How the Fighting Swifties won the Super Bowl
Two in a row for the Kansas City Chiefs and this one was achieved in part due to college-style offensive tactics, partly due to superior defensive design, and mostly due to that Mahomes fellow.
The story after a Super Bowl is usually one of legacies. Playing in a Super Bowl is such a rare and exciting privilege for a team, even the Kansas City Chiefs who have been in four of the last five, that the outcome of any of them has a profound impact on a legacy.
It’s hard to overlook that this game had the following result for two men in particular, Kyle Shanahan and Patrick Mahomes. They’re both wunderkinds, Shanahan in the realm of coaching as the talented son of a coaching legend and Mahomes as the most talented quarterback to ever play this game.
Patrick Mahomes has been the starting quarterback for the Chiefs for six seasons now. In those six seasons the Chiefs are 73-22 in the regular season and 14-3 in the playoffs. They’ve been to the AFC Championship Game every single year with Mahomes as the starter and are 4-2 in that game and 3-1 in the Super Bowl. It’s remarkable that immediately after Tom Brady finished his all-time great run that the torch was passed to a successor who’s arguably even better. We’ll see if he can match Brady’s longevity.
Kyle Shanahan has been the Super Bowl three times as a coach. He was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons when they blew a 28-3 lead against Tom Brady and the Patriots to lose in overtime back in 2016. From there he took over the 49ers and has been 64-51 with four playoff trips. Two of those ended with losses in the NFC Championship game and two others ended with losses in the Super Bowl…to Patrick Mahomes. Obviously the most recent was in overtime.
Obviously Shanahan is a terrific coach with a strong legacy of success and many coaching years ahead as a 44-year old man, but as of now his resume is as a guy who always gets close only to be crushed.
You could also just sum up Shanahan’s career as, “this amazing coach who exclusively faced Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl.” Tough beat.
Here’s a few things I noticed about how the Chiefs won their second straight.
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