LAS VEGAS — Isiah Pacheco bounded through the Chiefs’ winning locker room wearing a Puerto Rican flag as a cape, with a lit cigar in the running back’s right hand and a phone in his left.
“Weeee are the champions!” the players sang, spraying champagne into the ceiling, as they cranked up the music and turned the gray carpet into a dance floor.
A few Chiefs players laughed about the irony that they were celebrating in their division rival Raiders’ home locker room at Allegiant Stadium. No reason to keep it clean, they joked.
“Baaaack to back!” wide receiver Skyy Moore sang, doing his best Drake impression through a pair of massive sky goggles.
Actor Paul Rudd bounced around offering congratulations to his favorite team. Healthy scratch Kadarius Toney smiled behind a pair of black sunglasses at his corner locker, then declined an interview while going live on Instagram.
Through all of that euphoria, smoke, alcohol and thumping bass, Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs GM Brett Veach found each other. Then Veach gave someone his phone to take a picture. And he and Mahomes turned, smiled and held up three fingers.
Three Super Bowls in five years, two in a row and three Super Bowl MVPs. Still only 28 years old.
“It’s that commonality between all great players that when the lights are the brightest, they play their best,” Veach told the Daily News of his star quarterback. “And Patrick has always been like that.”
Mahomes’ pulse is so slow and steady in big moments — his execution so precise in gotta-have-it spots — that when the 49ers kicked a field goal on the first possession of overtime to go up 22-19, Veach and the Chiefs’ owners and executives looked at each other.
And they knew.
“There was an air of confidence that, in the group, we were saying, ‘If we hold them to a field goal, we’re gonna go down and score,’” Veach told the News. “And once they kicked that field goal, I mean, just the utmost confidence. It was like, ‘Yo, we’re gonna go down and score. Game over.’ Sure enough, Pat did exactly what we thought he would do.”
How can the rest of the NFL cope with this inevitability? The 49ers could only shake their heads.
Mahomes already has the third most playoff wins by a quarterback in league history (15), trailing only Tom Brady (35) and Joe Montana (16).
This was his most flawed Chiefs team yet. They stumbled through a large part of a sloppy regular season. And then they beat the high-flying Miami Dolphins, Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills on the road, MVP Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens, and the tough and talented 49ers.
And Veach and Andy Reid probably will have a better roster in 2024.
Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan now has lost two Super Bowls as a head coach to Mahomes, and another as the Atlanta Falcons’ offensive coordinator to Brady.
Coughing up big leads to them, and losing the NFL’s only two overtime Super Bowls to both, created a sobering realization for Shanahan late Sunday night.
“He’s unbelievable,” the 49ers coach said of Mahomes. “This is my second Super Bowl as a head coach, but I think when you go against guys like Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes, you better never feel comfortable with the lead. And those are two of the best players to ever play the game. That’s why, whether you have a lead or you’re down points, it’s those guys who are always in it. [You] watch them all the time do that stuff.”
The X-factor in how Mahomes dissected the 49ers late on Sunday, to hear San Francisco’s players tell it, was how he used his legs.
Mahomes’ 19-yard scramble on a read option in overtime was the Chiefs’ most devastating gain on their game-winning drive. He had 66 rushing yards to go with his 333 passing yards, two touchdowns and interception on 34-of-46 passing.
But it wasn’t just about scrambling for yardage. More often, Mahomes was keeping plays alive with his legs to throw.
“[It was] his running ability, but also looking down the field,” Niners pass rusher Arik Armstead said. “He puts pressure on the DBs. He takes off running. Then they step up to help him [when he’s scrambling, then he’s getting the ball down field. Even while running, he is looking to throw.”
Mahomes is so deadly in critical moments and big games, too, that his presence put pressure on the 49ers to make decisions they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Down 13-10 early in the fourth quarter, Shanahan admitted he uncharacteristically went for a 4th and 3 on the Chiefs’ 15-yard line because he knew Mahomes would score more points – despite the Niners shutting K.C. down in the first half.
“100%,” Shanahan said. “That isn’t probably something normally we’d do, but I thought it was the right thing in that situation.”
On the Chiefs’ final drive of regulation, with the Niners leading, 19-16, defensive coordinator Steve Wilks practically was conceding a field goal to prevent a dagger Mahomes walk-off touchdown, as well.
The Niners dropped in coverage and allowed Mahomes completions of nine, 12, eight and seven yards. And it almost worked, with the dwindling clock as their friend and a pass rush that had dominated up front most of the night.
But Mahomes and Travis Kelce connected for a 22-yard completion and Harrison Butker forced overtime.
“I don’t know,” pass rusher Nick Bosa said. “We were playing good defense most of the game. And obviously it hurts when it comes down to defense and we don’t get it done.”
Mahomes’ greatness is sometimes just as much about the mistakes he doesn’t make, though, as the plays he does convert. Like pulling the ball down to scramble for three yards instead of forcing a throw, or choosing a back-shoulder fade to Kelce on the final play of regulation, knowing it will be either a touchdown or an incompletion.
The Chiefs have Mahomes on their side. So tying the game and going to overtime felt like a better than 50-50 proposition.
“How much confidence is there in the world?” said wide receiver Mecole Hardman, who caught the game-winning touchdown in OT. “Whatever that is, that’s what we have in him.”
That is why, while the Chiefs’ locker room was raucous with celebration postgame, it hit another level of crescendo when Mahomes bounded in.
He galloped into the room after his postgame press conference, followed by cameras and microphones chronicling his every move. And the hugs and adoration came from everywhere.
Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo approached Mahomes at his locker, reached up for a hug and kissed him on the cheek. Defensive backs coach Dave Merritt came over and took a selfie with the QB.
Mahomes sat back in his locker when he finally had a moment alone, looked out at his teammates firing champagne into the air, and he breathed deeply and smiled.
Behind Brady’s seven Super Bowls, only Terry Bradshaw (four) and Montana (four) have more Super Bowl rings than Mahomes’ three. He is tied with Troy Aikman, but he said he’s not done.
“I’m gonna celebrate tonight,” Mahomes said. “I’m gonna celebrate at the parade. And then I’m gonna do whatever I can to be back in this game next year and try to go for that three-peat.”
