Patrick Mahomes and the moment that sent the Chiefs to first Super Bowl in 50 years
The play will live forever in Kansas City, same as 65 Toss Power Trap, same as Brett off Gossage, same as Hosmer sprinting home from third in Queens. And there is no way in sweet hell it was supposed to happen like this.
The play that changed everything covered 12 seconds, with Patrick Mahomes dropping three steps, outrunning one Tennessee Titans linebacker, head-faking another, sprinting within a blade of grass from the sideline past a lineman, and then making it through two defensive backs.
He ran a total of 64 yards for a 27-yard touchdown, and when it was over he flexed both biceps, walked into KC Wolf and went up and down the sidelines slapping hands and screaming with teammates, absorbing one of the loudest moments in the 48-year history of Arrowhead Stadium.
The play on Sunday gave the Chiefs a halftime lead they would not relinquish, the single most aesthetically absurd and strategically significant play in a 35-24 win over the Titans in the AFC Championship Game.
The play that put a proud franchise into its first Super Bowl in 50 years.
“As I got to the sideline I realized I could cut up,” Mahomes said.
“Magic Mahomes, that’s the best way you can say it,” tight end Travis Kelce said.
“You have to remember, you have to tell yourself: ‘Don’t punch him too hard when you celebrate,’” right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif said.
When the play began, the Chiefs trailed, a comeback feeling certainly possible but also still waiting to be made. Mahomes has changed so much, but it doesn’t take a lot for some of those old playoff scars to rub raw. Trailing the Titans at halftime of a home playoff game, well, that would’ve been enough.
The Chiefs lined up three receivers to the left, with Kelce split to the right. Running back Damien Williams stood next to Mahomes, five yards behind the line of scrimmage for the shotgun snap. The first read was over the middle of the field, with receiver Mecole Hardman running down the middle and Kelce hooking in.
The next read was Tyreek Hill down the seam, the same route and play that he scored on the previous drive. But the Titans called a double double, meaning two defenders each for Hill and Kelce.
“I didn’t like my options there,” Mahomes said.
The last time the Chiefs and Titans played, Mahomes had just returned from a dislocated kneecap. The arm was strong. The legs still uncertain. If he faced this situation back then, he would’ve been sacked or, at best, thrown it out of bounds. Mahomes is a new man now.
He sat another beat in the pocket, and if the Titans’ call on the back end closed Mahomes’ options, the call up front opened them. The Titans overloaded the right side of the offensive line with a twist, a move others have used with some success against the Chiefs.
They had this one stonewalled, though, and when left tackle Eric Fisher rode Harold Landry’s rush too deep to be effective, Mahomes had a wide-open space in front of him.
This is when the magic happened.
He ran hard to his left, picking his feet up at the perfect moment to elude Derick Roberson’s diving tackle attempt. Then came the highlight’s comedic break — an exaggerated look-back head-fake on Rashad Evans stolen straight from a YMCA pickup game.
“I thought it was just like any other run, but then he gave that head nod,” backup Chiefs quarterback Matt Moore said. “I hadn’t seen that before.”
Evans stumbled off-balance from the fake, allowing Mahomes to run through and toward the sideline. That’s where it might’ve ended, with Mahomes settling for a first-down run out of bounds that would’ve stopped the clock.
He looked upfield, and nobody was there. All that doubling, all that attention on stopping deep passes, well, everything comes with a price. All the defenders Mahomes hadn’t yet run past had their backs turned.
“It just leaves an open door there,” Reid said. “For him to be able to see that in the heat of it is something.”
The difference was everything. Momentum could’ve taken him out of bounds around the 27 with 16 seconds or so left. The Chiefs still could have fired at the end zone — they had two timeouts left — but those situations usually end with field-goal attempts.
Two seconds after he could’ve gone out of bounds, Mahomes had taken nine steps — five with his left foot, each within a whisker of the boundary — and was inside the 10. From there, he turned into something like Derrick Henry, cutting inside with the comfort of those timeouts.
“Once I saw him stick that foot in the ground, and he’s not going out of bounds, I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s got a chance,” Chiefs receiver Demarcus Robinson said.
Mahomes ran through cornerback Tramaine Brock, who went with a part arm-tackle, part-strip attempt, and then stepped through as defensive back Amani Hooker bounced off him like a Batman henchman. Defensive tackle DaQuan Jones sprinted the length of the play, diving over Mahomes a blink after he crossed into the end zone.
Exhale. Scream. Shake.
“I saw Tramaine try and strip the ball and he almost got the ball out,” Titans safety Kevin Byard said.
“The ball came loose,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said.
“I’ve got the best quarterback in the league,” Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark said.
Here’s an absurd fact: the Chiefs are now 4-0 when falling behind by 10 or more points with Mahomes at quarterback this season. They did it at Oakland, at Detroit and now in each of their two playoff games. If you’ve followed this team for a certain amount of time, your mind starts to go in all sorts of directions.
The Chiefs have blown two of the biggest leads in playoff history, 38-10 after the 2013 season in Indianapolis, and 21-3 at home against the Titans after the 2017 season. That was before Mahomes.
The Chiefs have one of professional sports’ most agonizingly creative catalogs of postseason failures. That — with the notable exception of the time he scored 24 on Bill Belichick in the fourth quarter — was before Mahomes.
Maybe it took a supernatural talent like him to squash what’s sure felt like a curse over these last five decades. When the same monster haunts your dreams, you don’t kill it with an air rifle. You bring in a tank. Mahomes is that dude, as the kids sometimes say.
At this moment it’s worth remembering that when the Patriots won the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead a year ago, their head coach treated the trophy the way a mom might handle a wad of chewed gum from her son.
Chiefs owner Clark Hunt being able to lift the trophy with his father’s name on it means a great deal here in Kansas City, but the framing of this game will forever be informed by whether the Chiefs can beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV.
It’s a serious task even with Mahomes, and for so long before it felt close to impossible without him.
They have him now, and will almost certainly will keep him for the next decade. That changes everything, from what seems possible in the face of a big deficit to what seems possible in two weeks and the years that come.
That’s never been so clear than when a well-covered combo route turned into a 27-yard, put-it-on-the-montage highlight touchdown that paved the way to a franchise’s greatest win in 50 years.
You’re damn right the players feel that.
“I think we all do,” Reid said.
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 9:30 PM.