Third-and-forever How Patrick Mahomes Ty

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- is an emotional football player; he said so himself as he felt the emotions of winning a Super Bowl coursing through his veins at his interview station at Hard Rock Stadium only an hour removed from feeling the exact opposite emotion. When the fell into a 20-10 deficit to the on Sunday, with the Lombardi Trophy awaiting the winner of Super Bowl LIV, and did not appear to be capable of climbing their way out of that hole in a limited timeframe, Hill admitted he briefly and at least partly surrendered to the emotions of the moment. "I know for me, 20-10, I was kind of down," Hill said. Jakob Poeltl Jersey "The game wasn't going how I wanted it to go." Down 10 points midway through the fourth quarter, the Chiefs were dead. Lifele s, without much more than a flicker of hope, needing multiple scores against one of the league's best defenses in half a quarter, their championship aspirations almost entirely expired. The pro-Chiefs crowd was still generating noise, but it didn't feel like the same kind of noise that reverberated from gra s to sky, end zone to end zone at the onset of the game. For so much of the second half, Patrick Mahomes couldn't find any openings downfield. He threw interceptions on consecutive drives- -- the first of which resulted in the 49ers pushing their lead to 10 points, the second of which cut short a series that could've at the very least trimmed the margin to seven points. It felt more like nervous noise. But Mahomes didn't panic. First, he helped Hill settle down."Pat being Pat, he came to me. He was like, '10, I need you, man. I need you to get your mind right and believe. It's 20-10, bro.' I'm like, 'Dude, it's 20-10, seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter.' I'm like, 'C'mon man,'" Hill said. "He was able to get my mind right. He was able to calm me down. He just told me, 'Just believe, man.'" Then, the duo breathed life back into the Chiefs with one big play, the kind of home-run that has come to define the Mahomes Tim Duncan Jersey era in Kansas City. On Sunday, the Chiefs captured their first Super Bowl since the 1969 season with a 31-20 win over the 49ers. But the final scoreline is misleading. This wasn't really an 11-point game. It took yet another heroic comeback by Mahomes, this time in the final stages of the fourth quarter, to turn a 10-point deficit into an 11-point win. For so much of the final 30 minutes, the 49ers appeared to be coasting to their first championship since the 1994 season, with their defense cementing its status as one of the best defenses of its generation. They actually shut down the Chiefs' explosive deep pa sing game, limiting Mahomes to 5.8 yards per pa s through the first three quarters and forcing him into throwing two interceptions, even though he spent most of the evening checking the ball down underneath. But the Chiefs rallied to score touchdowns on their three straight drives deep in the fourth quarter to stun the 49ers. The origin of that comeback? A 44-yard downfield strike from Mahomes to Hill to turn a third-and-long on their own side of the 50 into a first-and-10 deep inside 49ers territory. Three plays (and one penalty) later, the Chiefs Marco Belinelli Jersey breached the end zone to get to within three points. At that point, the comeback felt inevitable. "That lifted our whole team up," said receiver . "It was third-and-forever." "Third-and-forever" came after 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan won a challenge that negated a 16-yard completion from Mahomes to Hill on second-and-15. Suddenly, instead of a first-and-10 at the 49ers' 49-yard line, the Chiefs -- again, trailing by 10 -- faced a third-and-15 at their own 35-yard line with 7:13 remaining. If they didn't convert, they'd either be forced into going for a fourth down in a dangerous area of the field or punt the ball back to the 49ers, still needing two scores to force overtime or win the game in regulation. Giving the ball back to the 49ers wasn't an option. It was a conversion that wasn't supposed to happen. According to Josh Dubow of the A sociated Pre s, But the Chiefs converted.The play-call? according to NBC Sports' Peter King."We call it 'Wasp,'" Chiefs coach Andy Reid told King after the game. "Literally put the stinger on 'em." THAT WAS COMPLETE Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) "Crazy thing is," quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka told King, "Patrick called it. He asked for it, and Andy called it." The Chiefs proceeded to score a touchdown, force a quick punt, score another touchdown, force another stop, score a third straight touchdown, and get another stop. And then they won the Tre Jones Jersey whole damn Super Bowl.After the game, Mahomes said he felt like that conversion on third-and-forever turned the game. He wasn't wrong. At that juncture, the 49ers' win probability hovered just above 95 percent. After that play, it dropped to 82.9 percent. So, one play alone was worth over 12 percent of win probability. "I think it was the third-and-15 when we hit Tyreek down the field," Mahomes said. "We were in a bad situation, especially with that pa s rush. You knew those guys had their ears pinned back and they were going to be rushing. I think the offensive line gave me enough time to throw a really deep route, and I just put it out there and Tyreek made a really great play and so that got us going there." The play required contributions from nearly every member of the offense. First, as Mahomes alluded to above, the offensive line needed to hold up against the best defensive front in all of football as Hill finished a route that was still developing 35 yards downfield. Left tackle struggled for so much of the night to hold up against , but he was able to steer him to Bryn Forbes Jersey the inside as Mahomes drifted back. Left guard slowed coming around the outside just enough for Mahomes to launch the ball before getting clobbered. "Everybody did their job," Hill said. "Everybody did their role." Mahomes dropped back to pa s, kept dropping back, and kept dropping back as he waited for Hill to make his break. The ball was snapped from the 35-yard line. Mahomes fielded the shotgun snap at the 30. He released the football at the 22. He dropped back so far that he nearly fell off the edge of the map. Despite enduring a hit, he threw the ball 57.1 yards in the air. Patrick Mahomes' 44-yard completion to Tyreek Hill (on 3rd & 15) traveled 57.1 yards in the air, Mahomes' longest completed pa s by air distance this season. | Powered by Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) Running what appeared to be akin to a post, Hill suddenly swiveled and cut back to the outside."That's just a deep route, a deep out," Hill said. "Just set the safety up going deep, get his hips to flip, just roll out of it." Mahomes put a wealth of air under the ball. It hung up in the night sky for a while. But Hill was still alone by the time the ball fell from the heavens and into his arms. He wasn't surprised by how open he was. "People fear speed. People really fear speed in the NFL," Hill said. "I was able
 
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