MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Andy Reid deserved this moment, deserved this elusive Super Bowl championship, deserved this Gatorade bath, deserved the “Andy, Andy, Andy” chants, and most of all, he deserved the marriage with this generational young quarterback to walk down the aisle together to the Lombardi Trophy. At last.
All of Kansas City was praying for an end to its 50-year championship drought, prayed that Patrick Mahomes could Bring It Mahome.
And all their wondrous young savior did was turn Super Bowl 2020 into St. Patrick’s Day for all of them.
Magic Mahomes, the Super Bowl MVP, the comeback 31-20 winner, knocked down a 50-year wall of soul-crushing history with every last flick of his wrist, every escape from danger, every ounce of unremitting swagger and self-belief and indomitable will and raging competitive spirit and clutch gene in the biggest moments of the biggest game of his life, like a young Joe Montana in the Super Bowl, a young Eli Manning.
Mahomes Sweet Mahomes, the young lion, the 24-year-old baby-faced assassin, the king of his sport, so born for this stage and this stardom.
Mahomes wanted this one for Dear Old Andy. They all did, but Mahomes was the only one capable of making sure that Dear Old Andy was no longer the winningest coach not to win a Super Bowl.
Patrick MahomesAnthony J. CausiOnce again, we learned that no lead is ever safe with this quarterback, this fearless battlefield commander.
For much of the night, this hadn’t been one of those occasions where we were watching Mahomes make the impossible possible with his precocious genius.
“I tried to force some things,” Mahomes said.
Until Dear Old Andy and all of Kansas City desperately needed him to make it happen.
And they sure needed him to at a time when it was 49ers 20, Chiefs 10 in the fourth quarter.
Mahomes, from his 17 with 8:53 remaining, had ’em right where he wanted ’em — of course he did.
They needed him to when he faced a third-and-15, after he had been rattled by Nick Bosa and DeForest Buckner and the rest of the angry 49ers defense. After the Defense Wins Championships crowd was flexing its muscles, after he had been intercepted twice in the second half, ending a string of 164 passes without one.
Here is when Mahomes launched one to the heavens, close enough to where the late Lamar Hunt must have been sitting, and it somehow came down 44 yards later in the arms of Tyreek Hill.
“I just put it out there and Tyreek made a great play,” Mahomes said.
Bring It Mahome time.
“He was encouraging us, telling us to believe,” Hill said. “He’s seen it in some guys’ eyes, they were getting down, including myself. I was like, ‘Man, how are we going to pull this off?,’ and he was like, ‘10, you’ve got to believe, brother. It’s gonna happen, man. I can feel it.’ ”
He went deep for Travis Kelce and got an interference on Tarvarius Moore and a first-and-goal at the 1. Then he hit Kelce with the 1-yard TD and it was 49ers 20, Chiefs 17.
In his special way, Mahomes paid Kobe Bryant the ultimate tribute: he played with the Mamba mentality with the game on the line.
“I was trying to find a way to win,” Mahomes said. “You have to leave it all on the line when you’re in the Super Bowl and I tried to do that.”
When he got the ball back, it was still 49ers 20, Chiefs 17.
If he paused here in the huddle to look up into the stands and ask, “Isn’t that J-Lo up there?,” no one should have been surprised.
And when he got the ball back, at his 35 with 5:10 left, Mahomes saw Sammy Watkins streaking past Richard Sherman down the right sideline and led him perfectly for a 38-yard gain to the San Francisco 10.
“I believe we’re gonna go down there and find a way to score,” Mahomes said.
Three plays later, he hit Damien Williams, who extended the ball over the goal line with his right foot out of bounds for the 5-yard TD that won it with 2:44 left. He was 5-5 for 60 yards on the drive.
Mahomes became the youngest quarterback to win NFL MVP and a Super Bowl.
“I had two goals,” Mahomes said. “My first goal was to win the Lamar Hunt Trophy, and the second most important thing was to get Coach Reid a Super Bowl trophy.” And a deserving place in Canton. “It puts all doubt aside,” Mahomes said.
He was the one who put all doubt aside once it became Winning Time.
“It’s Magic Mahomes, it’s Showtime Mahomes,” Kelce said. “I love him. He willed this team back into the game.”
Defense Wins Championships.
But so do elite quarterbacks.



