Array
— Before his son started developing into the NFL’s finest player, Pat Mahomes saw the 10th-overall pick in the 2017 draft as a combination of Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, with some Steve McNair sprinkled in.
Big Ben had won two Super Bowls, Rodgers had won one, and the late McNair didn’t win any. All these years later, the modest ring totals of the greats should remind every fan of how hard it is to scale the tallest mountain even once, never mind multiple times.
But Sunday night, Patrick Mahomes rose above all the formidable obstacles in his way, including a screaming right ankle, to use the forum of an epic Super Bowl clash to win his second championship and notarize his standing as an all-time great at age 27. On the decisive endgame drive in this 38-35 Chiefs victory over the Eagles, Mahomes broke free up the middle for a 26-yard run to the Philadelphia 17, chugging like mad through the pain.
It was his Willis Reed moment in his own Game 7, a triumph of the spirit over the body, of will over weakness. As long as they show Super Bowl highlights, they will show this play.
Harrison Butker kicked the winning field goal in the closing seconds, and that was that. Three nights after Mahomes was named league MVP for the second time, the youngest man to make his third Super Bowl start joined Tom Brady, Joe Montana, and Manning as the only quarterbacks with more than one Super Bowl victory and more than one regular-season MVP award.
Mahomes also ended a run of nine straight reigning league MVPs who had lost in the Super Bowl by being named the game’s MVP. Of course he did. Mahomes made it happen with three touchdown passes, including two in the fourth quarter, after re-injuring his high ankle sprain on a T.
