LAS VEGAS — The NFL has a repeat champion for the primary time in 19 years. The Kansas City Chiefs, with a 3rd Super Bowl triumph in 5 seasons, cemented their standing because the league’s modern day dynasty with a 25-22 additional time win towards the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
This one, the similar because the remaining two for Kansas City and its famous person quarterback Patrick Mahomes, got here with a stirring second-half comeback — and, this time, with some additional time heroics.
Jake Moody’s 27-yard box purpose at the first ownership of additional time put the 49ers forward 22-19, however the Chiefs answered with a 13-play, 75-yard force and gained it on a 3-yard landing cross from Mahomes to Mecole Hardman.
It was once however the newest must-have force for Kansas City, a group that has constructed a name at the back of Mahomes as most deadly when keeping the ball remaining. The Chiefs trailed 19-16 with lower than two mins left within the fourth quarter once they marched 75 yards in 11 performs and Harrison Butker kicked a 29-yard box purpose. The key play at the force got here on a third-and-7 with 16 seconds left, when Mahomes hit Travis Kelce on a crosser for a 22-yard achieve that set the Chiefs up for the simple kick.
It’s the fourth Super Bowl win for the Chiefs franchise and the 1/3 for the group below trainer Andy Reid, who joins Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs in a tie for third-most all-time. Only Bill Belichick (six) and Chuck Noll (4) have extra.
“The number three is a big number in terms of dynasties,” Kelce stated this week, including that he sought after to win this Super Bowl greater than any of the former 3 he’d performed in. Winning 3 titles in a five-year window places the Chiefs in a special dialog, one that comes with one of the vital biggest runs in league historical past.
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Mahomes earned his 1/3 Super Bowl MVP going 34-of-46 passing for 333 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, leading to a 99.3 passer ranking. He joins Tom Brady (5) and Joe Montana (3) as the one gamers to win 3 Super Bowl MVP awards.
The championship additionally elevates Mahomes — a exceptional 15-3 within the playoffs in his six-year profession — into elite corporate: he’s now one among 5 quarterbacks in league historical past to win no less than 3 Super Bowls, becoming a member of Brady (seven), Montana (4), Terry Bradshaw (4) and Troy Aikman (3). Aikman and Mahomes, 28, are the one ones to win 3 ahead of their thirtieth birthdays. Across the remaining two postseasons, Mahomes has long gone 7-0, throwing 13 touchdowns and only one interception.
When CBS announcer Jim Nantz discussed at the postgame podium how the Chiefs had been underdogs within the remaining 3 video games of this postseason, Mahomes stated, “Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs. Just know that.”
Kelce added: “We couldn’t have gotten here without having that target on our back all year. Now we got a chance to do it three times in a row.”
It’s a devastating defeat for the 49ers, specifically trainer Kyle Shanahan, who provides some other bankruptcy of Super Bowl heartache to what’s another way been a stellar profession. As Atlanta’s offensive coordinator in 2017, Shanahan was once at the flawed aspect of the largest blown lead in Super Bowl historical past, when the Patriots rallied from a 28-3 third-quarter deficit to stun the Falcons in the one different championship recreation to visit additional time. Sunday’s loss is Shanahan’s moment as a head trainer within the Super Bowl; 4 years in the past, the 49ers blew a 10-point fourth-quarter result in the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV, sooner or later shedding 31-20.
San Francisco’s championship drought is now at 29 seasons. After successful 5 Lombardi Trophies inside a 13-year window from 1982 to 1995, the 49ers have misplaced in all 3 in their journeys to the Super Bowl since (after the 2012, 2019 and 2023 seasons).
Before this 12 months’s Chiefs, the remaining Super Bowl champion to effectively shield its identify was once the 2004 Patriots. What had change into regimen within the first few a long time of the Super Bowl technology — there have been 8 repeat winners around the first 39 editions of the sport — changed into nonexistent, a byproduct of greater parity around the league and a sign of simply how taxing Super Bowl runs can.
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The identify caps a surprising late-season surge from Kansas City, which slogged via its worst common season since Mahomes changed into the starter in 2018. Plagued by way of an uncharacteristically inconsistent offense, together with a league-worst 44 drops by way of its receivers, the Chiefs had been simply 9-6 after a loss to the Raiders at house on Christmas Day. It appeared dire sufficient that Kansas City common supervisor Brett Veach was once left questioning if his group would even make the postseason.
“You see it every year,” Veach stated this week, “a team gets off to a hot start and doesn’t make the playoffs.”
But the Chiefs wouldn’t lose once more all 12 months, completing the common season with a couple of victories ahead of ripping off 4 instantly wins within the playoffs. What began in frigid temperatures in Kansas City, a wild-card win over the Dolphins within the fourth-coldest recreation in NFL historical past, endured with two gutsy street wins in Buffalo and Baltimore — the primary true street wins of Mahomes’ playoff profession — and culminated with Sunday’s comeback in Las Vegas.
It’s essentially the most unbelievable identify of the Chiefs’ present run, no longer merely because of their common season struggles however on account of the serious highlight that’s trailed the group for many of the 12 months. Kelce’s dating with pop famous person Taylor Swift changed into its personal phenomenon, and her appearances at video games all the way through the common season and playoffs — she made it to all 4 all the way through Kansas City’s postseason run, together with Sunday’s Super Bowl after a Saturday display in Tokyo — changed into some of the largest tales in sports activities.
Asked what he’s realized concerning the weigh down of famous person over the last few months, Kelce smiled and presented this within the week main as much as the sport: “That being famous worldwide is a lot different than being famous in Kansas City.”
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On Sunday, the 49ers managed the primary 1/2 by way of proudly owning the trenches, specifically when the Chiefs had the ball. San Francisco’s punishing line of defense continuously had Mahomes scrambling from the pocket, sacking him two times and frequently forcing moved quickly throws. In flip, the Chiefs’ offense by no means were given in sync, managing only a past due box purpose to chop into San Francisco’s 10-0 lead.
The Chiefs completed with simply 16 first-quarter yards — when put next with 125 for San Francisco — and couldn’t get Kelce concerned. Kelce stuck an early bubble display screen for one backyard, his most effective goal over the primary half-hour of the sport.
After kicker Moody drilled what was once then the longest box purpose in Super Bowl historical past — a 55-yarder within the first quarter — the 49ers scored the sport’s first landing with 4:23 left in the second one quarter when wideout Jauan Jennings, off a pitch from Purdy, hit McCaffrey for a 21-yard catch-and-run rating. It was once a gutsy and artistic play name from Shanahan and the primary landing cross of Jennings’ three-year profession.
San Francisco led 10-3 on the smash and had Kansas City pissed off. CBS cameras stuck Kelce bumping into Reid at the sideline all the way through a nerve-racking trade.
Their possibilities didn’t glance to any extent further promising after the hole force of the 1/3 quarter when Mahomes threw his first interception of the remaining two postseasons.
But the sport swung after a essential 49ers’ mistake within the 1/3 quarter when returner Darrell Luter Jr. fumbled a punt on San Francisco’s 35-yard line. The Chiefs’ Jaylen Watson recovered, and it took Mahomes all of 1 play to capitalize: he hit receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling for a 16-yard landing a second later.
Suddenly, after being outplayed all recreation lengthy, the Chiefs had been in entrance. History was once repeating itself.
Jennings stuck the 49ers’ moment landing of the evening with 11:22 early within the fourth quarter, however after a blocked further level, the Chiefs had been in a position to tie the sport on an resulting box purpose that capped a 12-play, 69-yard force, ahead of successful it in additional time.
Chiefs proprietor Clark Hunt stated all the way through the Lombardi Trophy presentation, “One of the most thrilling Super Bowls I’ve ever seen.”
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(Photo: Harry How / Getty Images)
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