We Did It Again!

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2024

It wasn’t just the Super Bowl LVIII score—it was a statement. And that statement was, in effect: “You can kick us when we’re down. But we’re gonna get back up.”

Led by the iron will of quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a determined defense that did just enough to deny the 49ers the final touchdown they needed for victory, a special-teams unit that accounted for 13 points and the turnover that led to six more, and coaching wizardry that brought all the pieces together, the Chiefs won their third Super Bowl since 2020 on Feb. 11 in Las Vegas.

They needed all but three seconds of that overtime period to achieve a greatness bordering on historical, which was testimony to the caliber of competition provided by the NFC champions. That the 49ers didn’t have enough to close the deal was testimony to the still-emerging legacy that is Patrick Mahomes. He threw for 333 yards, led the team with 66 rushing yards—all told, 399 of Kansas City’s 455-yard output.

Much as he did against the 49ers in the 2020 title game, Mahomes struggled mightily for long stretches before lighting it up in the final quarter and OT. But he got that critical help from the defense and special teams, then put the Chiefs ahead 13-10 as the third quarter wound down with a dart to Marquez Valdes-Scantling after the 49ers fumbled a punt on their own 16.

From there, it was a back-and-fourth rock fight between heavyweights. A Brock Purdy scoring pass to Jauan Jennings put San Francisco ahead, 16-13. Credit Leo Chenal’s oversized paw for swatting away the extra point, a play that would prove pivotal in the final minutes. Then the lead kept changing: Tied at 16 on a 24-yard Harrison Butker field goal with 5:16 left. Jake Moody’s 53-yarder put the 49ers on top, 19-16, with 1:54 left. Butker answered for the Chiefs, 19-19, with just :03 in regulation after Mahomes drove them 64 yards in 11 plays.

Overtime. Following the infamous 13-Second Comeback game against Buffalo in the 2022 playoffs, the NFL changed the sudden-death aspect of its overtime rules to ensure that each team would have one possession in the extra period.  The 49ers won the toss, took the ball, and drove an agonizing 66 yards, burning more than half the extra period clock, before another defensive stop limited them to a final field goal. 

At 22-19, the stage was set: Starting from their 25, the Chiefs moved more effortlessly than they had most of the game, with one exception: Forced to go for it on a make-it-or-go-home fourth-and-1 at their own 34, Mahomes got eight yards with his legs.

From there, he completed all of his next six passes, sandwiched around a key 19-yard scramble. That set the Chiefs up on the 49er 3-yard-line with seven seconds on the clock. Mecole Hardman, split out to the right, feigned motion to the left, pivoted quickly back as the 49ers defenders paused to analyze his movement, and found himself all along at the goal line. For Mahomes, it was a matter of fish, barrel and gun.

Touchdown. Game. Bring on the party.

But goodness, did it take everything this team had in the tank to finish this way.

Back From the Brink

Mahomes, earning his third set of MVP honors in three championship runs since 2020, would call this Super Bowl “a microcosm of our season.” He did not overstate the case.

Six times during the 2023 regular season, the Chiefs endured uncharacteristic losses—uncharacteristic of recent history, anyway—that had many in the pundit class questioning whether the “dynasty” was over before it had really cemented its legacy.

That question was answered forcefully after the Las Vegas Raiders played Grinch on Christmas Day and left Arrowhead Stadium with a rare victory. At that point, Kansas City stood at 9-6 on the year, having lost five of their previous eight games. They rebounded to finish at 11-6, then tore through the playoffs like a team possessed.

The game capped a season in which—for the first time in the Mahomes Era—the Chiefs appeared to be solid, but just not quite … spectacular. Had it not been for the opening-game absences of tight end Travis Kelce (injured knee) and defensive line terror Chris Jones (contract holdout), the Chiefs might well have started 7-0 in the regular season. Instead, they started the season with a narrow loss to the Detroit Lions, 21-20. 

With Kelce and Jones back on active duty the following week, it appeared that the skids were greased for another Super Bowl run. Indeed, they ripped off six straight victories, letting 31 opposing teams know that little had changed.

Except something had. The growing pains associated with the constant rebuilding of offensive skill players became evident to all over the next 10 games, as the Chiefs were a very un-Kansas-City-like 5-5. This, thanks to a confederation of mental errors—dropped passes, silly penalties, ragged offensive line play and some suspect coaching calls here and there. Even Mahomes looked merely human in many cases.

Only the emergence of a rock-wall defense this year—and even more dismal performances by their AFC West colleagues—prevented the Chiefs from a potential fallout from playoff contention. 

Perhaps most frustrating of all during that stretch was the home loss to the Buffalo Bills in December. The Chiefs seemed to have pulled that one out of the fire when Kelce hauled in a long pass from Mahomes, pivoted as tacklers closed in, and fired the ball cross-field to Kadarious Toney, who breezed the final 25 yards to the end zone with 72 seconds left on the clock. 

Game, right? Ehhh, no. In a call one might expect to see perhaps once in a decade, Toney had drawn a flag for having a toe over the line of scrimmage pre-snap. Normally, the officials will issue a warning about proper alignment if a player is too aggressive with his stance. Not this time. As a result, Coach Andy Reid was … chagrined. To no avail, however. The Bills left town with a 20-17 victory. 

It was one in a series of low points that had some in the NFL’s pundit pack declaring that Mahomes Mystique had run its course. By the time the regular season concluded, the Chiefs were power-ranked third, fourth, even ninth—ninth!—out of 32 teams by various ranking enterprises. (Hats off to ESPN, by the way, for that lowball estimate.)

The Christmas Day loss to the Raiders produced the lowest of the lows. In a season filled with subpar offensive performances, the Chiefs once again failed to hit the 20-point mark. The Raiders did: 20-14. After which, a team meeting produced a general consensus that far too many players were failing to uphold recent tradition. 

Those conversations were private. The results of them quickly became very public. Kansas City didn’t lose again on the way to the title game. It closed out the season by dispatching Joe Burrow-less Cincinnati, 25-17, then did the schoolyard bully thing to the Chargers, 13-12, even while resting most of the starters with the No. 3 playoff seed secured.

of the lows. In a season filled with subpar offensive performances, the Chiefs once again failed to hit the 20-point mark. The Raiders did: 20-14. After which, a team meeting produced a general consensus that far too many players were failing to uphold recent tradition. 

Rebuilding Momentum

The rebound, said coach Andy Reid, was “a tribute to their strength as a group, welcoming in new guys with high expectations and still making it work. Not pushing anybody out the door because it started a little slow or even, that they started slow but, then they didn’t hang their head and kept pushing forward. I always sit there on that first day of a training camp and tell you every year is different; every team is different. Well, this one is different from any of the other ones. They’ve grown together, which has been neat to watch.”

Still, they faced what some analysts and number-crunchers called the most statistically difficult schedule any team has ever endured to reach a Super Bowl. To get there, the Chiefs had to beat the AFC’s top two teams—on the road, no less—before taking on the No. 1 seed from the NFC. 

A lot of footballs have been snapped since Kansas City last entered a three-game stretch as betting underdogs, but that’s where they found themselves after the wild-card round. With temperatures during that game plunging to minus-13 degrees—it was one of the coldest games in NFL history—they delivered a 26-7 filleting of the Miami Dolphins. Then a novelty in the Mahomes era—a road playoff game.

The Chiefs shuffled off to Buffalo to exact a measure of revenge from the previous month, escaping 27-24 when a last-minute field goal sailed wide right on the Bills. A five-year string of hosting AFC Championships in Kansas City would only be extended if someone else would beat Baltimore. No one could. 

Traveling to take on the NFL’s best team, which had an extra week of rest and the league’s MVP at quarterback, Kansas City did what few expected, punching its ticket to Vegas with a 17-10 victory that wasn’t as close as the final score suggested. 

Then came Super Bowl XLIII, their fourth trip in five seasons, a chance to knock off the NFC’s highest-ranked team, the 49ers, and a date with destiny.