How Chiefs’ Mahomes Was The Ultimate Difference-Maker In Super Bowl 58
750 The Game Staff
Once again, the Kansas City Chiefs stand alone atop the National Football League at season’s end.
It took another double-digit comeback, and an overtime touchdown drive, to get the job done. But game MVP Patrick Mahomes did just that, sealing a 25-22 outcome over the 49ers, who remain without a Super Bowl victory since the 1994 season.
John Canzano grew up a 49ers fan and was pulling for Kyle Shanahan and company to pull it out, but could sense it was slipping away from San Francisco as the game grew tight.
“You could feel it down the stretch, couldn’t you?,” Canzano opened Monday’s radio show on 750 The Game. “Fourth quarter, certainly into the overtime. The game was slipping into the hands of Patrick Mahomes, and the Kansas City Chiefs walked off champions.”
Did the Chiefs win the game? Or did the 49ers lose the game? Canzano said it was a little of both, but the big game experience of Mahomes and Kansas City played a massive role.
“My first thought was about the stage, how big the stage felt,” Canzano said, citing the Niners crucial error fumbling a third quarter punt return that swung momentum and led to a Chiefs touchdown the next play. “Those kinds of mistakes, those kinds of errors, and that big stage that left me thinking a lot about the value and the importance, and frankly the advantage the Kansas City Chiefs had. They’d been there before more recently, more players having been there, being in that moment, and of course the great difference-maker that is Patrick Mahomes.”
Mahomes didn’t have his best stuff for much of the game. The Niners defense held the Chiefs to three points in the first half and picked off Mahomes to open the third quarter.
But San Francisco couldn’t drive a nail into Mahomes’ proverbial coffin.
“I’m watching this game more as a fan, and I kept saying, don’t get in this kind of game, you don’t want to get in a back-and-forth, our field goal against your field goal situation against Patrick Mahomes,” said Canzano.
The Chiefs are the first franchise since the 2003-04 New England Patriots to repeat as Super Bowl Champions. They have won three Lombardi Trophies in the last five seasons, with Mahomes claiming Super Bowl MVP honors in each.
Listen to Canzano’s full comments on the Chiefs edging the Niners to win a second straight Super Bowl in the opening segment of the show podcast below.
John Canzano delivers the Bald Faced Truth afternoons 3-6 p.m. exclusively in Portland on 750 The Game.