LAS VEGAS — The NFL is defending its title for the first time in 19 years. The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday to win their third Super Bowl title in five seasons and solidify their status as the league’s modern dynasty. .
This one, like the first two with Kansas City and its superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, featured a thrilling second-half comeback and, this time, some overtime heroics .
Jake Moody’s 27-yard field goal gave the 49ers a 22-19 lead on the first play of overtime, but the Chiefs responded with a 13-play, 75-yard drive that ended with Mahomes (Mahomes’ 3-yard touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman won the game.
It’s just the latest must-do move for a Kansas City team that has earned a reputation behind Mahomes as being most dangerous with the ball last. Trailing 16-19 with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs marched 75 yards in 11 plays, capped by Harrison Butker kicking a 29-yard field goal. The key moment in the offense came on third-and-7 with 16 seconds left, when Mahomes hit Travis Kelce on a pass for a 22-yard gain and a 22-yard gain for the Chiefs. The team played easily and laid the foundation.
It was the Chiefs’ fourth Super Bowl win and the franchise’s third under head coach Andy Reid, who tied with Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs for the third-most all-time. Only Bill Belichick (six) and Chuck Noll (four) have more.
“Third is a big number for a dynasty,” Kelce said this week, adding that he wants to win a Super Bowl more than the previous three Super Bowls he’s been to. Winning three titles in five years puts the Chiefs in a different conversation, including some of the greatest performances in league history.
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Mahomes won the Super Bowl MVP for the third time with a passer rating of 99.3 after completing 34 of 46 passes for 333 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. He joins Tom Brady (five times) and Joe Montana (three times) as the only players to win the Super Bowl MVP award three times.
The championship also elevated Mahomes to the elite — he’s compiled an impressive 15-3 mark in the postseason during his six-year career — and he’s now league history’s best One of five quarterbacks to win at least three Super Bowls, joining Montana’s Brady (seven) (four), Terry Bradshaw (four) and Troy Aikman ( three). Brady, Aikman and 28-year-old Mahomes are the only ones with three wins before their 30th birthday. In the past two postseasons, Mahomes has a 7-0 record, throwing for 13 touchdowns and just one interception.
When CBS announcer Jim Nantz mentioned on the postgame podium how the Chiefs were the underdog in their final three games of the playoffs, Mahomes said, “Kansas City Chiefs have never been the underdog. . Just know that.”
Kelce added: “We couldn’t have gotten here without the support of our full-year goals. Now we have the opportunity to do it three times in a row.”
It was a devastating loss for the 49ers, especially head coach Kyle Shanahan, who added another chapter of Super Bowl heartbreak to an otherwise stellar career. . As Atlanta’s offensive coordinator in 2017, Shanahan was on the wrong side of the biggest lead in Super Bowl history blown away when the Patriots trailed 28-3 in the third quarter. rallied to beat the Falcons in another championship game that went into overtime. Sunday’s loss was Shanahan’s second Super Bowl loss as head coach. Four years ago, in Super Bowl 54, the 49ers led the Chiefs by 10 points in the fourth quarter before ultimately losing 31-20.
San Francisco’s championship drought has lasted 29 seasons. The 49ers won the Lombardi Trophy five times in a 13-year span from 1982 to 1995, but since then (after the 2012, 2019 and 2023 seasons), the 49ers have failed in all three Super Bowl trips. Lose.
Before this year’s Chiefs, the last time the Patriots successfully defended their Super Bowl title was in 2004. What had become routine in the first few decades of the Super Bowl era – eight repeat winners in the first 39 editions – is now non-existent, a byproduct of growing equality across the league and indicative of What a grueling Super Bowl run it is. able.
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The title capped a stunning late-season surge for Kansas City, which endured its worst regular season since Mahomes became the starter in 2018. The Chiefs just lost 9-6 to the Raiders at home on Christmas Day due to an unusually inconsistent offense that included a league-worst 44 throws by receivers. Kansas City general manager Brett Veach is looking scary as he wonders if his team will make the playoffs.
“You see it every year,” Veach said this week, “where a team starts off well and doesn’t make the playoffs.”
But the Chiefs wouldn’t lose again all year, finishing the regular season with two wins and then winning four straight in the playoffs. It started in frigid temperatures in Kansas City with a wild-card win over the Dolphins in the fourth-coldest game in NFL history, followed by two gutsy road wins in Buffalo and Baltimore — the first of Mahomes’ postseason career. A true road win — and a comeback Sunday in Las Vegas to top it all off.
This is the most unlikely title the Chiefs have right now, not only because of their struggles in the regular season, but also because of the intense scrutiny the team has received for much of the year. Kelce’s relationship with pop superstar Taylor Swift became a phenomenon throughout the regular season and playoffs — she scored in all four games of Kansas City’s playoff run, including Super Bowl Sunday after Saturday’s performance in Tokyo — became one of her regular-season and postseason performances. The greatest stories in sports.
Asked what he knew about the celebrity craze of the past few months, Kelce smiled as he made the point a week before the game: “Being famous around the world is a lot different than being famous in Kansas City.”
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The 49ers controlled the first half with their trenches on Sunday, especially when the Chiefs had the ball. San Francisco’s punishing defense kept letting Mahomes crawl out of the pocket, sacking him twice and often forcing him to rush passes. The Chiefs offense, in turn, never got in sync and only managed a late field goal to put San Francisco up 10-0.
The Chiefs gained just 16 yards in the first quarter — compared to San Francisco’s 125 — and couldn’t get Kelce involved. Kelce caught a one-yard bubble screen early, his only target in the game’s first 30 minutes.
After kicker Moody hit what was then the longest field goal in Super Bowl history — 55 yards — in the first quarter, the 49ers hit wide receiver Ja’an Jenning with 4:23 left in the second quarter. Jauan Jennings hit McCaffrey from Purdy for a 21-yard catch and run. It was a brave and creative play by Shanahan and the first touchdown pass of Jennings’ three-year career.
San Francisco led 10-3 at halftime, and Kansas City suffered a setback. CBS cameras captured Kelce having a tense confrontation with Reid on the sideline.
Their chances no longer looked promising after Mahomes threw his first interception in the past two playoff games on the opening drive of the third quarter.
But the game changed after the 49ers made a key mistake in the third quarter when returner Darrell Luter Jr. fumbled a punt at San Francisco’s 35-yard line. Chiefs’ Jaylen Watson recovers and Mahomes makes all the difference in one play: Moments later, he hits receiver Max Valdez-Scante Lin (Marquez Valdes-Scandling) scored a 16-yard touchdown.
Suddenly, after being outplayed the entire game, the Chiefs were ahead. History is repeating itself.
Jennings scored the 49ers’ second touchdown of the night with 11:22 to play early in the fourth quarter, but after scoring the extra point, the Chiefs tied the game at the 12 with a field goal The game ended with a 69-yard drive. drove and then won in overtime.
“This is one of the most exciting Super Bowls I’ve ever seen,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said at the Lombardi Trophy ceremony.
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(Photo: Harry Howe/Getty Images)
