Young Mahomes leads comeback for ages as NFL closes its first century

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — They were celebrating the passage of time as much as football at this Super Bowl: 100-year-old World War II veterans at midfield for the pregame coin flip, 50-year-old pop diva Jennifer Lopez handling halftime, and, of course, a quarterback who turns 25 this year saving the best part of the show for last.

It is easy, especially after the improbable, blink-and-you-miss-it escape act he engineered to win the title Sunday, to say Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes — mobile and with a rocket arm — is what the perfect quarterback will look like as the NFL embarks on its second century of football.

But what Mahomes did on a cool, crisp evening in South Florida was grounded in the most basic of sports concepts, one that harkens to the days of leather helmets and long bus rides to games.

“My mindset,” Mahomes said, “is always to play and compete to the very end.”

And so he did. He injected life into an offense that looked done for, coaxed three touchdowns out of that offense over the span of 5 minutes, 1 second late in the fourth quarter and pulled out a 31-20 victory over San Francisco in a game that seemed all but lost.

Three times during this postseason, Mahomes and the Chiefs have trailed by 10 points or more, and all three times they came back to win by double-digits. That is a first. But even that history-making feat doesn’t do justice to what Mahomes pulled off in the final game of the NFL’s much-celebrated centennial.

After Mahomes threw the first postseason interception of his 3-year-old career — “I hit him right between the ‘5’ and the ‘4,’ ” he said of the pick to linebacker Fred Warner — the 49ers drove 55 methodical yards to take a 20-10 lead.

There was 2:35 left on in the third quarter, and the Chiefs, used to buzzing up and down the field to the tune of 51 and 35 points in the two earlier games this postseason, had 187 yards, only 136 passing. They had scored a measly touchdown and a field goal and hadn’t cracked a single play longer than 19 yards.

“I wasn’t feeling good about it at all,” said receiver Tyreek Hill, who would prove critical in turning around the game. “I told Pat, ‘It’s 20-10 with seven minutes left. C’mon, bro,’ And all Pat did, he just told me to believe.”

Hill believed. And he started running.

Rarely has a game turned so rapidly. Rarely has a team still behind on the scoreboard seemed so destined to win.

It had been 50 years since their team last appeared in, and won, the Super Bowl. Mahomes, the quarterback who coach Andy Reid handpicked and traded away draft picks to get, was supposed to change all that.

“We knew it would be a close game, and there would be some challenges,” Reid said. “He kept firing. That’s what he did. The guys around him just believed in him. We all did.”

It didn’t take long for the questions to start coming about a young team with a young quarterback and a grizzled old coach who thinks young: Could this be the first of many?

“I mean, obviously, I’ve had a great start to my career,” said Mahomes, who finished with 286 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Does he see himself as the new face of the NFL?

“There are a lot of young quarterbacks and still a lot of veteran guys that are playing at a very high level,” he said. “So I just try to be the best Patrick Mahomes I can be.”

Which, as the Niners, the NFL and the entire Super Bowl-viewing audience discovered Sunday night, was good enough.