NEWS
“Any lingering doubt about Patrick Mahomes’ greatness was swiftly extinguished with just three seconds remaining in the first overtime period of Super Bowl 58.”
If there was any lingering doubt about Patrick Mahomes’ greatness, it was extinguished with three seconds of the first overtime period remaining at Super Bowl 58.That was when he threw the touchdown pass that took the Kansas City Chiefs to glory.Many now feel it’s just a case of when not if he can chase down Tom Brady’s records.
That dramatic late pass to Mecole Hardman not only gave the Chiefs a 25-22 win over the San Francisco 49ers and back-to-back Super Bowls, but put the rest of the NFL on notice that if you want to win a Lombardi Trophy these days, you have to find a way of beating Mahomes.
And as the confetti rained down in Las Vegas, what should really worry the other 31 teams in the league is that this could, and perhaps should, have been a good year to beat the Chiefs.,,Mahomes had some of his lowest output totals across the board this season, his receivers led the league in dropped passes and he had to go on the road for the first time in the play-offs, winning their last three games as underdogs.
What the Chiefs proved, though, is that with Mahomes on board, they’re never beaten. As he put it himself: “The Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs – just know that.”Stats only tell some of the story, but Mahomes already has a tonne of those to back up his case for greatness – not least by overturning a 10-point deficit in each of his three Super Bowl wins.That is some achievement, given there have been only seven Super Bowl comebacks of 10 points or more in NFL history.
Such an air of invincibility is the sign of a true great, while his desire on that winning drive in overtime, using his legs as well as his arm, just showed how much he wanted it…Opta stats tell us that no quarterback in the past 30 years has completed eight passes or more and had 27 rushing yards in a single drive – in any game – until Mahomes did it. And he did it in overtime at the Super Bowl.
The stats back up what we saw in Las Vegas. As just the third player to win back-to-back Super Bowl MVPs and third player to win it three times, he now only has Brady above him in those standings.
Mahomes is only 28, has been to the AFC Championship game in every season as a starter and after six full campaigns has the same Super Bowl rings as Brady had, but more appearances and more play-off wins – and he is well ahead in terms of touchdowns and passing yards.
A third Super Bowl win – from their fourth appearance in five years – is undoubtedly dynasty territory now for Kansas City, and the scary prospect for the rest is that they did it the hard way.,They were plagued by receiver problems, missed out on a play-off bye and had the hardest-ever road to Super Bowl victory in terms of strength of opponents – they had to beat both number one seeds to lift the Lombardi Trophy.