For only the second time a Super Bowl will be decided in overtime. Once again, the opponent takes revenge for giving superstar Patrick Mahomes too many chances to prove himself.
The quarterback Patrick Mahomes goes down in NFL history with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Mike Blake / Reuters
February 11th will haunt the minds of the favored San Francisco 49ers for longer than a Stephen King novel: The 49ers had every chance in Las Vegas to dethrone the title holders Kansas City Chiefs. But the team around the inexperienced quarterback Brock Purdy missed several times in a promising position to make the decision.
And as per the script, the superstar Patrick Mahomes punished this negligence again. Mahomes, 28, is a cooler Avenger than Batman; In fact, he always atones for it if he is given too many opportunities. For the third time, he managed to turn things around in a Super Bowl after his team had trailed in the fourth quarter. The United States has never seen a more gifted escape artist since Harry Houdini.
It took a while for the game to get going. The takeaway from the first half was actually that you could be glad you didn’t pay $9,300 for this lousy performance; that was the average ticket price paid. The loudest thing in the stadium was when pop icon Taylor Swift destroyed a beer on Ex. Both teams made astonishing mistakes and lack of concentration, and the offensive departments barely developed. San Francisco was up 10-3, but should have had a more comfortable lead at that point. A blocked extra point after a touchdown in the third quarter was particularly painful. In the regular season, kicker Jake Moody converted 60 of 61 extra point attempts.
The mishap allowed the Chiefs to equalize at 19:19 with six seconds left. The consequence was the first overtime since the New England Patriots’ legendary comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017, when the long-time league dominant Patriots turned a 3:28 deficit into a win.
For the third time, Mahomes has been named the Super Bowl’s most valuable player
The Patriots around seven-time champion Tom Brady were the most impressive dynasty in the modern NFL. And one thought: probably the last one, at least in the long term. The league is geared towards parity, and the old cliché that anything can happen “on any damn Sunday” – immortalized by Oliver Stone and Al Pacino in a 1999 blockbuster – is true.
But the Patriots, who have now reached the bottom in terms of sport in the post-Brady era, have been followed by new rulers, the Chiefs. The comparison with the 49ers meant the fourth Super Bowl participation within five years. And the three-yard pass from Mahomes to Mecole Hardman shortly before the end of overtime secured the third title since 2020, Kansas City won 25:22. Mahomes was named the game’s most valuable player, a reward for once again finding his magic when it really counted.
The Chiefs’ dominance has recently fueled the most insane theories. A popular claim is that the league is rigged in Kansas City’s favor. Parts of the conservative right in the USA have dealt with this; the abjectly failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, claimed that the Chiefs’ victory was part of a secret plan by the elite. It’s about Taylor Swift being able to help President Joe Biden get re-elected. Swift is the girlfriend of Chiefs professional Travis Kelce, and on Sunday she was shown by the TV cameras as often as the field. Kelce sang “Viva Las Vegas,” the old Elvis hit, at the award ceremony, reaching unimagined levels of shame.
Just like we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 12, 2024
Of course, Ramaswamy was unable to substantiate his assumptions; the theory doesn’t even begin to make sense. But on Sunday he had to experience how he was trolled on Twitter by Joe Biden in a way that would hardly have been thought possible from a ruling president not named Donald Trump. “Exactly as we planned it,” Biden wrote on X, it was a legendary replica.
For now, there is no end in sight to this amazing Chiefs dynasty
The day will come when the phalanx of Chiefs, their existence at the top of the food chain, ends, that is the sport. The team is likely to lose some key players again in the summer, which is the price of success in a league with a salary cap. And yet an end to this dynasty is hardly in sight for the time being. Mahomes is only 28, which is pretty young for a quarterback, and his contract with the Chiefs is valid until 2031. Mahomes is such a gifted individual that his team is a force to be reckoned with every year. This is a blessing for the NFL – the shining figure Mahomes is a ratings guarantee who makes the advertising millions gush.
Also of fundamental importance for the Chiefs’ bull market is coach Andy Reid, who was considered a notorious play-off failure before he took office in 2013. And has now become the most successful active coach. Reid, 65, was recently rumored to be retiring. “You know when it’s time,” the coach said. But a new, better-paid contract is more realistic. The active coach has no shortage of arguments for a significant wage increase.
Super Bowl: That’s what’s behind the most expensive TV ads in the world – video analysis
NZZ video