Mahomes, Hurts Super Bowl showdown is the way of the NFL now
If you love great defensive play, hopefully you only watched Sunday’s Super Bowl for the commercials. Otherwise you sat in horror as two of the NFL’s MVP finalist quarterbacks put on one of the greatest displays of QB play in Super Bowl history — in spite of tremendously talented defenses, quality defensive coordinators and terrible turf.
The results of the Super Bowl — following a year where more close games were played than ever before — again confirmed that it’s a quarterback’s world, it’s a playmaker’s world and it’s a game of which team has the ball last and which team makes one or two key errors. That’s life in the NFL in 2023 and beyond and it was never more evident than in the Chiefs’ 38-35 Super Bowl win.
The Eagles did everything on Roger Goodell’s painted sod to slow down wounded Patrick Mahomes, holding the ball for nearly 36 minutes with long, grinding drives. But the Chiefs scored five times on just eight drives — and it should have been six-of-eight had they not missed a 42-yard field goal.
In a brilliantly devised gameplan to limit Philly’s 70-sack defense, Mahomes executed a quick passing game that would have made Tom Brady proud. Seven different receivers caught passes and only tight end Travis Kelce averaged more than 10 yards per catch. Andy Reid worked in creative runs to a seventh-round running back and free agent running back for over 100 yards on the ground and then when the Chiefs needed it most Mahomes took off for a 26-yard run to put Kansas City in position to win.
The fact that Mahomes, who was once questioned about whether his technique in the pocket was good enough, finished the game with a 131.8 quarterback rating and needed a final drive that included a holding penalty on third down to win the game says everything about how opposing QB Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense performed. Hurts went 27-for-38 with one touchdown pass, officially putting to rest any leftover nonsense from scouting reports that claimed he was a gimmick player at best. Hurts let his three tremendous weapons AJ Brown, Devonta Smith and Dallas Goedert light up the Chiefs’ secondary. The three stars totaled 19 receptions for 254 yards, including two 45-yard completions.
Hurts’ rushing ability, which was once talked about as his only gift, was also on display. He ran 15 times for 70 yards and pushed forward for three rushing touchdowns. Meanwhile the helpless Chiefs defense only struck when Hurts fumbled the ball and it was kicked to linebacker Nick Bolton, who ran it in for a touchdown.
Because neither offense could be stopped, the game came down to which team blinked more. Late in the first quarter the Chiefs missed a field goal after declining a chance to go for fourth-and-3 deep in Eagles territory and Hurts made them pay instantly with a touchdown bomb to Brown. Kansas City punted on the next two drives, one of which allowed the Eagles a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive and the other that set up a Jake Elliott field goal to take a 24-14 lead at halftime.
But like Brady before him, Mahomes only gives you a few chances to put the nail in his coffin and if you don’t do it, game over. The Eagles’ big opportunity to slay the dragon came after giving up a KC touchdown to start the second half. Philly tied a Super Bowl record with a 17-play drive but the normally aggressive Eagles got cold feet at the end. On third-and-11, Nick Sirianni called a timeout rather than taking a delay-of-game penalty. Then after gaining five yards to set up fourth-and-6, he elected the safe route to go up by six points. The door cracked open for the game’s greatest player.
Nine plays later, the Chiefs had the lead. Philly allowed them to increase that lead when the shifty Kadarius Toney took a punt return inside the Eagles’ 10-yard line. Reid’s diabolical play design in the red zone left Philly scrambling and the Chiefs up by eight.
If we learned anything from the NFL this year it’s that games are never over. Hurts struck back with another 45-yard throw on the money to set up a touchdown run. He converted the two-point try on the ground as well to knot the game at 35 per side.
And then it was Mahomes magic time. With just over five minutes left in the Super Bowl, he completed passes to JuJu Smith-Schuster and Travis Kelce to bring the Chiefs to mid-field. After a third-and-1 conversion on a clever split-back run, Mahomes saw his chance. Ankle sprain and all, he ran for 26 yards to the Philly 17.
The Eagles blinked again. Cornerback James Bradberry committed a holding penalty on third down that set up the game-winning 27-yard field goal. Let the record show that Bradberry acknowledged that he grabbed the receiver’s jersey and deserved to get called for the hold.
It cost Hurts getting one more shot. There’s a good chance he would have raised the Lombardi Trophy had the Chiefs only came away with a field goal.
As Mahomes celebrated his second Super Bowl, you could see into the future.
Soon the league is going to draft four quarterbacks in the first round who look like these guys and play like these guys. There’s already an abundance of unstoppable receivers and more are on the way. Teams like the Chiefs and Eagles are going to just keep adding weapons to support their playmaking quarterbacks and figure out the rest later.
The teams with the greatest quarterbacks, greatest playmakers, and greatest offensive lines are going to spend six months having to pretend that everyone else isn’t just a road cone for them to drive around to Championship weekend and the Super Bowl.
And every year the playoffs are going to be filled with great games between great quarterbacks that come down to the final moments and end up decided by which team has the ball last and which team makes the last mistake.
Or maybe that’s just the history of the NFL and we are entering an era that’s the most exciting version — in the same way that teams who hit home runs always won in baseball or NBA teams that hit more three-pointers were always the best but it’s just more exaggerated now since everyone has gotten better at enhancing those things.
Either way, the Super Bowl was a version of football that is here to stay. Now everyone else in the league has to ask: How can we be like that?
