![]() And at the end of the day, we have to come into this next year with a blank slate and try and get to the Super Bowl again.” We can learn from the successes we had during the season. “Obviously, we didn’t end the season the way we wanted to. We knew we were going to go through times like this, and adversity. When we joined together, we knew it wasn’t always going to be successful and you weren’t going to be able to win 1,000 championships in a row. Mahomes threw some preposterously great passes under all of that pressure, but just because they were the work of a virtuoso does not mean they were caught. Mahomes would drop back into the pocket, then drop farther as the rush neared, then still farther as the pursuit refused to relent. Because third-and-whatever was the ideal time for Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles to bring overwhelming pressure against the depleted Chiefs line, gambling their blocking would crumble before someone like Hill or tight end Travis Kelce broke free in the secondary.Ĭhiefs coach Andy Reid never adjusted to this siege by putting Mahomes on the move to start plays. The Chiefs converted only three times in 13 third-down situations. MORE: Best, worst commercials from Super Bowl 55 So, us on the offensive line, we take that one personal.” “It wasn’t just one guy getting free, it was a few of them. “Their front seven, they were coming,” Andrew Wylie, converted from guard to tackle in this emergency, told reporters. Linebacker Shaquil Barrett spent so much time in KC’s backfield he should have been given a Chiefs uniform. A quarterback operating on regular wheels might have gone down a dozen times or more. Mahomes was sacked three times for combined losses of 27 yards, but this was only because he happens to be a magician. That's the 2nd most pressures against 4 or fewer rushers over the last 10 seasons. Of the 29 pressures he faced Sunday, 27 came against a pass rush of 4 or fewer defenders. Patrick Mahomes dropped back to pass 56 times and faced a blitz on just 6 of those dropbacks (11%). To say the Bucs punished the Chiefs’ retrofitted O-line would be like saying Usain Bolt is kinda fast. So many of us were aware of the mess that had become of KC’s offensive line, particularly since the season-ending achilles injury to left tackle Eric Fisher, but were too distracted by Mahomes’ customary brilliance to pay it much heed. ![]() MORE: Andy Reid giving Tom Brady more time enters pantheon of terrible Super Bowl coaching decisions It seemed a natural progression that the Super Bowl would be a breeze to conquer. There had been the apparent concussion, sure, and the toe injury that was bothering him, but he’d won 16 of his 17 starts this season. ![]() Mahomes’ journey to the Super Bowl had been so benign it seemed his success only would continue once he arrived in Tampa. They beat us pretty good, the worst I think I’ve been beaten for a long time.” They executed at a higher level defensively, had a good game plan, and we weren’t able to make adjustments and find ways to get into the end zone. “Those are the two most important parts of the field. “We just didn’t execute, especially on third down and in the red zone,” Mahomes said. Lowest point totals by season for Mahomes: I think that's the fewest points ever by Patrick Mahomes There were three Harrison Butker field goals to show for Sunday evening’s work. This was the first time he quarterbacked a team that failed to score a touchdown. He since has started 54 games, including postseason play. When you’re playing a good defense like that, you’ve got to be on the same page as an offense. And the offensive line, they were good at some times, and sometimes they let guys through. The receivers were running routes not exactly where I thought they were going to be at. “I just don’t think we were on the same page as an offense in general,” Mahomes told reporters after the game. How could a defeat like this, 31-9, possibly happen? It was as if Meryl Streep had wandered into an episode of “Chicago Fire.” It was reminiscent of young LeBron James winding up in the 2007 NBA Finals with a crew you couldn’t recall if it meant winning Final Jeopardy - and getting swept out in four games.Įxcept these were the defending Super Bowl champions, these Chiefs. It was a sorry picture, this lone genius unable to present a true picture of his art. Mahomes covered so much ground while running from Buccaneers pass rushers he might have, if you stitched all those desperate scrambles together, made it back to Kansas City on foot. We know Patrick Mahomes threw for 270 yards because that’s a category that always is represented in an NFL box score, but the one statistic that genuinely would capture the story of Super Bowl 55 is not available without a Fitbit.
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