Mahomes’ Chiefs never looked so bad. The work starts now to make sure they don’t again
On the other side of the walls, the party Patrick Mahomes worked on for a year rages without him. Confetti with another team’s logo shoots from cannons. Fans with jerseys of the other team’s quarterback are in tears of joy.
Tom Brady, the man Mahomes knows he will compared with, lifts the NFL’s ultimate prize and promises more. The moment is made for television, for a global audience, and damned if Mahomes didn’t feel certain it would be his face everyone saw.
Instead he sits in a chair in a hallway down from the Kansas City Chiefs’ locker room, energy drained from his face, answering questions about why he and the team he remade played their worst game together in a 31-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.
“They beat us pretty good,” Mahomes said. “The worst I’ve been beaten in a long time.”
A year ago, the Chiefs treated a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl as a movie script that had already been written. They told each other people would be talking about it forever, and they meant the comeback, and they proved themselves right.
Those bursts of magic have somehow become so common that we learned to expect them. We became convinced that you never knew exactly how Mahomes and the Chiefs would blow your mind, only that they would blow your mind, which means moments like this, when they look overmatched and incapable of competing, feel foreign.
“It was a bad day to have a bad day,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said.
This was Mahomes’ 54th start, including the playoffs, and the first time the Chiefs did not score a touchdown and the first time they lost by more than one score. Before tonight, the Chiefs had averaged 32 points in his starts — 34 in the playoffs.
They had led this same team by 17 points in the fourth quarter on this same field on the way to a win in November, but that memory looks like a lie now. Mahomes has never been this ineffectual, and never this unimpressive statistically: 26 of 49 passing for 270 yards, no touchdowns, and two interceptions.
“Not really any,” Mahomes said when asked for any similarities to how the Bucs played them the second time.
Thirty Super Bowls ago, then-Giants defensive coordinator Bill Belichick shut down the Bills with a gameplan that is now on display at the Hall of Fame. Thirteen Super Bowls ago, then-Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo shut down the Patriots with a plan that’s been talked about since.
On this night, Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles had a plan that can stand with those others.
The plan will be dissected in the coming days but here’s the quick version. The Chiefs played without each of their starting tackles, a weakness that Bowles exploited with consistent pressure while taking away the deep and sideline throws that Mahomes uses to stretch defenses past their breaking point.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid noted zone coverages on most early downs, with surprises on third, and the Chiefs didn’t handle any of it well. The Bucs sacked Mahomes three times and hit him eight, the grass stains covering the “M” on his back and the 15 on his left shoulder telling the story.
“We weren’t on the same page as an offense in general,” Mahomes said. “I wasn’t getting the ball out on time. The receivers were running routes not exactly where I thought they’d be. And the offensive line, they were good sometimes and sometimes they let guys through.”
The outcome was objectively shocking. This game was played under a tragic cloud, with Reid’s son and assistant coach Britt the driver in a wreck that has left a 5-year-old girl fighting for her life. Reid said “my heart bleeds” for the family affected, but when asked about a connection to his team playing so poorly he said “from a football standpoint, I don’t think that was the problem.”
The problem was the Chiefs played their worst game in years, at the worst moment. They did not play well in any meaningful part of the game. A pass bounced off Tyreek Hill’s helmet at the goal line. Another drive ended on a pass that hit Travis Kelce in the hands. Tommy Townsend shanked a punt, and Bashaud Breeland effectively tackled Mike Evans on a deep ball, earning a 34-yard pass interference.
Once, the Chiefs held the Bucs to a field goal, but jumped offsides for a first down. The Bucs threw a touchdown on the next snap. Tyrann Mathieu intercepted a deflected pass, a highlight wiped out by another penalty.
The officiating was not good. Mathieu was called for pass interference on a pass that was plainly uncatchable. Chris Jones took a personal foul on a classic second-man-caught moment.
But the Chiefs destroyed their own chances well enough. Anything the refs could’ve done would have been merely piling on.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Reid said. “At all. I thought we were going to come in and play these guys just like we’ve been playing teams. It didn’t happen that way.”
This is the first setback in years for a team that Mahomes and others put on a rocket ship’s path years ago — from out of the playoffs in 2014 to the first playoff win in a generation the next season, then the first ever AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead after the 2018 season, and the first Super Bowl in 50 years last year.
This group has a toughness that is often overshadowed by their flash, and a work ethic that is often hidden by their swagger. They will lean on those qualities now as much as ever, the first sign of vulnerability now plain for the world to see.
For anyone who has followed the Chiefs for more than three years, this is one more strange new reality. The Chiefs’ failures used to come in earlier playoff rounds, and for 12 of the 15 seasons before Reid arrived the team didn’t even make it that far.
In those days, losing the Super Bowl would’ve qualified as a dream season. Now, it is a wretched disappointment. A shock, even. There is no making the pain go away, but the pain coming in the NFL’s final game qualifies as some measure of big picture progress.
In the minutes after the Super Bowl ended, before some of the players had even made their way to the locker room, various bookmakers installed the Chiefs as the favorite to win next year’s Super Bowl.
This is a group built on stone, not quicksand, and there is every reason to believe they will compete for more championships. The work to make good on that promise will begin soon, though not immediately.
First, the pain must be allowed to work its way through. The autopsy on where this group failed must be completed. Legacies are made on a razor’s edge, and for the last two seasons the Chiefs had consistently navigated the trouble. They had not been beaten like this in years.
An offseason will be spent determined to keep this feeling away for years to come.
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 12:07 AM.