San Francisco 49ers fan Eddie Melesio, of San Juan Bautista, Calif. poses in a photo frame before Super Bowl 58 at Allegiant Stadium Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas.
Monday, Feb. 12, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Tricia Johnson almost pulled the trigger.
With the San Francisco 49ers trailing 24-7 to the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship, she was about to give up hope.
She had her Super Bowl tickets on her phone and had the “sell tickets” button ready to push.
To the rescue was her son Michael.
“He told me, ‘You never know what’s going to happen,’” Johnson recalls from that Jan. 28 evening in their San Francisco home. “Thank God he was my voice of reason.”
Johnson isn’t a believer in divine intervention, but something had to work in her favor that night. Johnson and her family were in Las Vegas on Sunday getting full use of those Super Bowl tickets to watch Brock Purdy and the 49ers play in Super Bowl 58 against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“I learned that you never say it’s over until it’s over,” she said. “Even if we’re down 14 with five minutes left, I’ll still think we have a chance.”
This was Johnson’s first Super Bowl. She almost went to Super Bowl 54 in Miami, when the 49ers played the Chiefs, but she felt with the incoming pandemic that it would be best to not test those waters. She wasn’t going to miss this chance to watch her favorite player, Purdy, who fell just short in his attempt to shock the world.
Purdy, the last player chosen in the 2022 NFL Draft — in Las Vegas, no less — was an MVP finalist in his second NFL season. Johnson entertained thoughts of Purdy joining esteemed 49ers lore, Joe Montana and Steve Young, as the only 49ers quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl.
“I really wish people would appreciate Purdy more,” she said before the game. “He’s been so good, and I have no doubt he’s going to shine tonight.”
On the flip side, Chiefs fans were loud and clear with four hours before kickoff. A group of them was chanting “back-to-back!” in unison in hopes of their Kansas City squad winning a second consecutive Super Bowl and a third in four years. And they did.
One person who joined that crowd was David Palmer, a Henderson resident who has lived in Southern Nevada for half his life. To see the Super Bowl in his hometown is everything he could’ve imagined.
“You look at this from a decade ago, you’d never expect this to happen,” said Palmer, 36. “You would never think we’d talk about watching a Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Everything was awesome this week.”
Palmer was not one to stay home when the Chiefs played the 49ers in February 2020. He went to Miami in hopes of seeing the Chiefs win their first championship since Super Bowl 4.
Palmer said he knew Patrick Mahomes was going to be great. He didn’t think he was going to be this generational, nor be this great to potentially turn the Chiefs into a dynasty. He knew the pandemic was coming, but he honestly didn’t think he’d get another chance.
Safe to say, he said, he made the right choice. Mahomes and the Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20 to win the first of two titles in the next three years — and now in his hometown with four appearances in five years.
“I was going to live this one up because you never knew, right?” Palmer said. “To watch Patrick do what he did in that fourth quarter is a memory I’ll cherish forever.”
Palmer said it was difficult to compare Super Bowls because from his experience in 2020 to this week, it’s about the same. Security lines haven’t been an issue and foot traffic has been ongoing. He said he had his doubts with how packed Las Vegas was going to be — with an estimated near-400,000 visitors this weekend — but it hasn’t been a problem for him.
“It’s like congested traffic any other day, but they’ve made it easy for us,” he said.
Accounts like that are good for if Las Vegas gets into the Super Bowl rotation going forward. On Monday, Las Vegas will officially pass the duties to New Orleans for Super Bowl 59. The next two championships will take place in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
The next possible chance would be Super Bowl 62 in 2028.
“I hope they come back,” Palmer said. “Especially if it’s the Chiefs.”
