Congratulations to the Chiefs. They played a great game. Mahomes was great when it mattered.
Watching Mahomes drive the field in OT and throwing the winning TD to Mecole Hardman was reminiscent of the Bengals watching Joe Montana drive the field at the end of Super Bowl XXIII, and the winning TD to John Taylor. Montana and the 49ers were an unstoppable force.
Greatness was unstoppable last night, just as greatness was unstoppable 35 years ago. Mahomes was great when it mattered. Just like Montana was.
Watching the inevitability of it was painful.
Thank you, 49ers, for a great season. And congratulations to the Chiefs.
The Borg would like to thank the 49ers for doing their part for America. Now nothing stands in the way of Biden and Swift defending democracy. Oh, a shout out to the Kansas City Chiefs.
(We would also now like to introduce Usher, our next Secretary of State.)
What does that even mean? I hate when they use new words for the same old thing: “tackle in space” instead of “open field tackle”, “years of age” instead of “years old”.
Kyle Juszczyk of the 49ers stated that the players didn’t know the overtime rules, in that both teams have a chance to possess the ball. If that’s true, that’s some terrible coaching.
I’ll just point out that the referee did a great job of explaining that rule before the OT coin toss.
But greatness was stopped for almost 4 quarters. Had the Niners not continuously shot themselves in the foot, lose one of their best defensive players, and inexplicably not use their best offensive player for parts of the game, there never would have been an overtime. The “when it matters” should have been the first 3 quarters, not the last 7 minutes.
The Chiefs have made a dynasty by defying the moral of the Tortoise and the Hare: it’s OK to fuck around for almost all of the game and get serious just the last few minutes, because you can still win.
The result would have been exactly the same under the old rules anyway - the only real change is that if the initial team scores a touchdown, the game doesn’t end immediately.
Oh, please. In every close game you can point to a turnover/strategy/injury/penalty that may have made the difference in the outcome. Tom Brady, the GOAT, won a SB when the Seahawks threw a ridiculous pass at the goal line. He won another when the Falcons made a series of mistakes and blew a huge lead. Heck, he shouldn’t have even been in his first SB when his ‘tuck-rule’ fumble was somehow changed to an incomplete pass against the Raiders. But do those circumstances take anything away from his accomplishments? In each of those situations, he did what was necessary to win the game, just as Montana did 35 years ago and Mahomes did yesterday.
I will also point out that KC lost a fumble in the red zone, and they were missing not one but two key defensive players (Charles Omenihu and Bryan Cook), and the Niners may have gotten away with two penalties on their trick-play TD pass (illegal man downfield and an illegal block). So I could argue that had the Chiefs been healthy and played error-free football, they would have won in regulation.
The Kansas City defense continually stymied top offenses throughout the playoffs. The Ravens can attest to the fact that a successful running game gets tossed out the window once Spags figured something out.
When I was a young teen I had my eyes on the TV. I was waiting for my dad and sisters as we were about to go pick out a Christmas tree. There were two seconds to go in the game and one team was down two points. But they were 63 yards away from the goal. The kicker made it! It was the record length field goal made, at least at the time. The name of the kicker was Sizemore, and basically what he did was kicks. He had half of one arm, and half of one foot.
During halftime, one commentator said the first impressive looking SF touchdown should have been called back. But they didn’t replay it much, or further emphasize this point. A Google turns up this (below). Is there any merit to this opinion (illegal man downfield), or just sour grapes?
#64 of the 49ers. He’s really close to being illegally downfield when the ball is caught. The line of scrimmage is the 22, and he’s about at the 19 when the receiver catches the ball.
That was my first reaction as well, but look at it this way: suppose the 49ers kicked off, the Chiefs scored a field goal, and the 49ers matched it. It’s now a game of “first team to score wins” - and the 49ers are kicking off.
