Analysis: More than Mahomes, Chiefs relied on everyone in Super Bowl win

By Case Keefer (contact)

Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020 | 10:40 p.m.

Before he had a chance to congratulate all of his closest teammates or toss on any championship gear coming off of the field at Hard Rock Stadium, Tyreek Hill reflected on how this all started. The Kansas City Chiefs’ receiver reflected on the first time he saw Patrick Mahomes throw a football in person.

Hill said he had an eye on Mahomes when the quarterback first stepped onto the practice field as a rookie in 2017. Nonchalantly, the 10^th overall NFL Draft pick out of Texas Tech chucked an 80-yard pass to warm up and Hill, “knew,” right then.

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m a fast guy,’” Hill recalled, “I can do something with that.”

Hill’s done a lot on the receiving end of Mahomes’ arm in the nearly three years since, but nothing quite as monumental as the 44-yard pass he pulled in with seven minutes remaining in Super Bowl 54. The third-and-15 completion from their own 35-yard line will go down as the defining strike of the Chiefs’ 31-20 win over the 49ers, the catalyst that sparked their final postseason comeback.

The specifics of the play are almost too fairy-tale to believe. Mahomes said it was the same play he completed for a 42-yard gain in last year’s AFC Championship Game — Hill’s only catch in a 37-31 loss to the New England Patriots that shaped the Chiefs coming into this season.

The level of difficulty this time around was such that two mere-mortal players could never pull it off. The two 49ers’ pass rushers who had tormented Mahomes all night, Nick Bosa and DeForest Buckner, were coming at him on each shoulder.

Mahomes had look flustered in previous similar situations, but not here, not with Hill using his Olympic-caliber speed to get wide open behind what 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman called a busted coverage. Mahomes stepped up in between the lanes of Bosa and Buckner and uncorked a pass that traveled 57.1 yards in the air, the longest completion in any game all season according to NFL Next Gen Stats.

“We were in a bad situation, especially with that pass rush,” Mahomes said. “You knew those guys had their ears pinned back and they were going to be rushing. I think the offensive line gave me enough time to throw a really deep route, and I just put it out there and Tyreek made a really great play.”

Kansas City scored exactly a minute of game time later, on a 1-yard pass from Mahomes to tight end Travis Kelce, to cut the 49ers’ lead to 20-17. It never stopped scoring from there.

The Chiefs set a Super Bowl record with 21 fourth-quarter points — and they did it all in the last seven minutes. Running back Damien Williams got into the end zone the next two times, first on a game-winning 5-yard pass from Mahomes and then a clinching 38-yard rush down the sideline.

Mahomes-to-Hill will be the moment etched into history, though. Years from now, Mahomes’ heroics along with his impassioned postgame remarks about bringing the Lombardi Trophy to Kansas City after a 50-year drought and going to Disney World while clutching the MVP trophy will be played to remember Super Bowl 54.

And that’s a bit reductive.

There are Super Bowls when quarterbacks single-handedly will their teams to victory. Mahomes is likely to have one of his own someday, but this was not it.

“It’s not all Patrick and he’ll tell you that,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “But he’s a good place to start.”

Mahomes wound up passing for 286 yards and two touchdowns in addition to rushing for 29 yards and a touchdown, but he wasn’t superhuman from the beginning. In fact, he really never was himself until the end as he nearly fumbled away the ball before his first-quarter rushing touchdown and had been outplayed by 49ers counterpart Jimmy Garoppolo through three quarters.

After Mahomes threw his second interception early in the fourth quarter, he was at 5.5 yards per pass attempt to Garoppolo’s 9.2.

That’s why there was some uproar over Williams, who was sturdier throughout with 133 combined rushing and receiving yards, not winning the MVP. Hill could even make a small case of his own after racking up nine catches for 105 receiving yards.

The way the Patriots solved Hill last year went down as a primary reason for the Chiefs’ upset season-ending loss. Kansas City resolved to never let its biggest receiving weapon be taken out of a big game again.

“That was just one our third-down calls,” Hill said of the 44-yard catch. “I’m our third-down go-to guy, man. Pat is going to me.”

Reid played quite the supporting role in the play, if not the lead if his players are to be trusted. He was the one who schemed open Hill and teammates like Sammy Watkins, who had five catches for 98 yards, all night.

He was also the one Mahomes consistently regarded as his biggest motivation to win a Super Bowl. Mahomes no longer wanted Reid to be known as the winningest, if not best, coach without a championship.

“I don’t think he needed a Lombardi Trophy to prove that, but this puts all doubt aside,” Mahomes said. “He’s going to go down as one of the best coaches of all time whenever he decides to step down, which I hope isn’t any time soon.”

“He works so hard. He gets in at 3 a.m. and stays until 11. He never sleeps. I try to beat him in and I never can.”

Reid and Kansas City general manager Brett Veach may have worked even longer offseason hours after last year’s pre-Super Bowl ouster. They knew they had to fix the Chiefs’ defense for this year to be different, and they did it — even if it wasn’t always described that way.

Kansas City’s defense was still considered a weakness, but it performed significantly better than a year ago all season. The Chiefs went from 23^rd in yards per play allowed and 26^th in Football Outsiders’ DVOA for the 2018-2019 season to 14^th and 13^th, respectively, this year.

Reid and Veach brought in reinforcements to get Kansas City over the hump, and the acquisitions did just that in the Super Bowl.

Teammates called former Texan and Cardinal Tyrann Mathieu the heart of the defense, and the safety had six tackles against the 49ers. The only player with more than him was former Redskin and Packer Bashaud Breeland, who racked up seven tackles including two for a loss and had a first-quarter interception to set up a Chiefs’ field goal.

Another first-year Chief, former Seahawk edge rusher Frank Clark, ended the 49ers’ game-winning drive opportunity inside the two-minute warning with a 4^th down sack and batted down a pass when they got the ball back with 15 seconds to go.

“Y’all wonder why I feel so good about this defense, because look at us,” Clark said. “You put us in these crazy situations, and we don’t bend, we don’t break.”

Overshadowed by falling into 24-0 and 10-0 playoff holes against the Texans and Titans, respectively, the Chiefs’ defense had gone on to hold both teams below their season-long efficiency levels. They didn’t do the same against the 49ers — which racked up an impressive 6.5 yards per play behind Garoppolo’s line of 211 yards and a touchdown on 20-for-31 passing — but they delivered in all the most important spots.

San Francisco blazed down the field on its opening drive behind a shrewd script from coach Kyle Shanahan, but Kansas City bore down right outside its red zone to hold the NFC Champions to the first of two Robbie Gould field goals. It was a harbinger of things to come as the Chiefs let rookie receiver Deebo Samuel rack up 92 combined rushing and receiving yards but never allowed him sniff the end zone.

The Chiefs held the 49ers scoreless for the final 17 minutes after falling into a 20-10 hole on Raheem Mostert’s 1-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. Mahomes said that on the sidelines he kept assuring the Chiefs’ defense that he would get it together, and they kept assuring him that they’d give him a chance.

On the ensuing possession after Mahomes' second interception, which 49ers safety Tarvarius Moore picked off early in the fourth quarter, Kansas City’s defense only allowed one first down, 17 total yards and forced a punt. That punt directly proceeded the storybook Mahomes-to-Hill connection.

“They’re a beautiful bunch of resilient, very tough-minded guys as you saw tonight,” Reid said. “I’m so proud of them…This was a pure team effort.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.