@OptaSTATS

The  @Chiefs:

1970-2018: 0 Super Bowl appearances in 49 seasons

2019-2023: 3 Super Bowl titles in 5 seasons

They’re the first team in MLB/NBA/NFL/NHL history to go 45+ seasons without reaching the championship round and then win 3+ championships in 5 seasons immediately after.

With consecutive Super Bowl wins, the Chiefs can become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowl titles (but not the first to win three straight NFL titles).  This from Mike Gavin:

Kansas City became just the ninth team to win back-to-back Super Bowls.

The last team to do so was the New England Patriots in 2003 and 2004. The Patriots fell three victories shy of a three-peat, losing to the Denver Broncos in the 2005 divisional round.

The Green Bay Packers won three-straight championships from 1965 to 1967, but their first title in that stretch was the year before the Super Bowl era began. Three potential three-peaters lost in the conference championship game during the Super Bowl era.

Here are all of the NFL teams that have won consecutive Super Bowls and how they fared the following season:

Kansas City Chiefs, 2022 and 2023 (2024: TBD)

New England Patriots, 2003 and 2004 (2005: Lost in divisional round)

Denver Broncos, 1997 and 1998 (1999: Finished 6-10, missed playoffs)

Dallas Cowboys, 1992 and 1993 (1994: Lost NFC Championship)

San Francisco 49ers, 1988 and 1989 (1990: Lost NFC Championship)

Pittsburgh Steelers, 1978 and 1979 (1980: Finished 9-7, missed playoffs)

Pittsburgh Steelers, 1974 and 1975 (1976: Lost AFC Championship)

Miami Dolphins, 1972 and 1973 (1974: Lost in divisional round)

Green Bay Packers, 1966 and 1967 (1968: Finished 6-7-1, missed playoffs)

There has not been a three-peat in North American professional sports since the Lakers in 2000-2002 (also the Yankees in 1998-2000).

Hockey’s last three-peat came from the Islanders (actually a five-peat in 1980-84). The Tampa Bay Lightning won two in 2020-21, then fell in the Stanley Cup Final to Colorado in 6 games in 2022.

In the NBA, the Lakers (in 2011) and the Warriors (in 2019) have failed in bids for three-peats.  The Warrior did make it to the 2019 NBA Finals, but like the Lightning in 2022, fell in 6 games to Toronto.

Major League Baseball has not had even back-to-back champions since the Yankees three-peat in 2000.

– – –

We agree with Bobby Fenton who takes a more nuanced approach to the lack of a deferral by Kyle Shanahan:

@bobbygameday

What to do if you win the coin flip to start OT can be debated. It’s better to go second for the first round of possessions, but then it’s better to go first for the rest of them if it gets that far. I don’t think it’s an obvious call either way, and I don’t blame Shanahan.

Or as Shanahan said after the game:

Following the game, Shanahan explained his thought process.

“It’s just something we talked about,” Shanahan said in his postgame news conference. “None of us have a ton of experience with [the new overtime rules]. But we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We just thought it would be better. We wanted the ball third. If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had the chance to go win. So got that field goal, so knew we had to hold them to at least a field goal and if we did, we thought it was in our hands after that.”

For more on Shanahan’s night – see SAN FRANCISCO.

– – –

Adam Teicher of ESPN.com reminds us how low the Chiefs had fallen after a loss on Christmas Day:

Before Super Bowl LVIII, the Kansas City Chiefs declined to talk much about becoming an NFL dynasty.

On Sunday, the Chiefs took their place among the all-time greats by claiming a 25-22 victory, making them the fourth franchise to win three Super Bowls in a five-year period and the first to win back-to-back championships in 20 years.

The Chiefs have four Super Bowl titles, tying them with the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants for fifth most.

“I know this is one of the greatest teams of all time, to go back to back,” tight end Travis Kelce said after the win. “This is a this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I’ve been able to go through three times now and it gets sweeter and sweeter every time. You can call us a dynasty. You can call us whatever you want. I know what we’ve got is something more special than really what you’ve seen in the NFL.”

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes polished his own legacy by leading the Chiefs on the winning drive and his third Super Bowl MVP award.

The Chiefs looked more vulnerable during the regular season than at any time since Mahomes became their starting quarterback and looked similarly shaky in the first half Sunday.

They were overwhelmed on offense by the 49ers early in the game. They fumbled three times in the opening two quarters and twice more later and were fortunate to lose just one.

The Chiefs trailed 10-0 late in the second quarter. But, as they had done in rallying from a double-digit deficit in each of their other two Super Bowl wins with Mahomes at quarterback, they came back.

“The Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs, know that,” Mahomes said from the championship podium.

IT WAS HARD to picture the Chiefs in the Super Bowl at the end of December. On Christmas Day against the Las Vegas Raiders, their season hit a low point in one of their ugliest outings of the Mahomes era.

The Raiders scored two defensive touchdowns within seven seconds in the second quarter — one on a fumble by running back Isiah Pacheco, and the next on a Mahomes interception.

The Chiefs lost 20-14 and fell to 9-6 with two regular-season games remaining, the most losses they’ve had in the Mahomes era. The postseason was looming and something had to give.

“That was a good wake-up call for us,” coach Andy Reid said after the AFC Championship Game. “It gave our guys a nice little, for [lack of] a better term, a wake-up call that, ‘Listen we need to step things up here. Things aren’t just going to fall in our lap.'”

Reid’s Chiefs answered the call, rattling off five straight wins heading into Super Bowl LVIII. They clinched their eighth straight AFC West division title, won three road playoff games and got themselves right back to the championship games. All this after it seemed Mahomes, Reid and a surprisingly dominant defense may not be able to claw their way to another title.

“It’s tough to [do] back-to-back-to-back [long] seasons,” Reid said. “We’ve played a lot of football games. You’ve got to work through that mentally. That’s not an easy thing. … What you get is everybody’s best shot. You’ve got to bring it every week. To be in this position, that tells you a little bit of something about the mental makeup of this team.”

As unpleasant as that Christmas Day loss was for the Chiefs, the turnaround could go down as the Chiefs’ most impressive Super Bowl run yet — solidifying them as a dynasty.

“Sometimes the worst things that happened to you or in your season turned out to be the best thing,” general manager Brett Veach said.

TRAILING THE RAIDERS 17-7 on Christmas with less than three minutes remaining in the first half, the Chiefs converted a fake punt on fourth-and-5 to keep their drive alive. But on the sidelines, Kelce fumed, slamming his helmet into the ground when the Chiefs ran the trick play from their own 48-yard line. With seven points on the board, Kelce’s frustration on the offensive side on the ball was evident.

And he wasn’t the only one showing cracks. After the Chiefs put up minus-18 yards in the first quarter, Mahomes was seen delivering an impassioned plea to his offensive line.

The frustration of that Raiders game epitomized Mahomes’ subpar statistical performance through Week 16.

From Weeks 8 to 16, Mahomes’ QBR was 47.1. The Chiefs went 3-5 in that span and turned the ball over 15 times. Kelce, his longtime favorite target, was averaging 55.5 yards per game.

But the Raiders loss helped reignite the spark their offense had been missing.

“I saw more from within the building just how hard guys were working, how guys were taking it personally,” Mahomes said after the AFC Championship Game. “You kind of know how they react after games if you’re going to be in this spot or if you’re going to a chance to be in the spot, and guys weren’t happy and they were putting in the work to get better and that’s what you need in order whenever you go through adverse times.”

Between Week 17 and the AFC Championship Game, Mahomes’ QBR was 84.9 and Kelce averaged just shy of 70 yards per game. In Super Bowl LVIII, Kelce had 90 receiving yards on nine receptions.

“I hope people remember not only the greatness that we have on the field, but the way that we’ve done it,” Mahomes said Sunday. “I feel like we enjoy it every single day. We have fun, we play hard and it’s not always pretty, but we just continue to fight to the very end.”

THROUGH THE OFFENSIVE inconsistency, the Chiefs’ defense kept Kansas City afloat Sunday — much like the regular season.

After the 49ers won the toss in overtime, the Chiefs forced them to kick a field goal on their opening drive after making it all the way to the red zone. On the ensuing possession, the Chiefs drove 75 yards and scored the winning touchdown on a 3-yard pass to Mecole Hardman Jr.

“How about that D, baby?” Reid said during the postgame ceremony.

Under coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, the unit finished second in scoring defense during the regular season and were even better in the playoffs against the Miami Dolphins, Bills and Ravens, allowing fewer than 14 points per game until the Super Bowl.

“I really would not want to play [against] our defense,” Mahomes said. “You have depth, guys rotate in, can do it all and then you have Spags with the scheme. All the guys are so well-coached in the scheme that they use it to their advantage, and you never know where they’re at.”

Led by defensive tackle Chris Jones and cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, the Chiefs defense had given up a touchdown 42% of the time when the opponent is in the red zone since Week 17. From Weeks 8 through 16, they averaged 56%.

Jones, 29, has been one of the NFL’s top pass-rushers for years. He had 10.5 sacks this season to tie for the team lead after missing training camp and the first regular-season game while holding out for a new contract. On Sunday, Jones had 4 tackles and 2 quarterback hits on Brock Purdy.

The Chiefs had a league-high 80 pressures from defensive tackles including the playoffs going into Sunday, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Their ability to swing a game’s momentum was on display early and often in the Super Bowl. With the 49ers driving in the first quarter Sunday, defensive end George Karlaftis recovered a fumble by running back Christian McCaffrey at Kansas City’s 27-yard line. They also forced San Francisco to punt five times, and held the 49ers to a field goal on the first possession of overtime before Mahomes led the Chiefs down the field for the winning touchdown.

“I still remember in ’17 and ’18 just saying if we can just get [the other team] to punt just once we’ve got a shot,” Veach said last week. “Now all of a sudden it’s like all we’ve got to do is just score once and we’re good.”

Mahomes and Reid entered rare territory with the comeback victory. Mahomes became the seventh player from the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB to win three championships and two regular-season MVPs in his first seven seasons, joining legendary players in Larry Bird, Guy Lafleur, Bill Russell, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio.

Reid became the fifth NFL coach with at least three Super Bowl titles. Only the Patriots’ Bill Belichick (six) and the Steelers’ Chuck Noll (four) are ahead of him. He is tied with the 49ers’ Bill Walsh and Washington’s Joe Gibbs.

When the Chiefs had a lead to protect or a one-score game to stay within reach of their opponent, their defense found a way to answer. It wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t easy, but the Chiefs are Super Bowl champions for the second year in a row.

“When it came time to put the hammer down,” Reid said, “we put the hammer down.”

Mike Sando of The Athletic makes the case that the Chiefs are already the NFL’s fourth “dynasty” and anything else they do is just gravy:

Go ahead and crown the Kansas City Chiefs as the fourth NFL dynasty of the Super Bowl era. They have joined the post-2000 New England Patriots, 1980s San Francisco 49ers and 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers in a class apart from all others. Theirs is a dynasty in progress — just getting started, perhaps. But these Chiefs have done enough to belong.

That is the big-picture takeaway from the Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime victory over the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, which delivered Kansas City its third Lombardi Trophy in five seasons.

What makes an NFL dynasty? Patrick Mahomes does, but there’s more to it than that.

The Pick Six column lays out logical requirements for dynasty status with an appreciation for history, explaining what connects these Chiefs to those other legendary teams. The Joe Gibbs-era Washington Redskins and early 1990s Dallas Cowboys were great, but they belong in separate categories, as we’ll explain.

1. What makes for a Super Bowl-era dynasty and what elevates these Chiefs to that status? Let’s dive into the criteria.

The public-address announcer at Allegiant Stadium introduced the Chiefs as a “dynasty in the making” before the team ran onto the field.

For much of the game, the Chiefs played like a dynasty in the unmaking. They fumbled, wasted timeouts, incurred costly penalties and were fortunate to trail only 10-3 at halftime.

But when Kansas City had to score or else, Mahomes and the Chiefs delivered, just as even the most ardent 49ers fan should have expected them to do. And so here they are, with three Super Bowl victories in five seasons, and people will ask, are they a dynasty?

After studying the greatest Super Bowl-era runs, the 1974-79 Steelers, 1981-94 49ers, 2001-18 Patriots and 2019-23 Chiefs emerged as the only teams fitting what I think are logical requirements for dynasty status:

• Winning three-plus Super Bowls over five-plus seasons

• Posting the NFL’s best regular-season winning percentage, beginning with the first Super Bowl-winning season and ending with the final or most recent one

• Reaching the conference championship round more than half the time during the dynasty

These benchmarks account for dominant success over time.

The table below compares the Chiefs to their dynastic peers in the Super Bowl era. All the relevant boxes are checked. Kansas City, like New England, has won big in the free-agency era, which complicates keeping together great teams.

Dynasty implies a run of significant duration. Five seasons feels just long enough. Three Super Bowl victories feels like the correct minimum, but not by itself. Three in a row would be a three-peat, not a dynasty. Three in four seasons would be incredible, perhaps a mini-dynasty, but not quite long enough to make it a dynasty.

The 1992-95 Cowboys were a dynasty in the making after winning three Super Bowls in four seasons, but owner Jerry Jones fired coach Jimmy Johnson before the third Super Bowl victory. The chances for a true dynasty evaporated.

The 1982-91 Redskins won three Super Bowls but did not reach conference championship games more than half the time. They also finished second to the 49ers in winning percentage over that period. It’s tough to claim dynasty status within a primary rival’s superior dynasty.

Those Gibbs-era Washington teams stand on their own for winning three Super Bowls with three starting quarterbacks, one of the most impressive accomplishments in league history. But they don’t check all the boxes for a dynasty.

The Patriots had Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski. The 49ers had Bill Walsh (and George Seifert), Joe Montana (and Steve Young) and Jerry Rice. The Steelers had Chuck Noll, Terry Bradshaw, two Hall of Fame receivers and a legendary defense.

The Chiefs have Andy Reid, Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They are not as stacked right now as some of those other dynasty teams, but they will address their issues, especially at receiver. They are not far away from becoming one of the better Chiefs teams, ridiculous as that sounds following back-to-back Super Bowl victories.

And this is why these Chiefs can ultimately threaten New England’s run of six Super Bowl victories during the Belichick-Brady era.

These Chiefs are the rare team that can win it all repeatedly with their merely decent teams. No one will point to the 2022 or 2023 Chiefs as all-time great teams individually. The 2023 team was the 28th-best in franchise history, according to Pro Football Reference’s Simple Rating System, which uses point differential and schedule strength to produce a rating that doubles as a point spread against an average opponent.

For the Chiefs, winning back-to-back Super Bowls with the 19th- and 28th-best teams in franchise history feels like stealing, except these outcomes also feel inevitable, given Mahomes’ brilliance.

Contrast these past two Kansas City seasons to the Brady-Belichick Patriots, who failed to win it all with the three highest-rated SRS teams in franchise history: the 2007 team (20.1 SRS) famously lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII following an undefeated regular season, while the 2010 (15.4 SRS) and 2012 (12.8 SRS) teams didn’t even reach Super Bowls.

The Chiefs are winning it all during their so-so seasons, even against top-quality opponents. Their title path this season included playoff wins over the league’s top two teams in SRS (Ravens, 49ers) and four of the top five (Bills, Dolphins).

As this Super Bowl against the 49ers wound down and Mahomes went to work, finding Kelce almost at will and finally winning the game with a beautifully called, 3-yard walk-off scoring pass to Mecole Hardman, I recalled what an exec from another team said about the Chiefs back in October, when questions swirled around their struggling pass game.

“Yeah, it looks harder for them on offense until Mahomes finds (Travis) Kelce on every major third down, every major two-minute play, every major touchdown,” the exec said then. “Kansas City has the luxury of their best players being their toughest players. Chris Jones is a very tough player. Kelce is a very tough player. Mahomes is a very tough player. You wonder why they win the games? Because the games are won by the toughest teams most of the time.”

That toughness allowed Mahomes to carry the 2022 Chiefs past Philadelphia on a badly injured ankle. This Chiefs team played tough defense, which was critical for keeping the score close long enough Sunday for Mahomes to make the difference in the end. Was there any doubt what would happen after the 49ers settled for a field goal on their opening drive in overtime?

Challenges lie ahead for the Chiefs. Reid turns 66 in March, and while I have a hard time envisioning him walking away from Mahomes, he isn’t going to coach forever. What would the Chiefs be without him? Kelce is 34 and could decline at any time, given his age. What would Kansas City be without him?

These are questions for another day, perhaps years into the future.

For now, the Chiefs are the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the 2003-04 Patriots. If they become the first team to win three in a row, they’ll match those 1970s Steelers with four Super Bowl victories in a six-season span, leaving only the 1980s 49ers and post-2000 Patriots left to conquer.

That will take time, and maybe some luck.

Brady’s Patriots won three Super Bowls in his first four seasons as a starter, then went nine seasons without winning another. No one could have foreseen the David Tyree helmet catch or Philly Special or any number of plays that kept the Patriots from winning even more. Brady lost a season to a torn ACL. Mahomes has so far seemed indestructible.

We can’t know what awaits these Chiefs, but as long as Mahomes remains their quarterback, everything is possible.

– – –

Matt Barrow of The Athletic looks at things from the frustrated San Francisco side:

Patrick Mahomes was on the San Francisco 49ers’ minds even when they had the ball on Sunday.

Facing third-and-4 from the Kansas City Chiefs’ 9-yard line in overtime, Brock Purdy said he knew the 49ers couldn’t settle for a field goal because it would give Mahomes a chance to counter with the type of game-winning drive for which he’s become famous.

“You just don’t want to give him an opportunity to go down and win the game with a touchdown,” Purdy said.

That’s exactly what happened.

The 49ers’ third-down play was a good one. It called for Jauan Jennings, a strong contender for the game’s MVP award at that point, to start inside, then cut quickly back to the near pylon. He did, shaking his defender in the process.

“It looked like Jauan killed him, won pretty good,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said afterward.

The problem is that no one blocked Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones, who’s both Kansas City’s best defensive player and someone who plagued the 49ers in their last Super Bowl meeting with the Chiefs. Right tackle Colton McKivitz put a hand on Jones, but moved to the outside to block defensive end George Karlaftis.

That gave Jones a free run at Purdy, who had to rush his pass and ended up throwing too far for Jennings. The 49ers settled for a 27-yard Jake Moody field goal and a 3-point lead. And that set the stage for what Purdy and the 49ers feared: A vintage Mahomes drive that went 13 plays, included a 19-yard Mahomes scramble and ended with a game-winning toss to a wide-open Mecole Hardman.

The score and resulting 25-22 victory left Mahomes with the MVP award and the 49ers exhausted, devastated and, for the second time in four years, ruing what could have been in a Super Bowl versus the Chiefs.

“When you have a good offense like the Chiefs do and what Mahomes can do, for us, it’s like, ‘All right we have to score touchdowns,’” Purdy said. “And we had opportunities to do so, I think. Shot ourselves in the foot just with penalties and the operations and stuff.”

For most of the game, the 49ers and Chiefs were virtual twins.

Both defenses were dominant early, taking the opponent’s best players out of the game. Defensive effort may have been an issue in the 49ers’ opening playoff games, but not on Sunday as players like Chase Young, Randy Gregory and Javon Kinlaw stepped forward with big plays that frustrated the Chiefs and held them to 6 points through nearly three quarters.

Mahomes’ favorite target, tight end Travis Kelce, had one catch for 1 yard at halftime. And Mahomes and Purdy had exactly the same modest passing total — 123 yards — at halftime.

The Chiefs defense, however, was even better at squashing their opponent’s star players. Receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel were held to three catches each on Sunday despite Samuel being targeted a game-high 11 times. Tight end George Kittle had a key catch on fourth down in the fourth quarter but was held to 4 yards total. That fourth-and-3 throw in the fourth quarter also was influenced by Mahomes.

“That isn’t probably something normally we’d do, but thought it was the right thing in that situation,” Shanahan said.

The only true offensive weapons for the 49ers were Jennings, who had a passing and receiving touchdown, and Christian McCaffrey, who had a combined 160 yards of offense.

What’s more, the 49ers offense never could fully take advantage of Mahomes’ and Kelce’s modest starts.

Early in the third quarter, Mahomes was flushed from the pocket but found that Kelce was being blanketed by linebacker Fred Warner. He instead hoisted a pass to receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling that was picked off by safety Ji’Ayir Brown at the Kansas City 44-yard line.

The 49ers had momentum, they had the crowd behind them and they had a perfect opportunity to build on their 10-3 lead. Instead Purdy threw an incompletion on first down, guard Aaron Banks committed a false start on second down and the 49ers had to punt the ball away.

“It was small things everywhere — all three phases,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “We did things that weren’t characteristic to what we usually do as a team and I think in the end that’s what hit us, and it was too much to overcome.”

The 49ers also dealt with more attrition than the Chiefs.

They lost linebacker Dre Greenlaw in the second quarter when, while running onto the field following a punt, he tore his Achilles tendon. Right guard Jon Feliciano was injured late in the third quarter while Samuel (hamstring) and Kittle (shoulder) had to leave the game for stretches. During one critical sequence late in the fourth quarter, the 49ers were without defensive starters Greenlaw, Brown and Deommodore Lenoir.

As the 49ers weakened, the Mahomes-Kelce connection grew stronger. The tight end’s 22-yard catch and run at the end of the fourth quarter — he beat Warner, who had been strong against him to that point — set up the field goal that sent the game into overtime, and Kelce finished with 93 yards to lead all receivers.

“That’s probably the most disappointing thing about the loss,” Warner said. “Because we went into it saying that he wasn’t going to be the reason they beat us. And we were off on a couple of plays at the end there where he was running wide open over the middle of the field. That’s disappointing.”

Shanahan cited analytics as the reason he had the 49ers receive the ball to begin overtime. He figured the team that got the opening kickoff of the session might get a second possession.

“We wanted the ball third,” he said. “If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had the chance to go win (the game).”

The 49ers never got that chance. Their opening drive of overtime was their longest of the game — 7:38. That was followed by the Chiefs’ longest of the game — 7:19. The difference was that one ended in a field goal and the other in a touchdown.

After Mahomes’ big scramble into the red zone, tailback Isiah Pacheco ran for 3 yards and Mahomes hit Kelce for another 7 yards. That put the ball at the San Francisco 3-yard line with the clocking winding down in the first overtime.

The final blow came on a shotgun snap on which no one covered Hardman, who came in motion toward the formation but cut back to the outside. Both Warner and safety Logan Ryan were rushing toward Mahomes on the play.

“I’m not sure,” Warner said of what went wrong with the coverage. “I’ve got to see it. I’m not sure who was supposed to be on (Hardman).”

The loss had a lot of the same themes as the one four years ago in Miami, including a blown lead and the inability to stop Jones and Mahomes in key moments.

The aftermath of this one, however, seemed worse. The locker room had a funeral-like quiet afterward. Shanahan gave only a brief postgame talk to his team, McCaffrey gave a clipped postgame interview and even the normally verbose Kittle’s session lasted just four minutes.

“Not a lot has been said,” Purdy said. “It just hurts. We have the team obviously to do it, to win the whole thing, and then to come up short like that. … The way things have been the last couple of years here, everyone wanted it so bad. So, I think we’re still trying to sort of gather our thoughts and everything right now. But everyone in that locker room loves each other, I’ll tell you that.”

TAMPA BAY

A point from Greg Auman of FoxSports.com:

@gregauman

So four guys who won with the Bucs  three years ago — Donovan Smith, Mike Edwards, Justin Watson and Blaine Gabbert — get another ring tonight with Chiefs.

SAN FRANCISCO

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com with a long look at the coaching decisions of Kyle Shanahan in Super Bowl 58:

When Harrison Butker’s kick sent the game into overtime, the Chiefs and 49ers became the first two teams to play under the league’s new playoff OT format, instituted after that legendary Bills-Chiefs game from the 2021 postseason. Unlike regular-season overtime, which can end on an opening-drive touchdown, playoff overtime guarantees both teams a chance to touch the ball and for the team that gets the ball second to match what the first team did on their drive before the game goes to sudden death.

The 49ers won the coin toss, and Shanahan elected to take the ball first. Since it’s the first time anyone has had to make that decision and a coach who has lost twice in the Super Bowl subsequently lost a third time, he has naturally come in for criticism about his choice. I’ll start this one with the answer: I agree with Shanahan’s decision, in part because neither choice a coach can make is clearly better than the other.

There’s an obvious benefit to deferring and getting the second possession of overtime, in that a team gets to see what happens first, which can then inform decision-making throughout the drive. When the 49ers kicked a field goal, the Chiefs knew they had to at least match with a field goal if they wanted to win. Having that knowledge allows the other team to make more informed decisions about playcalling and decision-making, which has its own intrinsic value.

This came up when the Chiefs faced a fourth-and-1 on their own 34-yard line. If the Chiefs had started overtime with the ball and didn’t have any sort of score established, Reid might consider punting deep in that situation and hoping his team can get the ball back on defense, knowing that a stuff would already leave the 49ers in field goal range for a title-winning kick. Instead, since Reid knew he needed a field goal, they went for it, converted and eventually scored a touchdown to win the game.

As Shanahan noted in his postgame news conference, the value of getting the ball first is to get in position to have the third possession of overtime, where you can win with a field goal and without having to hand the ball back to your opponent. If you take the ball and start with a touchdown, you’re putting your opponent in an incredibly difficult bind, given that they both have to score a touchdown to match you and come up with a stop on the next drive to get the ball back. (Indeed, I suspect teams that get the ball second and need a touchdown to tie will try to win the game by going for two after their score.)

Shanahan’s offense was able to produce only a field goal on the opening possession, but even then, a stop from the defense at any point would have won the game, while the Chiefs would have been incentivized to kick a field goal to extend the game if they faced a fourth down in kicking range.

On top of that, Shanahan’s defense was likely exhausted after an 11-play drive from Kansas City at the end of regulation. Remember that the 49ers stopped the Chiefs on a three-and-out in the third quarter, but after being rushed back onto the field after the muffed punt, Wilks’ defense immediately allowed a touchdown pass to Valdes-Scantling on the first play of the new possession. Whether you want to focus on the game theory side of the equation or the human element of chasing down Mahomes again after a short break, choosing to go with the offense first probably was the right call for Shanahan. Per Kalyn Kahler of The Athletic, several Chiefs players said they were going to start overtime on defense if they won the coin toss, so it doesn’t sound like it would have played out differently if Kansas City had been the one making the decision.

Should Shanahan be criticized for getting away from the run? Again, I’m not seeing it. The 49ers ran the ball just over 45% of the time in the first half and 42.5% of the time in the second half and overtime. Purdy threw the ball six straight times and on nine of the 49ers’ first 10 plays in the third quarter, but that’s probably because the Chiefs were loading up the box and daring him to throw:

The 49ers spent that entire sequence behind schedule because none of the passes worked. (McCaffrey’s lone run went for no gain.) When the offense got going again, it was with the passing game, which produced gains of 17, 9 and 20 yards across a four-play span to get in position for the fourth-down conversion and the touchdown pass to Jennings. The 49ers ran the ball 17 times in the second half, but those runs produced only two first downs. Nine of their 11 first downs after Usher’s halftime appearance came via the pass or penalty.

Pinning the loss on Purdy would also be too simplistic. It wasn’t his best game, but he didn’t look overawed by Steve Spagnuolo’s exotic blitzes. The 49ers left a few plays on the field, in part because of some passes that fell in the window between drops and misplaced passes, particularly to Deebo Samuel. When Purdy’s first read was there, he was generally excellent; on throws within 3 seconds of getting the ball, the second-year quarterback went 17-of-22 for 189 yards and a 9.7% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE). After 3 seconds, he was just 6-of-16 for 66 yards with a minus-13.7% CPOE. When he didn’t get the look he expected or hoped to see, he seemed to struggle getting deep into his progression or creating out of structure.

For the 49ers, agonizingly, this might have been their best shot at winning a title over the next few years. They’re the league’s third-oldest team and got mostly healthy seasons from their stars beyond safety Talanoa Hufanga (knee) until Greenlaw tore his Achilles. They’re yet to feel the impact of the missing first-round talent from the Trey Lance deal in 2021, and with Purdy making $870,000, they have been able to spread the money for their quarterback position elsewhere on the roster. While they’ve been consistently competitive, it’s tough to count on winning the 1-seed while having everyone who’s playing well now playing at the same level next season. Ask the Eagles, who looked like favorites to make it back to the Super Bowl this time last year and fell apart during December and January.

KANSAS CITY

Andy Reid could retire tomorrow and he would be guaranteed early enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  But he’s not retiring tomorrow, or anytime soon.  Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk.com:

It appears the Andy Reid retirement rumors can be put to bed.

After Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told NFL Media’s James Palmer that he’s expecting Andy Reid to be back to “go for the three-peat,” Reid confirmed that at the end of his postgame press conference.

“Yeah — I haven’t had time to think about it, but yeah, yeah,” Reid said when asked if he’ll be back as coach next year. “Yeah, sure, huh?

“I mean, I get asked that — I’m mad at [Bill] Belichick and Pete [Carroll] because now I get asked all those questions.”

It was a similar answer to one he gave a month ago when he was asked about potentially retiring in the wake of Belichick and Carroll — two men in their 70s — no longer coaching the Patriots and Seahawks, respectively. On Jan. 11, Reid said he hadn’t thought about it adding, “I’m old, but I’m not that old.”

Reid, who turns 66 in March, has been a head coach for every NFL season since 1999 when he started with the Eagles.

He’s now won three Super Bowls in the last five seasons with Patrick Mahomes as his quarterback, cementing his status as one of the greatest head coaches in the history of the game.

Much was made of how TE TRAVIS KELCE accosted/assaulted Reid on the sidelines.  It wasn’t a big deal to Reid, at least in his postgame comments.  Josh Alper ofProFootballTalk.com:

Sunday night’s game in Las Vegas ended well for the Chiefs, but they got off to a slow start and tight end Travis Kelce’s frustrations with being out of the game when the team was down boiled over on the sideline in the first half.

Kelce was caught by cameras yelling at head coach Andy Reid and then bumping him. Reid stumbled after taking the contact and running back Jerick McKinnon moved Kelce away as Reid recovered his balance.

The Chiefs came back to win 25-22 in overtime and that made it easier for both men to joke about what happened during their postgame press conferences. Kelce joked that he was “just telling him how much I love him” and Reid said Kelce was telling him to “just put me in” because he’ll score. He quipped that interactions like that “keep me young” and said that Kelce’s passion is something he appreciates.

“They’re passionate players,” Reid said. “I love that, even if they chest bump me to the other side of the 50. I appreciate it. I just love that the guy wants to play and wants to be in there playing.”

One imagines that the postgame reactions would have been a bit different after a loss and that other coaches might not shrug off such an exchange from other players, but the Chiefs were able to celebrate at the end of the night and that helps to erase bad memories from earlier in the proceedings.

This from Kelce per Cody Benjamin of CBSSports.com:

The tight end joked with ESPN that he was just telling Reid “how much I love him.”

“I got the greatest coach this game has ever seen,” Kelce told reporters. “He’s unbelievable at not only dialing up plays and having everybody prepared, but he’s one of the best leaders of men I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s helped me a lot with that, with chaneling that emotion, with chaneling that passion and I owe my entire career to that guy and being able to kind of control how emotional I get. I just love him, man.”

With his team-leading 93 receiving yards, Kelce became the third player in NFL history to lead three different Super Bowl champions in receiving yards, joining Jerry Rice and Michael Irvin.

Of course, Kelce had made up for his sideline indiscretions with an amazing speech the night before the game that reduced grown men to sobbing emotional wrecks.  Kelly Coffee-Behrens at Yahoo.com:

NFL star Travis Kelce reportedly made his teammates cry while giving a pre-game speech ahead of Super Bowl LVIII.

As you know, the Kansas City Chiefs are set to take on the San Francisco 49ers at the big game in Las Vegas tonight, Sunday, February 11. As Travis has said multiple times in the past, he wants this Super Bowl ring more than he ever has, and he has been doing everything he can to prep to help his team take home that Lombardi Trophy.

In addition to practicing, Travis gathered his team together to deliver an epic pre-game speech, leaving some of his teammates in tears.

According to several reports, Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid reportedly asked Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, and Chris Jones to address the team the night before the Super Bowl.

“Chiefs coach Andy Reid had Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Chris Jones address the team last night at the hotel. All were great. Kelce particularly so— ‘Unbelievable’ and ‘powerful’, according to people in the room, to the point where some teammates were moved to tears,” reports have stated.

While videos have not surfaced of the speech, and they may not considering the speech was made in private with just his teammates, it sounds like Travis was able to really motivate his team ahead of the big game.

According to someone in the room, who spoke with CBS Sports’ Tracy Wolfson, “It was like a WWE-type speech. That was the best and most emotional team meeting in years.”

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We’re not sure we agree with Jim Nantz that QB PATRICK MAHOMES’ 333 yards was significant because Allegiant Stadium is located at 333 Al Davis Way (and actually it is located at 3333 Al Davis Way).  But Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com has some other things significant about Mahomes and his numbers:

The Kansas City Chiefs are a dynasty, and Patrick Mahomes strengthened his argument as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time during Sunday’s 25-22 OT win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.

Mahomes, whose game-winning touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman in overtime gave the Chiefs the win, has joined Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman as the only starting quarterbacks with at least three Super Bowl wins. He was named Super Bowl MVP for the third time, a feat only Brady (five time) and Montana (three times) have matched.

While he won the game with his arm, Mahomes put himself and his team in position to win the game by making some key plays with his legs. In overtime, Mahomes had an eight-yard run on 4th-and-1 and a 19-yard run in overtime moments later. Those plays set up his game-winning strike to Hardman with three seconds left in overtime.

Mahomes finished the night with 333 yards and two touchdowns on 34 of 46 passing. But he also ran for a team-high 66 yards on nine carries, the second-most rushing yards by a quarterback in Super Bowl history.

You’ve got to think that Mahomes’ success as a runner was at least partly due to Dre Greenlaw’s injury that was sufferred midway through the second quarter. With Greenlaw out, the 49ers lost a key component of the middle of their defense, and Mahomes took full advantage.