GLENDALE, Ariz. — Maybe it just had to happen. Just before halftime of Super Bowl 57, Patrick Mahomes rolled that tender ankle again as he tried to make something out of a busted play.
Uh-oh.
T.J. Edwards clipped the scrambling Mahomes from behind … and the pain that struck inside State Farm Stadium had to be felt eight time zones away. With 1:33 on the second quarter clock, the Kansas City phenom grimaced, hobbled and hopped off the field, just like he did in the AFC divisional playoff game when the foot problem began with a high right ankle sprain.
When Mahomes took a seat on the bench, the body language was awful. After slamming his helmet to the ground and wincing in obvious pain, Mahomes slumped, then briefly leaned his head on the shoulder of one of the Chiefs trainers.
Then the Eagles kicked a field goal to expand their lead 10 points before Rihanna took the stage.
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Maybe it had to happen like this?
“To be down against a team like that and come back and win the game, I wish I’d make it easier,” Mahomes told reporters after the 38-35 victory marked his second Super Bowl triumph in four years. “But I feel like I play better when we are down.”
At least that sounds good. And on Sunday, it was clearly a statement of truth.
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Mahomes, 27, shook off the ankle injury and pretty much willed the Chiefs to their huge comeback win on the ultimate big stage. Sure, he had plenty of help. The Chiefs offensive line didn’t allow a single sack against an Eagles defense that led the NFL with a near-record 70 sacks during the regular season. Kadarius Toney set up a go-ahead touchdown with a Super Bowl-record 65-yard punt return. And the Chiefs defense held up just enough, while adding a scoop-and-score fumble return touchdown by Nick Bolton.
Yet, as was the case in the AFC title game against Cincinnati, Mahomes’ ankle was such a compelling subplot. In the title game, a week after suffering the injury, Mahomes largely stayed in the pocket and limited his running – yet had enough for a huge scramble in crunch time that drew a penalty and set up the winning field goal.
This time, after getting some halftime treatment and a new tape job – he insisted that he didn’t get a pain-killing injection – he implored his team to leave it all on the field for the final 30 minutes.
In other words, follow his example.
“It didn’t feel good,” Mahomes said, “but I was going to leave it all out there.”
Mahomes, the first player since Kurt Warner (1999 season) to double down on Super Bowl MVP honors after winning the NFL MVP award for the regular season, has pretty much added to his brand by demonstrating so much grit during this postseason run.
Sure, we know he’s a magician, a Houdini in cleats. He’s a prolific passer and so creative, with his uncanny knack to make passes from all sorts of angles as if he’s in his own Matrix movie.
Now this toughness thing is a serious trait.
“He’s got the resilience of a warrior,” Chiefs left tackle Orlando Brown declared.
You know it’s true respect when it’s coming from the big fellas in the trenches. Brown sounded as if he didn’t flinch when the Chiefs’ heartbeat of a star hobbled off the field – again.
“I wasn’t distraught or down,” Brown added. “It didn’t affect the energy or anything like that. We just kind of knew, hey, if he’s got a little bit of a limp, then we’ve got a little bit bigger chip on our shoulder.”
Mahomes had his best Super Bowl yet, reflected only partly by his sizzling 131.8 passer rating. He completed 21 of 27 passes for 182 yards (which, incidentally, were his lowest numbers in any of the Super Bowls, lending to the better balance this time after throwing more than 40 times in each of his previous Super Bowls). He threw three TD passes on Sunday, whereas he coughed up two interceptions in each of the two previous Super Bowls.
Surely, there is some perspective with that for a Super Bowl veteran at the ripe age of 27. As he put it, he better appreciates the failure of winning the big one, too.
“The first Super Bowl, it was like, ‘This is amazing, we won the Super Bowl,’“ he said, alluding to the victory against San Francisco in Super Bowl 54. “I was happy, like a little kid winning a prize at the fair.
“Whereas this one, you’ve dealt with failure. You understand how hard it is to get back on this stage and to win this game. I played in a Super Bowl (55) where I got blown out. Then I lose an AFC championship game in overtime. To have a full, brand new team, to have to go through the strain of getting better and better every day, it gives you a greater appreciation for winning this game.”
Mahomes burned the Eagles with his arm, connecting on an early, 18-yard TD pass to (who else?) his All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce, then connecting late with Toney and Skyy Moore for 5- and 4-yard TDs on short throws when pre-snap motion-and-back routes flummoxed the Eagles’ defenders.
Yet maybe his biggest play came on the crunch-time drive with a run that – as was the case in the AFC title game – set up the game-winning field goal by Harrison Butker. On a first down from the Eagles 43, Mahomes took a shotgun snap and scanned the field. Then he stepped up briefly in the pocket. A split-second later, he peeked over his shoulder to feel the proximity of Haason Reddick, then bolted up the middle on the escape for 26 yards.
What bad ankle?
“It’s the Super Bowl,” Mahomes said. “You can worry about getting it healthy in the offseason.”
Someone asked Chris Jones, the stud D-tackle, whether we had just witnessed Mahomes’ equivalent to Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” – an epic performance by the Chicago Bulls legend in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals at Utah.
Jones laughed. They asked him that same question about Mahomes following the AFC title game.
“Next year, y’all will be like, ‘Is this the ‘Flu Game?’ You’ve got to quit comparing,” Jones said. “Pat is a once in a lifetime, generational player. Sometimes he does things so special that it becomes normality. We just have to appreciate Pat.”
That and to expect greatness when it matters most. Jones barely blinked when he saw Mahomes limping off again with his tender ankle.
“I knew it was blood in the water then,” Jones said, “because Pat is the type of competitor that if he’s hurt, if he’s sick, he wants to come back better and show everybody.”
Like it was destined to happen.
