GLENDALE, Ariz. — On Thursday evening, Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs received his second N.F.L. Most Priceless Participant Award, cementing him as probably the most completed passer of a brand new crop of younger quarterbacks dominating the league. Three days later, he added the second Tremendous Bowl victory of his profession, throwing for 182 yards and three touchdowns to beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35.
The sport concluded a tumultuous season for the N.F.L. during which Buffalo Payments security Damar Hamlin collapsed on the sector from a cardiac arrest throughout a recreation and high-profile hits to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa renewed criticisms of how the league handles gamers’ well being, particularly concussions.
Mahomes fought via the playoffs with an harm of his personal, a excessive ankle sprain sustained within the divisional spherical final month that was aggravated within the second quarter Sunday.
Philadelphia dominated the primary half. But, with Kansas Metropolis dealing with a 10-point deficit to start the third quarter, Mahomes marshaled a resilient efficiency in a recreation noteworthy for pitting him towards one other emergent passer, Jalen Hurts, within the first Tremendous Bowl contested between two Black beginning quarterbacks.
In the long run, Mahomes additional enshrined himself because the face of the league as he embraced teammates beneath cascading pink and gold confetti, particularly after the seven-time champion Tom Brady retired (for good, he stated) 11 days earlier than the Tremendous Bowl.
Like Brady, Mahomes delivered an exciting comeback, this time, from a 10-point second-half deficit, which earned him recreation M.V.P. honors.
“To be right down to a crew like that and are available again and win the sport,” Mahomes stated, “I want I’d make it simpler and never be down, however I play higher after we are down.”
With simply over one minute left within the first half and Kansas Metropolis trailing by 21-14, Mahomes scrambled outdoors the pocket however Eagles linebacker T.J. Edwards tackled him by his proper ankle. Mahomes had injured that ankle Jan. 21 towards the Jacksonville Jaguars, and had been compromised for the A.F.C. championship recreation towards the Cincinnati Bengals the following week.
Mahomes stated his harm rehabilitation had gone nicely main into Sunday’s recreation, however after the Edwards sort out he lay on the bottom for a couple of moments earlier than limping to the sideline. Kansas Metropolis punted on the drive, resulting in an Eagles discipline aim that prolonged their result in 24-14. As Mahomes reached the bench, he took off his helmet and grimaced in misery. Till that time, he had thrown for 89 yards, together with a 18-yard landing cross to the star tight finish Travis Kelce within the first quarter.
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Kansas Metropolis’s down-to-the-wire victory over Philadelphia gave the crew its second title in 4 seasons.
Mahomes stated in a postgame information convention that he didn’t obtain a painkilling injection from trainers within the locker room throughout halftime, however “did some stuff to get it prepared,” together with taping the ankle.
“He grew up in a locker room,” Coach Andy Reid stated of Mahomes, whose father, Pat, performed Main League Baseball for 11 seasons. “He’s seen the greats and he strives to be the best. With out saying something, that’s the way in which he works. He desires to be the best participant ever.”
Within the first half, Hurts had appeared to personal the second, propelling the Eagles with scoring runs of 1 and 4 yards and a 45-yard landing cross to A.J. Brown initially of the second quarter. Since being acquired through an low season commerce with the Tennessee Titans, Brown had bolstered the Eagles’ offense and have become a main goal of Hurts. He caught 11 landing passes — half the scores Hurts threw — within the common season and, on Sunday, caught six passes for 96 yards.
Their pairing had helped Hurts grow to be one of many league’s greatest quarterbacks in his third season and second because the full-time starter. Hurts’s one mistake Sunday got here with slightly below 10 minutes remaining within the first half, when he fumbled and Kansas Metropolis linebacker Nick Bolton returned it 36 yards for a landing, tying the rating at 14 after the additional level.
“You by no means know what play it is going to be, however it harm us,” stated Hurts, who completed with 304 passing yards and 4 touchdowns. He set a report for many dashing yards by a quarterback within the Tremendous Bowl, with 70. “You look again and also you mirror on the issues perhaps you could possibly have achieved one thing extra, perhaps you could possibly have tried to achieved one thing that would change the end result of the sport and that’s the way in which it was.”
Whereas Hurts’s crew added a star receiver earlier than the season who ended up enjoying a key function in a Tremendous Bowl run, Mahomes noticed a prime goal, the speedy Tyreek Hill, traded to Miami. With the additions of Marquez Valdes-Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster in free company, Mahomes tailored his fashion to search for shorter throws, which proved efficient all through the season and helped gasoline Kansas Metropolis within the second half Sunday.
On the primary drive after halftime, Mahomes returned to the big-game daring that’s his calling card. The rookie working again Isiah Pacheco and the undersized veteran again Jerick McKinnon ignited the offense with quick bursts earlier than Mahomes examined that ankle by scrambling for a 14-yard acquire on a second down within the pink zone to increase the sequence. The scamper appeared to embolden Mahomes towards the Eagles’ stout protection earlier than Pacheco ran in a 1-yard rating to slim Philadelphia’s result in 3 factors.
The Eagles responded with a 17-play drive that ended when Jake Elliott kicked a 33-yard discipline aim to provide Philadelphia a 27-21 lead late within the third quarter.
With 12 minutes remaining within the recreation, Mahomes orchestrated a nine-play, 75-yard drive that concluded with a 5-yard landing cross to Kadarius Toney to take a 28-27 lead.
Kansas Metropolis’s protection pressured the Eagles to punt with simply over 10 minutes remaining, and Toney collected the ball and wove via Philadelphia’s protection crew down the correct sideline for a 65-yard acquire, the longest punt return in Tremendous Bowl historical past. Three performs later, Mahomes threw a 4-yard landing to the rookie Skyy Moore to provide Kansas Metropolis a 35-27 lead with simply over 9 minutes remaining.
Hurts battled again, connecting with DeVonta Smith on a 46-yard cross to arrange a landing on the sequence. Hurts carried in a 2-yard run, his third landing carry, earlier than punching in a 2-point conversion that tied the sport at 35-35 with simply over 5 minutes remaining.
“To me, Jalen performed the perfect recreation I’ve seen him play within the two years that we’ve been collectively,” Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni stated. “He was excellent. I actually thought he was in full management.”
The back-and-forth affair exemplified the symmetry and parallels between the 2 groups. Maybe fittingly, each coaches, every tried to beat groups that after employed them.
Reid coached the Eagles from 1999 to 2012, and led the crew to a Tremendous Bowl berth within the 2004 season. However the Eagles proprietor Jeffrey Lurie fired Reid after the crew posted a 4-12 report in 2012, the worst marketing campaign in Reid’s tenure. Reid joined Kansas Metropolis simply days afterward and, as a part of putting in a brand new employees, fired Sirianni, then the receivers coach.
However since buying and selling as much as choose Mahomes within the first spherical of the 2017 N.F.L. draft, Kansas Metropolis has created a dynasty. Since changing into the full-time stater in 2018, Mahomes has appeared in 5 consecutive A.F.C. championship video games and three of the final 4 Tremendous Bowls.
The Eagles decided a lot of the tempo of Sunday’s recreation, possessing the ball almost 12 minutes longer than the Chiefs did. However on Kansas Metropolis’s remaining drive, Mahomes managed the clock with quick passes earlier than breaking via with a 26-yard run to place Kansas Metropolis contained in the pink zone with just a little over two minutes remaining. The Eagles’ protection, which amassed 70 sacks throughout the common season, didn’t report a single sack of Mahomes within the recreation.
Philadelphia’s protection held Pacheco to a 2-yard acquire on the following play, and Mahomes’s subsequent cross to Smith-Schuster fell incomplete. Going through third-and-8, Mahomes once more focused Smith-Schuster with a brief throw however cornerback James Bradberry was known as for defensive holding on the play, a penalty which gave Kansas Metropolis a brand new set of downs.
“It was a holding,” Bradberry stated of the pivotal infraction. “I tugged his jersey. I hoped they,” the sport officers, “would let it slide.”
McKinnon discovered daylight on a first-down run from the Eagles’ 11-yard line and will have scored however tiptoed to the 2-yard line the place he stopped quick to maintain the clock working and drive the Eagles to make use of their remaining timeouts. Mahomes knelt on the following two downs earlier than Harrison Butker kicked a 27-yard discipline aim to offer the ultimate rating.
Within the locker room after the sport, as Kansas Metropolis’s gamers sparked cigars and sprayed champagne, Mahomes unwrapped a championship wrestling belt, one other award in a rising assortment.
