At the Pro Bowl, Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes says he’s ‘still not over’ loss to Bengals
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was back at the Pro Bowl for the first time since his first season as a starter.
Mahomes would have been at the previous two but instead the Chiefs were preparing to play in the Super Bowl.
And frankly that’s what Mahomes would rather have been doing Sunday. But the Chiefs missed on the Super Bowl when they lost 27-24 in overtime to the Bengals.
Mahomes was interviewed by ESPN’s Lisa Salters in the second quarter of Sunday’s game in Las Vegas. She asked how long it took Mahomes to get over the AFC Championship Game defeat.
“I’m still not over it,” Mahomes said. “I don’t think I’ll be over it until we play in another Super Bowl. So I’ll use that as motivation going forward.”
Mahomes was asked what the Chiefs need to do to get back to the Super Bowl.
“We have to go through the process again,” Mahomes said. “You start from scratch every single year in this league and you have to go in with the mind-set of I’m going to get better and better every single day and hopefully give yourself a chance to be in the Super Bowl.”
While Mahomes would clearly have preferred to be at Super Bowl LVI, he was happy to have five teammates with him at the Pro Bowl: receiver Tyreek Hill, tight end Travis Kelce, left tackle Orlando Brown, defensive end Frank Clark and safety Tyrann Mathieu.
“It still hurts. I mean, you want to be in that Super Bowl, but you enjoy this,” Mahomes said. “It’s an honor to be in the Pro Bowl. And so to be able to be in the Pro Bowl with a lot of my teammates, see their families, it’s a good way to kind of cap off the season for us.”
Here are some of the highlights from the Pro Bowl.
Clark’s new position
Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark played at least some at tackle, as this clip from Harold Kuntz of Fox 4 shows:
Mahomes pick-six
This might bring back bad memories for Chiefs fans, but the Buccaneers’ Antoine Winfield Jr. intercepted Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the first quarter and took it back for a touchdown.
There were six interceptions thrown in the first half of the game.
No kickoffs
The Pro Bowl used the spot-and-choose method instead of kickoffs.
The winner of the pregame coin toss, NFL.com said, “has the option of spotting the ball anywhere on the field while designating direction, or choosing whether to start on offense or defense from the designated spot. The loser of the toss will have first choice between the two privileges to begin the second half.”
Onside kick alternative
The Pro Bowl also allowed to teams to run a fourth-and-15 play from the 25-yard line rather than kicking off after a score. Convert and the team kept the ball. Fail to get the first down, and the opposing team took over.
On Sunday, teams found that was very difficult to convert.
The AFC won the game 41-35.
This story was originally published February 6, 2022 at 3:20 PM.
