-20. That call was iffy. The drive ended with Mahomes scrambling again for a few yards to avoid a sack.

In the end, Mahomes ended up taking 3 sacks on the night, and it could have easily been double that or more. Keep in mind, the only game in Mahomes’ NFL career where he took 5 sacks was against the Cardinals in 2018. Their head coach was Steve Wilks, who is San Francisco’s defensive coordinator. Things were looking good for his unit so far in this one.

Unfortunately, the 49ers lost a very good linebacker in Dre Greenlaw prior to this drive when he injured his Achilles in a freak moment of celebration coming onto the field. I’ve never seen anything quite like this:

What an awful way for your season to end. But the Chiefs were starting to lose their composure with another 15-yard penalty going against L’Jarius Sneed on the ensuing drive. Two plays later, the 49ers dialed up a trick play with wide receiver Jauan Jennings making the long pass back to CMC, who was left alone for a 23-yard touchdown to take a 10-0 lead. Pretty play with a sweet camera angle like this:

Like clockwork, it’s a Chiefs’ Super Bowl with Patrick Mahomes and they’re down 10 points. It’s happened all four times now, but they obviously have the experience at winning these games.

After CEH was stuffed for no gain (predictable) and Hardman was flagged for a false start, Mahomes was facing a 3rd-and-9 at his 40 at the 2-minute warning. I saw this as the play of the game so far:

Mahomes had barely thrown the ball before this drive, but in the big moment, he bought himself time and found Justin Watson for 21 yards. Huge play as the 49ers were not able to manage the clock and really give themselves another shot to score before halftime. The Chiefs marched into the red zone, but their play calls were a bit odd with Rice getting another rush on 2nd-and-7. Mahomes took another sack on 3rd down and the Chiefs had to kick a 28-yard field goal, but at least it was points on the board.

The Chiefs could have done a lot worse than 10-3 at the half.

The Third Quarter: Turning Point

This game was always going to come down to the second half, and we had all those interesting stats to watch play out here:

  • The Chiefs allowed the fewest points after halftime
  • The 49ers scored the most points after halftime
  • The Chiefs scored the 3rd-fewest points after halftime
  • The 49ers allowed the 2nd-fewest points in the 4th quarter

With numbers like that and the way these teams have recently played, I thought maybe we’d see a role reversal and the 49ers would have to be the team trying to come back this time. But instead, it was business as usual with Mahomes trying to lead the Chiefs back.

Things got off to a horrendous start when on the first play of the half, Mahomes pitched back to Pacheco and he didn’t handle it and nearly caused a fumble, an unforced error. That made it 2nd-and-22, practically short-circuiting another KC drive on the first snap, something that happened a solid 3 or 4 times in this game. The pitch from Mahomes could have been better, but Pacheco was caught looking upfield early.

Two plays later, Mahomes made his only real mistake with an interception on a forced throw on 3rd-and-12. In the first half, his only 2 incompletions were the debatable grounding and a pass Justin Watson could have caught but didn’t. This was the first time Mahomes really put the ball in danger and missed.

But the 49ers did not make him pay for it from the Kansas City 44. They called 3 straight passes, had a false start in the mix, and Purdy ended up scrambling for 4 yards on 3rd-and-15 to end the drive with a punt. This is why many might say the 49ers lost this game in the third quarter when they failed to take advantage of moments like this and passed too much. There is some truth to that, but it’s also true that they needed more points to win, and CMC was getting stuffed pretty well ever since his fumble. Purdy looked like he was handling the moment fine, but the Chiefs did get creative and relentless with their 3rd-down blitz packages.

But this was turning into a really lousy Super Bowl at this point with the teams unable to move the ball. The Chiefs went 3-and-out again after Pacheco was stuffed on a 3rd-and-1, because they refuse to run the tush push or normal quarterback sneak.

Purdy tried to create something with a pass to Jennings, but he lost 8 yards and killed the drive for another 3-and-out.

At this point, Mahomes started to take matters into his own hands, or more accurately – his own legs. He scrambled for 4 yards to convert a 3rd-and-4, then he took off by design for 22 more yards. But the drive stalled and Harrison Butker made sure Moody’s record didn’t hold up for 2 full quarters as he nailed a 57-yard field goal to make it 10-6.

The kickers at least showed up to play.

This game really needed a spark as the teams went back to trading 3-and-out drives. I was thinking the Chiefs were now going to win 13-10, fueling the conspiracy theories about it being fixed – 13 is Taylor Swift’s lucky number – and taking away one of my favorite stats where Tom Brady is the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl scoring 13 points. Actually, he did it twice too if you consider the offense only scored 13 in Super Bowl 36 against the Rams.

But with just under 3 minutes left in the quarter, we had our turning point on a real fluke of a play.

The 49ers were trying to field the punt, it grazed the heel of a San Francisco player, and McCloud did not make a great effort to pick up the ball. The Chiefs got it instead and were only 16 yards away from the lead. Mahomes immediately found MVS wide open for a go-ahead touchdown and the game was on at 13-10.

After the Chiefs took their first lead of the game, this really woke everyone up and led to one of the greatest finishes in Super Bowl history.

The Fourth Quarter: Back and Forth

We know even a 3-point deficit to start the fourth quarter is usually a deathblow for a Kyle Shanahan team in San Francisco. But things have been different this postseason, and they were driving again behind Purdy this time.

But what a ballsy call Shanahan made that will largely be forgotten because of the loss. Facing a 4th-and-3 at the Kansas City 15 with 12:46 left, Shanahan had his offense go for it and bypassed the game-tying field goal. I have to say I probably would have kicked it given the low-scoring game and the fact it was 3 yards to go, and you weren’t even in goal-to-go. A lot of risk with that call, but Purdy found Kittle, and he made his only real positive contribution of the game as a receiver with a 4-yard conversion.

Two snaps later, Purdy found Jennings over the middle and he fought his way into the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown to regain the lead. Could it really be possible that Jennings would win Super Bowl MVP with his touchdown pass and touchdown catch? I really think it would have happened if the 49ers held on to win in regulation, but a lot of time remained (11:22).

Also not good was Kansas City blocking the extra point, keeping it a 16-13 game. We could argue this ended up benefitting the 49ers later as it made the Chiefs feel content with a field goal to tie the game on the next drive instead of having to go for a touchdown on 4th down. Mahomes was sacked again on 3rd-and-goal at the 3, making the field goal a no-brainer in a 16-13 game for the Chiefs.

All things considered, I’d still much prefer to be up 17-13 and make the Chiefs go for a touchdown as they have had some issues with the red zone at times this year. Also, you never know when a low snap will derail their drive as that was a problem in this game again, and it was nearly a disaster with just under 10 minutes left. Mahomes had to field the poor snap and throw the ball away, narrowly avoiding another turnover. Creed Humphrey is a 2-time Pro Bowl center, but someone needs to work on his shotgun snaps with him because this is past the point of ridiculous.

We were tied again with 5:46 left. It wouldn’t be easy, but the 49ers had a chance to work the clock and kick a game-winning field goal with no time left. The Chiefs were down to 2 timeouts after Reid wasted one early in the third quarter to set up a Pacheco run on 3rd-and-1 that failed. In fact, that sequence was nutty as he could have challenged a possible bad spot on a Kelce catch that brought up that 3rd-and-1, but instead he just wasted a timeout for nothing. It really could have haunted the Chiefs here as the 49ers came so close to making this the knockout drive and finally delivering a Super Bowl ring to Shanahan.

A pass to Kittle for no gain was not an ideal outcome, but the play took so long that the 49ers did not have to run another play until the 2-minute warning, which was huge. This basically put the game on a 3rd-and-5 at the Kansas City 35. If the 49ers could convert, they could run out most of the clock on the Chiefs and kick the winning field goal.

But Spags sent another blitz and Trent McDuffie was the hero with a pass defensed in Purdy’s face. According to Next Gen Stats, Kansas City’s blitzing led to 9 unblocked pressures, their most in any game this season, and none were bigger than that one by McDuffie.

Again, credit Moody for silencing the critics with a 53-yard field goal. He played a great game. The 49ers led 19-16 and it was like watching a reverse of the 1988’s season Super Bowl when Joe Montana broke the Cincinnati Bengals’ hearts for the 49ers in a 20-16 comeback win.

Mahomes was going to have his moment with 1:53 and 2 timeouts left, an eternity for him to drive 75 yards for the winning touchdown. He made getting into field goal range look easy, but things perked up for the touchdown when he found Kelce on a 3rd-and-7 for 22 yards, getting out of bounds at the San Francisco 11 with 10 seconds left.

Kelce had 1 yard at halftime and still finished the game with 93 yards, his 13th-striaght playoff game with at least 70 yards (next closest is 7 games).According to Next Gen Stats, Kelce reached a top speed of 19.68 miles per hour on that 22-yard gain, his fastest speed in the last 7 seasons. That’s a pretty good argument for “wanting it more” on the big stage with your super-famous girlfriend watching.

But there wasn’t a Hollywood ending with Kelce catching the winning touchdown in regulation. The Chiefs only really had one shot at it, and while Mahomes went to Kelce, the play wasn’t there and they had to kick the field goal. Butker did his job from 29 yards out and we were getting overtime as Purdy took a knee with 3 seconds left.

Overtime: Underthinking the New Rules?

I have been wanting to see an overtime playoff game ever since they changed the rules two seasons ago. The irony is they changed them because of the way the Chiefs beat Buffalo in that 42-36 game in the divisional round. The Chiefs tied it in 13 seconds, they won the coin toss, drove down the field for a walk-off touchdown and Josh Allen, in his finest moment, never saw the ball again.

We can’t keep letting that happen just as it should have changed after Super Bowl LI ended that way between the Falcons and Patriots, and then again two years later when these Chiefs lost that way to the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game.

So, the Chiefs have been on both sides of this, but now they were in uncharted territory with the new rules allowing for both teams to get a possession even if there’s a touchdown. Well, a safety on the opening drive ends it too as would a defensive return touchdown. It’s a little weird to talk about, but the heart of the rule change is definitely in the right spot and we should see more fair outcomes like this was.

But new rules should mean new strategies, and I’m not sure Shanahan and the 49ers thought this one through in overtime.

In college, the common strategy is to go on defense first because you’ll know what you need on offense. I have to think that translates a lot here in the NFL’s new overtime system too. I think you go first on defense so you know what you need, and you can get it by playing 4-down football with no time rush at all. That means 4 plays to get 10 yards the whole way, and it doesn’t matter if the clock expires and you’re still trailing. The game will just go to overtime No. 2.

At least that’s my understanding of it now. During the game, I was not sure about the clock situation, and I know I wasn’t alone in that.

But in getting back to the strategy, I just don’t think you can realistically give Mahomes the ball last. Even if you get a touchdown and lead by 7 points, they can march down, score the touchdown, and go for 2 and the win and you never see the ball again. That is allowed, so the argument of “you get the first crack at a second possession” doesn’t sit well with me when Mahomes is the opponent.

Plus, if you go first like San Francisco, you are rather limited by more conventional, 3-down football. You are more likely to kick a field goal if it’s available. That’s just the nature of the game.

I also don’t buy the “49ers needed to rest the defense” argument. The Chiefs did run 11 more plays in the second half, but the 49ers won time of possession for the game (38-36 minutes). You really couldn’t handle a 2-minute drill that involved 2 timeouts, which was followed by another couple minute break before overtime?

And there is no guarantee of rest. The 49ers were about to go 3-and-out in overtime if not for a weak holding penalty on McDuffie on a 3rd-and-13 incompletion. They would have been right back on that field and with the Chiefs only needing a field goal if not for that call.

Like I said, if the Chiefs go first, they are going to be a little more careful and conservative, not always using 4 downs and going for the kill with the touchdown. With the game Pacheco was having, let them run more conventional plays instead of putting the game in Mahomes’ hands. Then even if Mahomes drives for a touchdown, you know they’re kicking the extra point. You get it back, down 7, and you can go win it with 8 and take your time in the process.

I just think it was absolutely the wrong call by San Francisco to go on offense first against Mahomes. You might get away with that against Burrow or Lamar. Not this quarterback.

Sure enough, the 49ers did not finish the job. They reached the Kansas City 9 before McCaffrey was stuffed, then another pressure by Chris Jones forced Purdy to throw the ball away, bringing out the field goal team on 4th-and-4. If they were more aggressive or behind, they are going for that 4th-and-4. But given the situation, it is practically impossible to bypass that field goal, so you take it and pray the Chiefs screw up or you get the ball again.

By the way, the 49ers were 3-of-12 on 3rd down while the Chiefs were 9-for-19. That mattered a lot too.

With 7:22 left, Mahomes was 75 yards away from one of the biggest legacy drives in NFL history. He could join the exclusive club of 3 Super Bowl winners, and it is the first time in NFL history we’ve ever seen a trailing team with the ball in overtime of the Super Bowl.

But it almost ended in 4 snaps. Pacheco was stuffed on another 3rd-and-1 run, and that’s when I thought this team’s refusal to run the quarterback sneak was going to cost them a championship. They just will not do it with Mahomes because he dislocated his kneecap in a freak accident play in Denver in 2019. It’s chickenshit logic that reminds me of how my uncle won’t eat kielbasa (unless it’s Easter or Christmas) because he ate a piece of glass from a package of it decades ago. Apparently, they screen out all the glass for holidays.

On 4th-and-1, season on the line, the Chiefs did put the ball in Mahomes’ hands, but it was on a keeper and he ran for 8 yards to save the game. Then MVS tried to give up the repeat bid on the next snap. Instead of cutting his losses on a play, he kept running backwards and lost 3 yards to set up 2nd-and-13. At least he made up for it with a 7-yard gain, then Mahomes found Rice to settle things down for 13 yards on 3rd-and-6.

Another 3rd-and-1 came up, and it was another scramble by Mahomes for 19 yards into the red zone that started to make this ending feel predictable, or inevitable with Kansas City. Pacheco ran for 3 more yards, Kelce caught a short one and took it 7 yards as you could see he wanted the touchdown so bad.

But that made it 1st-and-goal at the 3, and the clock just continued to tick down. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if the game was about to end or go to another overtime at this point, because the idea of a clock expiring with a team still trailing and the game continuing just doesn’t compute for me in the NFL (or NBA).

I found out after the game the rule is that if the second team’s initial possession has not been completed yet, the game does extend to a second overtime. So that’s that.

But with the Chiefs playing it casually and the 49ers not calling a timeout, the ending was almost anticlimactic as Mahomes hit Hardman with one of those uncovered passes to the flat they beat the Eagles with a year ago. Enjoy the Korean call of it:

After berating the wide receivers since Week 1, we watched Mahomes complete 9-of-13 passes for 131 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Super Bowl to the trio of Mecole Hardman, MVS, and Justin Watson. Meanwhile, Purdy was 8-of-20 for 86 yards throwing to his stud trio of Deebo, Kittle, and Aiyuk. That was largely the ballgame as CMC did finish with 80 yards on the ground and 80 through the air. Jennings stepped up. The run defense stepped up against Pacheco. The pass rush was very strong early for the 49ers before Mahomes started finding rushing lanes to exploit.

There wasn’t a singular moment this time as much as in LIV when Mahomes finding Tyreek Hill on 3rd-and-15 was the difference maker. But the 49ers had a few chances to put this game away and just didn’t do it.

That Shanahan, always a bridesmaid. I think he should have kicked off in overtime. Instead, we watched Mahomes become the first quarterback in NFL history with multiple walk-off touchdown passes in the postseason. He was the last to do it under the old rules, and he’s the first to do it in the first game with the new rules.

That is some king shit. So is having three of the top 5 postseasons in QBR for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback since 2006:

With 333 passing yards, 66 rushing yards, and 2 touchdown passes, Mahomes won his third Super Bowl MVP award. He is the only player to win that award for 3 consecutive rings won. Even Joe Montana needed to reach a fourth after Jerry Rice won the MVP for his third ring. Tom Brady’s third ring saw Deion Branch win the Super Bowl MVP against the 2004 Eagles.

Montana, Brady, and Mahomes all won their third Super Bowl in a season where they beat the No. 1 scoring defense on the road in the Conference Championship round.

But the 2023 Chiefs are the first team to ever beat 4 teams in the same postseason that had a +100 scoring differential in the regular season. They did this despite not being one of those teams themselves as they were only +77.

But after trailing the Bengals 17-7 in Week 17, the offense hit a switch, and it reached a level it could win games at with this defense providing a stellar performance since Week 1. The Chiefs never gave up more than 27 points in any game this season, and they even held all but one opponent under 25 points. You’re not going to put this defense on a historic level with the 2000 Ravens, 2002 Buccaneers, or 2013 Seahawks, but they were legitimately great this year and helped the team overcome one of the toughest postseason paths anyone has taken to a Super Bowl win.

You can say this is a team that got hot at the right time and carried that all the way to a Super Bowl win. But unlike the 2011 Giants or 2012 Ravens, this team has staying power and can do it again. This is closer to the 1988 49ers shaking off a 10-6 regular season and winning the third Super Bowl in the Joe Montana era, and we know what kind of encore that team had in 1989.

Conclusion: Yes, It’s a Dynasty and Mahomes Is 1-of-1

It’s been 19 long years, but we can finally add another dynasty to the annals of NFL history. The Chiefs were the expected pick to replace the Patriots for this years ago, but they gave us pause on multiple occasions since winning that first Super Bowl right around the time the world was starting to face a global pandemic with COVID-19.

They lost 31-9 to the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. They blew a 21-3 lead to the Bengals a year later at home in the AFC Championship Game. Then I thought last year would be the crowning achievement of Patrick Mahomes’ career, winning that Super Bowl with an MVP season and top offense after losing Tyreek Hill, then navigating that playoff run on a high-ankle sprain.

But this season was almost more impressive in some ways. He didn’t play as well individually, but he hung in there through the rough losses, the league-leading wide receiver drops, the excessive penalties and fumbles, and he knew he could trust the defense this time. Then they got it done on the road in the playoffs twice after never having to leave Arrowhead in January before. They took down both No. 1 seeds. They came back from 10 points down in this game. He had nearly 400 yards of offense and was flawless in overtime.

I always ask what is Mahomes’ weakness? I don’t think in 114 starts he has shown one yet. You have a better chance if you can make him hold the ball and throw low-percentage passes down the field, but we’ve also seen him destroy some teams by extending the play. Even in this game, I think that 3rd-and-9 conversion to Watson at the 2-minute warning in the first half was a game-changing moment to keep the Chiefs alive.

In all of NFL history, we have not seen a quarterback play this well so consistently while still being able to win at such a high level as often as Mahomes has. Usually, dynasties were stacked on defense, or they could run the ball really well, or they just didn’t have to rely on the quarterback as much. But the Chiefs are an outlier because their quarterback might just be 1 of 1 in this game.

My interest in the NFL was starting to wane in the 2017 season. Maybe it was the 7-year itch or burnout of covering this stuff 52 weeks a year with no real breaks. Getting into gambling helped some that year, but Mahomes taking over for the Chiefs in 2018 and instantly turning this into a historic team that’s always setting some record has rejuvenated my interest more than anything.

I want to make sure Mahomes and the Chiefs are being covered properly for their place in history. So, when a big game like this one comes up, I put things into perspective for what a win or loss means for the team. When Mahomes is telling CBS in his pre-game taped interview that dynasty is the goal, and Jim Nantz starts off the 6:00 p.m. broadcast window with dynasty talk, it was the big story of the night. The Chiefs would hands down be a dynasty with a third championship in five seasons.

But if they had lost this game? Then you start having people looking differently at a team that’s only 2-2 in the Super Bowl, and at a quarterback who had 5 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in those Super Bowls before the blocked punt changed the dynamics of this game. Suddenly it’s “what if Purdy didn’t get injured in Philly last year; he might be 2-0 in the Super Bowl and have more rings than Mahomes.”

You nip that talk in the bud by performing and winning the game, which he did again. Does it take some luck too like a muffed punt off a teammate’s heel? Does it take a defense stopping a great offense repeatedly on third down, and a kicker you can rely on for a long field goal? Yeah, it takes some combo of that too, every time.

It wouldn’t be the ultimate team game without those things. But where I take issue is when people still try to belittle his accomplishments by poorly comparing and equating them to some of the only quarterbacks you can even still compare Mahomes to as a 2-time MVP and 3-time Super Bowl MVP.

They’ll say Mahomes doesn’t win without his defense this year. Yeah, as if Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, and Tom Brady were winning shootouts all the time and didn’t almost exclusively have top 10 defenses when they won their rings. Meanwhile, Mahomes is the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl when his team allowed 25 points per game in the postseason, and he’s done it twice. That number was much lower this year (15.8), but he still can’t hold a candle to Montana, who won 3 rings in postseasons where the 49ers did not allow more points than the 35 the Eagles scored in last year’s Super Bowl.

They’ll say Mahomes threw a pick in this game. But will they note it was on 3rd-and-12 and the 49ers went 3-and-out from midfield with it? It’s not like he threw a pick-6 to Robert Alford to fall behind 21-0. Will they acknowledge their King of Kings from New England, even in his best Super Bowl moment against the 2003 Panthers, threw a terrible red-zone pick midway through the fourth quarter when he could have taken a 2-score lead? Or that his game-winning drive that day started at the 40-yard line in a tied game after John Kasay sailed the kickoff out of bounds? Not quite driving 75 yards for the touchdown while facing a deficit in overtime, is it?

Also, will they ever acknowledge Montana had 4 turnovers before The Catch happened in the 1981 NFC Championship Game? Still put up enough points and won the game with a clutch drive, didn’t he? That used to be enough for the old days, but you know they fear Mahomes when they have to treat him differently and start holding him to standards they never put the past greats through.

But he keeps finding ways to succeed, and he should be the new standard for quarterback play if we are being honest about things. Does that mean he’ll win a lot more rings going forward? That will depend on what the rest of the league does more than anything. But I never believed for a second that Mahomes needs to win 7 or 8 Super Bowls to be the GOAT.

He’s up to 3 before his 29th birthday. He has some wiggle room as the LOAT did not win his 4th until he was 37 years old. Mahomes can win next year for the first 3-peat in the Super Bowl era. If he can do that, then win a fifth down the road without Reid and Kelce, I don’t see how anyone can reasonably deny him, assuming he’s also not done winning MVP awards and setting the pace for the most yards and touchdown passes in NFL history.

Mahomes and the Chiefs are a historic team, and that keeps me interested in the future to see where this story grows and goes. This was my 13th season of coverage, and it was a challenging one. I was dealt a personal shock in August, just 3 days after one of my oldest cats died, that I still am not really over. I guess you can say I should have researched this girl I thought I knew for the last 6-7 years as well as I’ve researched Mahomes for his 7 seasons as an NFL quarterback. Be careful who you trust in this world. There aren’t many people who are genuinely looking out for your best interests.

Then it seems like I’ve been sick every day since December, which is why I’ve had so many short posts on here for prediction pieces on the weekend because I usually didn’t feel that great. Just a lot of sinus stuff with sneezing attacks, then I got the flu in January for a couple of weeks, and I’m still coughing at times from that.

Hopefully there isn’t another pandemic brewing since the Chiefs took down the 49ers in the Super Bowl again, just like when COVID started four years ago.

I’m not sure what my offseason plans include, but I expect to be back for another season of NFL coverage. It is a grind, though. I’d love to make use of the next 7 months to also make sure I’m taking care of my mental and physical health better, since that can go ignored during the grind of the season.

But the offseason always hits better when the Super Bowl outcome was to your liking. At least I got closure from something I love this year.

NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LV

~ Scott ~ 7 Comments

Defense wins championships. Football games are decided in the trenches. Overhyped quarterback matchups tend to disappoint.

The first two were reinforced by Super Bowl LV, and while that last one isn’t part of NFL lore, it should be after a 13-game postseason peaked right at the beginning with Philip Rivers (Colts) and Josh Allen (Bills) providing us the best-played game at the quarterback position. When Patrick Mahomes vs. Tom Brady turns out worse than Taylor Heinicke vs. Tom Brady, you know you are watching one defense rise to the occasion and do something special.

On Sunday night, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers dominated the lines of the Kansas City Chiefs in one of the most decisive Super Bowls in the salary cap era. The 31-9 final is easily the worst loss of Patrick Mahomes’ NFL career and the worst stat line and performance in 54 games. It is his only game without an offensive touchdown as the Chiefs could do no better than three field goals on 10 possessions.

Tom Brady threw for 201 yards, three touchdowns, and was named Super Bowl MVP, because of course he was. It would be too difficult to split it among the 11 defensive starters in a game where turnovers were not the decisive story for a change. This was a masterclass in coaching by Bruce Arians and his staff, an eyesore for Andy Reid and his, and the image that I think sums this game up best would be this one of Mahomes trying to make a throw on fourth down to no avail.

It was that kind of night. Maybe the most concerning part is that last year in the Super Bowl was almost the same night for the Chiefs, who will enter the 2021 season with a “prove it in the Super Bowl” demand from their harshest critics as the latest attempt at reaching a new dynasty hit a serious road bump in Tampa.

Story of the Game: Pressure vs. No Pressure

A year ago in Super Bowl LIV, it was looking like a great defense (49ers) was about to shut down another prolific offense. Patrick Mahomes was having the worst game of his NFL career halfway through the fourth quarter as the Chiefs trailed 20-10. Then “Wasp” happened on 3rd-and-15 and the rest is history.

There was no Wasp this time. Just the Chiefs repeatedly getting stung by the pass rush and coverage of the Tampa Bay defense, which was outstanding. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers found offense come easy after a slow start. Tampa Bay completely took the game over in a six-drive stretch where it scored four touchdowns, one field goal, and got stopped at the 1-yard line on fourth down on the only non-scoring drive.

It comes down to pressure. When Brady’s Patriots beat Mahomes’ Chiefs in the 2018 AFC Championship Game, I noted the large pressure difference in that game. Mahomes was pressured almost 45% of the time while Brady was just under 11% according to ESPN Stats & Info. I wish I had an awesome database of pressure differences for every game in recent years, but that doesn’t appear to be in my collection. I just know something in the neighborhood of 34% is huge.

Well, this time it was worse. According to ESPN Stats & Info again, Mahomes was pressured on 29-of-56 dropbacks (51.8%), the worst in Super Bowl history. Meanwhile, the Chiefs only got to Brady on 4-of-30 plays (13.3%), his lowest rate in 10 Super Bowls. We are talking a difference of 38.5% in pressure percentage points. That is massive.

We joke about Brady “willing his defense” to do this stuff, but look at these results. Mahomes has four games in his career where he was held to six or fewer points at halftime and two of them are his playoff losses to Brady. What a two-way legend.

Obviously, the Eric Fisher injury and offensive line issue was a major concern going into this game for the Chiefs. I called it the wild card to the matchup, but I thought if any offense was able to make it a footnote instead of the main story, it’s these Chiefs and Mahomes.

I was wrong, the line did become the main story, but it’s still only half of it. Eric Fisher himself isn’t going to cut off 20+ pressures. Maybe not even getting right tackle Mitchell Schwartz back could have prevented this. Sure, we probably need a new rule that Mike Remmers should never be allowed to start at tackle in the playoffs again, but the Chiefs’ other problem was the defense had no answers for making things hard on Tampa Bay.

The pressure disparity was mind blowing to watch. I said during the game that Brady was feasting on screens, play-action, and DPI, but little did I know how right I was until after the game.

Brady started 0-for-4 in success rate in this game. He then went on to have 15 successful dropbacks the rest of the game, including his first touchdown drive in the first quarter of a Super Bowl. Thirteen of those 15 plays involved play-action, screens/pick plays, or checkdowns over the middle to the running back. The only two plays that didn’t fit that was a quick out to Gronk on third down in the second quarter for 5 yards and the 1-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Brown on the same drive, a good throw into not the smallest window you’ll ever see.

There was no pressure on any of these plays as Brady had time and great windows to deliver easy throws for all of his yards. And yeah, this doesn’t even get into the penalties we’ll get into later. I’m not saying Blaine Gabbert wins this game 31-9 for the Buccaneers, but I don’t see a throw he couldn’t make here.

Throw in a more than solid rushing attack and the Buccaneers just got whatever they wanted for a six-drive stretch in this game. Meanwhile, the Chiefs were in trouble from the first series of the game. On their second snap, Mahomes narrowly avoided a sack by getting rid of the ball for an incompletion. On the first third down, he scrambled for a first down. Kansas City would only go 2-of-12 on third down the rest of the night.

It felt like the Chiefs were worried about the protection, wanted to use quick passes on early downs, but it just did not work and set the offense back in the down-and-distance.

  • Even the first pass of the game was a quick one to Byron Pringle, who was fortunate to get 3 yards on forward progress after the fast defense knocked him back.
  • Another quick first-quarter throw to Mecole Hardman, who did not look for the ball, was so off with the timing because of the edge pressure that it could have been a pick-six if the throw were worse.
  • After the first Gronkowski touchdown, Mahomes tried a quick throw to the back and Jason Pierre-Paul batted it down with ease.
  • Same drive, but the first play of the second quarter was a big 3rd-and-4. The Chiefs tried to set up a RB screen, but the pressure again got there too well and the pass was off for an incompletion.
  • After the Chiefs got a 14-yard gain to Hill from their own 1, Mahomes tried a slow-developing pass in the backfield to Hardman that he couldn’t handle, but it would have lost yards anyways.
  • At the two-minute warning, Mahomes checked down to Hill in the backfield for a loss of a yard as the receiver ran out of bounds and stopped the clock, another fatal mistake.
  • On the first drive of the third quarter, Mahomes was low on a quick pass to Hardman, who made the catch and then slipped for no gain. That set up 3rd-and-7, pressure forced another tough throw the Chiefs couldn’t complete, and they settled for a field goal. Six plays later they were down 28-9 halfway through the third quarter, completely changing the game and putting everything in miracle/hero territory.

I just highlighted seven early-down quick throws that failed to do anything for the Chiefs before it got to 28-9. This game got away from them quickly, trailing 28-9 after having the ball six times. The Chiefs also didn’t seem interested in giving the tackles any help in this one, according to Next Gen Stats.

Tyreek Hill finished with 73 yards, a decline of 196 yards from Week 12, and even those 73 yards were mostly gathered with the game out of reach.

So what did Bowles do differently? For any game of his over the last five years, he blitzed the least (9.6% of snaps) and played two-high safety (87% of snaps) the most to take away the big plays.

Frankly, this is some of the coolest stat shit I’ve ever read. A true tendency breaker in the biggest game of his career, and it worked to great success. More coaches need to do this instead of the usual “we do what we do” crap that passes as coaching in this league. You have two weeks to prepare, it’s a great opponent, do something different to attack their specific strengths and weaknesses.

However, I feel the Chiefs gave in to this approach with the quick throws I mentioned before. They were so worried about the protection for obvious reasons, but if you look at this game before it got out of reach, their best shots at making plays came when Mahomes let the ball rip.

On the opening drive’s 3rd-and-8, he had Hardman open deep, but the young, mistake prone receiver seemed more occupied with staring at the ball instead of going for it. On the second drive, Mahomes did a great job under pressure to get off a pass on 3rd-and-11, but it hit Hill in the face instead of a potential touchdown or at least first down. On the fourth drive, Mahomes again made a great play under pressure, but Kelce had a bad drop on 3rd-and-8 that would have extended the drive. Maybe they still punt, but it likely would have helped the field position that ended up being awful after a penalty wiped out a punt and the punter continued his lousy night with a shank. Tampa Bay started at the Kansas City 38 and scored a touchdown to go up 14-3. Then of course there was the play on fourth down that I led this recap with where Mahomes got that pass off in mid-flight, but that too hit Williams in the face instead of him coming down with the touchdown catch to give this game a little life early in the fourth quarter. It was the last real gasp and Mahomes’ dejected face at the end of that play said it all.

https://twitter.com/benbbaldwin/status/1358604116285603840

I say the Chiefs are their own worst enemy, and that may not have been true on this night. Tampa Bay’s defense was tough, but there were still plays to be had by the Chiefs that they failed to make. This is why I cannot buy the notion that Mahomes “choked” in this Super Bowl. Where are the drives that he specifically screwed up or the open throws he missed or big opportunities he didn’t take advantage of? He didn’t bring his A game, probably not his B game either, but he had three drive-killing drops on plays where he made incredible efforts to even give his guys a shot at making a play. We are used to seeing this offense make highlight-worthy plays, but they couldn’t buy one in this game.

Left: Mahomes with the throw. Right: the receivers without the catch.

There were also 11 plays where Mahomes avoided a sack that a lot of quarterbacks wouldn’t. These were still successful plays for the Tampa Bay defense, but all I’m saying is the three sacks don’t begin to tell the story with how much pressure Mahomes was under in this game.

ESPN’s Seth Walder shared from Next Gen Stats what may be my favorite stat from the whole game: Patrick Mahomes ran a total of 497 yards before his passes/sacks in this game, the highest total in any game in the last five seasons. He broke his own record as he ran 495 yards against the Raiders this year, his only other loss in the previous 26 games, another game where his pressure rate was significantly high against a non-blitzing defense.

Walder also said that the third-highest game was Mahomes against the Saints (441 yards), another game where the offensive line took a beating. Josh Allen had the fourth-highest game at 403 yards in the AFC Championship Game. So perhaps we have the blueprint to beat Mahomes: make him run a full Fran Tarkenton scramble drill clinic and hope his receivers don’t make any plays on those throws. I mean, it worked this night to perfection.

The degree of difficulty in this game for each quarterback could not be any different. That’s why the Buccaneers are champions, and the Chiefs did not repeat. Give credit to the coaches of Tampa for exploiting the weaknesses in the Chiefs and taking advantage of the Fisher injury. However, there was another factor at play here that I warned about.

The Refs: Welcome to My Shit List, Carl Cheffers

Walt Coleman, Ron Winter, Bill Vinovich. Let’s add Carl Cheffers to my shit list of worst refs because he just had to make his crew a big first-half headline in this game. The worst thing a ref could do in a Super Bowl is become part of the story, but this crew did that, and I warned in one of my previews that this could happen with the way Tampa Bay draws defensive pass interference (DPI) flags at historic rates and Cheffers loves to call that on the road team (or any team) at crazy rates this year.

Obviously, the Chiefs had a brutal penalty night, racking up 11 calls for 120 yards. Tampa Bay had six first downs via penalty, something only four other teams have had in the playoffs since 1999. Only the 2002 Titans (against Oakland) had seven first downs via penalty. No team in the Super Bowl since 1999 had more than four first downs via penalty until Tampa Bay. Most of the damage came in the first half for Kansas City.

There was a lot of undisciplined football by the Chiefs. Chris Jones had a stupid retaliation penalty that wiped out a 3rd-and-7 and gave Tampa an automatic first down. Hardman was offsides on a 40-yard field goal on 4th-and-5, which led to a new set of downs and a touchdown, a 4-point penalty. There was also that holding on a punt with a good tackle that led to a re-kick, which gave Tampa great field position at the KC 38.

You can live with that stuff. It is what it is. But the way these officials catered to the Tampa Bay receivers in the second quarter, especially Mike Evans, really does make you question if these games are on the level. First, there was the “defensive holding” call to negate a Chiefs interception on a drive that ended in a Tampa Bay touchdown to take a 14-3 lead.

Are you kidding me with this? Where’s the jersey grab? Where’s the penalty on Evans for pushing off to try creating separation? Green Bay’s receivers were visibly held two weeks ago and couldn’t buy these calls at home. Yet they call this to negate a pick.

Then you get into the last minute of the second quarter. Brady does one of his classic chuck-and-duck plays, just throwing one up for Evans, who sells some incidental contact by falling down on a bad ball and it gets a 34-yard flag for DPI, the longest “play” from scrimmage on the night. That call was bullshit as well. Two plays later, Brady sails a pass for Evans into the first row because he knows it wasn’t there and he didn’t have time to waste. There was a little contact in the end zone, but the pass was so clearly uncatchable. Defensive pass interference, put the ball at the 1-yard line. How do you completely ignore the uncatchable part here? That pass had a better chance of being caught by a cardboard cutout than a human being.

People who say 5 yards for illegal contact are wrong too. By the time the ball is released, there is no relevant contact that you don’t see on every play. It’s either PI or nothing. The fact that Tyrann Mathieu was also called for taunting after this drive despite Brady doing the same things to him is also telling of how biased the refs were in this half.

One of the network ex-officials also saw a disparity in how this half was called compared to normal games.

https://twitter.com/SNFRules/status/1358587524260761603

Maybe the Chiefs still bomb in the second half of a closer game, but those two touchdown drives in the second quarter looked tainted to me, and it’s worse because I was predicting this would happen in Tampa Bay’s favor with this referee.

So Cheffers will be on my shit list going forward. People think it’s funny when Brady tries to high-five an official like he did in the Saints game this postseason, but I think he does it because he really does expect them to have his back in these games.

This time they did.

The 10th Mahomes Loss: Where Does It Stack Up?

I have been posting charts about every Mahomes game, and here are the 10 losses updated for this game.

Where does Tampa Bay stack up? Obviously the > 28-points threshold was reached, and it probably didn’t have to be, but that’s always important. The Buccaneers did not dominate time of possession, but they still won it. They sure didn’t mind the Chiefs taking up over eight minutes on the two drives that ended with a turnover on downs, or the five-minute field goal drive late in the second quarter. The Buccaneers did not push the ball much offensively after going up 31-9, so they only finished with 340 yards, the second fewest in a win over the Chiefs.

The Chiefs obviously had one of their worst penalty games (11 for 120 yards) in the Mahomes era, and that was big in this one as I just went over.

The running game was helpful for the Buccaneers with Leonard Fournette (89 yards) and Ronald Jones (61 yards) combining for 150 yards and a touchdown. It may have even been two touchdowns if the Bucs used Fournette instead of Jones at the 1-yard line in the second quarter on the only great stop of the game for the Kansas City defense. The Chiefs weren’t horrible at running the ball as Clyde Edwards-Helaire was one of the few good players on the night, finishing with 64 yards on nine carries. It just wasn’t a favorable game script to run a lot, or maybe one could argue the Chiefs should have tried some more runs early to give the tackles a break in the pass protection area.

All I know is it’s not the game to laugh at them for taking a running back in the first round, but CEH was not the downfall here. If anything, the backs should have been more involved with chipping and protecting since they weren’t good at catching. Darrel Williams only came down with two catches for 10 yards on seven targets and Le’Veon Bell didn’t even play. Fournette pitched in four helpful catches for 46 yards, so there’s really no comparison in the production the Buccaneers got from their backs versus the Chiefs.

While the Chiefs had two turnovers (Mahomes picks), this was oddly a Super Bowl not determined by those plays. They didn’t come until midway through the third quarter with the Chiefs already in the unenviable position of trailing 28-9. Not to mention the first was a tipped deep ball thrown on 3rd-and-13.

The biggest shock is that the fourth quarter was just never close, the first time Mahomes has never been within one score in the fourth quarter in his career. The score was 31-9 at the 2:46 mark of the third quarter and it never changed again.

Worst Postseason, But I’ll Eat Crow on the COVID Season

The 2020 NFL season is completed. All 269 games were played, only a few were a farce because of COVID, and the Super Bowl was finished on time. I never thought that would happen, but they pushed through and got it done, so I’ll eat some crow on that.

Of course, I don’t think the postseason could have gone any worse than it did from both an entertainment standpoint and my own personal rooting interests. This was terrible after a season in which a lot of teams had good seasons and it seemed like we would get interesting games in the playoffs. Remember all the double-digit comebacks every week?

We couldn’t even get a single fourth-quarter lead change, the first time that’s happened since the 2005 season. At least that postseason gave us Steelers-Colts in the divisional round, which was one of the most dramatic fourth quarters in NFL history from the Colts’ comeback attempt to Jerome Bettis’ fumble, Nick Harper’s return and tackle by Ben Roethlisberger, and Mike Vanderjagt shanking the kick for overtime. I know people hate Super Bowl XL, but at least it was a better game than tonight. So I’ll take the 2005 postseason any day over this one.

The longest drought without a repeat champion in NFL history continues. If Tampa Bay ends it next year, I may have to start focusing more attention on the NBA or learn hockey analytics, because it’s hard for me to want to invest so much time in a league where one ancient quarterback continues to see his defense hold prolific offenses out of the end zone. Two of the last three Super Bowls have been downright awful representations of the product after regular seasons that were legitimately good.

In a league that is dying for new blood and new powers to emerge in a transition period, we’re left with a 43-year-old quarterback who probably is pumped full of blood from random men half his age.

I will say this, Brady did a hell of a job at picking his new team. He stayed out of the AFC, making it easier to get back to the Super Bowl since the NFC loves those flash in the pan teams where everything just clicks one year. If he goes to someone like Indy or Miami or the cursed Chargers, he’s likely getting put down early by the Ravens or Bills or Chiefs. Instead, he goes to the NFC where his main competition becomes the Saints and Packers. Guess who stops those teams short of the Super Bowl in the NFC? EVERYBODY THE LAST DECADE. Well, minus Dallas. So he gets to the final four with statistically the best defense left and a loaded receiving corps that even got to add Gronk and AB. You think the Colts are bringing in Gronk and AB? I doubt it. They scored the first three touchdowns in the Super Bowl too. So I do have to give him credit for picking the best team possible to make this happen.

Defense wins championships. Football games are decided in the trenches. Tom Brady’s luck is the greatest of all time. If he doesn’t have to change his game, then neither do I. But I will start doing video work this offseason in addition to being more active as a writer.

If you think a Super Bowl blowout is going to make me hibernate for seven months, then you don’t know me very well — not that that’s ever stopped randoms on the internet from trying. I’m over 11 months into my diet and feeling good about hitting important milestones this year. I’ll definitely write about that if it comes to pass as it would mean a lot to me if I could help even just one person out there. I look forward to getting a COVID vaccine and being able to see people I care about in person. This last year has been tough, and while a Chiefs win would have made this a more enjoyable offseason and put the league on a better timeline for the future, the fact is it’s just a football game. The outcome doesn’t change a thing that I planned to do tomorrow, this week, or the next.

When I started this blog in 2012, the very first post was titled “You Are Now About to Witness the Strength of Street Knowledge.” I’ll end the 2020 NFL season with another N.W.A. reference just for the haters out there:

You don’t like how I’m livin’? Well, fuck you!

Until next time…

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