49ers' Blown Super Bowl Lead Was Historic Deja Vu
February 25, 2020 February 25, 2020 ~ scottkacsmar	~ 1 Comment
As I continue to work on the best database I could have for NFL game data this century, I keep finding new absurd facts about Kansas City's comeback win in Super Bowl LIV.
Imagine a team leading 20-10 more than halfway through the fourth quarter in a nationally-televised game. Then that team goes on to lose 31-20 in regulation.
That's what happened to the 49ers in the Super Bowl, but the last time the NFL has seen such a reversal of fortune — a double-digit lead halfway through the fourth turning into a double-digit loss — it also involved the 49ers, a 20-10 lead, and a 31-20 loss in prime time.
Yep, same exact scores, but much different stakes. In 2002, the 49ers (10-6) were wrapping up a playoff-bound season on Monday Night Football against disappointing division rival St. Louis (7-9 finish). The 49ers rested and pulled starters from the game, but still led 20-3 in the fourth quarter. That's when Rams backup quarterback Jamie Martin began to lead a comeback, pulling the team to within 20-17 with 7:09 left after throwing a touchdown pass to future HOFer Isaac Bruce. On the next play from scrimmage, Garrison Hearst fumbled and Dre' Bly returned it for a touchdown to take a 24-20 lead. Hearst fumbled again on the next drive and the Rams had a chance to run the clock out, but on 4th-and-1, Martin threw a pass to tight end Ernie Conwell for a 32-yard touchdown to make it 31-20 after the two-minute warning. A bit of a rub-it-in-their-face score for sure for a team that rarely threw to the tight end. The Rams were actually 2-point favorites so it was a surprising cover and comeback to close a game that ultimately didn't mean anything.
It's not terribly rare to see a team trail by double digits in the last eight minutes (or 7:30 if you want to think of it as half the quarter) of the fourth quarter and come back to win the game. It happens about five times a season. But those games often go to overtime or are won in regulation by 1-7 points. An 11-point win in regulation like the 2002 Rams had goes way against the grain.
It wouldn't happen again in the NFL until the 49ers blew yet another 20-10 lead in this Super Bowl. The infamous 3rd-and-15 "Wasp" play by the Chiefs for 44 yards came at the 7:13 mark. The Chiefs got into the end zone with 6:13 left and would return there two more times, including Damien Williams' 38-yard run with 1:12 left that crushed my ticket of "Chiefs by exactly 4 points" to produce the historic 31-20 final.
So like the Falcons holding a 28-3 lead — as if this will ever happen again in Dan Quinn's career — you just can't trust the 49ers with a 20-10 lead halfway through the fourth quarter. Oddly enough, Quinn was a defensive quality control coach for the 2002 49ers too.
I haven't been able to confirm the stats before 2001 yet, but it would be interesting to see a list of double-digit reversals like these two games in NFL history. I know the Chiefs are the only team since 2001 to do it in the final 7:00 while the 2002 Rams are the only other team in that time to do it in the final 8:00. I thought maybe the 1968 Jets-Raiders "Heidi" game would be one, but the Jets only led by 3 late and never more than 7 in the whole game. You'll find that the "win by 10+" part is really hard to find.
Still, I'd love to see more so if you have any ideas of examples from pre-2001, leave them in the comments or hit me up on Twitter with them.
UPDATE: I've compiled a table of all seven games discovered since 1981. The first five I included all involved the 49ers or Chiefs if you could believe it, but then I also stumbled on an incredible comeback by the 1987 Cardinals against Dallas. They were down 13-3, but scored three touchdowns after the two-minute warning to win 24-13. They scored the first at 1:58, forced a three-and-out punt, then scored another, got a turnover on defense, and finally ran in a 15-yard touchdown on 4th-and-14 with 19 seconds left after Dallas used all three timeouts.
NFL QB Fumble Rates: Russell Wilson Rarely Loses the Ball
In updating career stats through 2019, I wanted to look at the rate of lost fumbles for all 98 quarterbacks with at least 1,000 pass attempts since 1991.
First, a scatter plot with career fumbles (ranging from Teddy Bridgewater at 12 to Brett Favre at 166) versus lost fumble rate (ranging from Bridgewater/Tyrod at 25.0% to Kyle Orton at 63.6%).
Orton may have only fumbled 33 times, but he lost 21 of them. He's the only QB over 60%, and coincidentally he's just ahead of his predecessor Rex Grossman (59.4%). Marc Bulger also lost 59.5% for the second-highest rate since 1991. Andy Dalton (57.1%) and Matt Ryan (51.4%) are the only active QBs above 50% in lost fumbles.
I wish we had fumble data broken down better into fumbles on aborted snaps/handoffs, fumbles on QB runs, and strip-sacks. You would assume someone with more strip-sacks would have a worse lost fumble%, but I couldn't confirm that right now. Covering up a lot of bad exchanges with the center could also lower a QB's lost fumble rate.
Russell Wilson has only lost 20 of his 74 fumbles (27.0%) and NFL dot com has his recovering 31 fumbles. I don't have recovery data for all QBs, and I also don't know if it's available anywhere broken down by recovery of own fumbles vs. teammate fumbles, but that could provide some further insight into these numbers. Wilson has generally been very lucky at his fumbles not leading to turnovers. His rate is only bested by Bridgewater and Tyrod at 25%, though they only have 32 fumbles combined in their careers.
Here is the full table for all 98 quarterbacks since 1991 (regular season only):
On average these quarterbacks lost 41.6% of their fumbles, so recovery has been better than a 50/50 proposition for most.
NFL Quarterbacks: Franchise Records for Most Fourth-Quarter Comebacks and Game-Winning Drives
February 10, 2020 ~ scottkacsmar	~ Leave a comment
Nearly six years ago I posted a table of the franchise records for fourth-quarter comeback (4QC) wins and game-winning drives (GWD) for the 32 NFL teams. Here is the update to that through the 2019 season, and remember this includes playoff games.
Among the changes since 2014:
Bengals: Andy Dalton surpassed Boomer Esiason in both categories
Raiders: Derek Carr surpassed Ken Stabler in 4QC, but he still trails The Snake by one GWD
Chargers: Philip Rivers surpassed Dan Fouts in both categories
Seahawks: Russell Wilson surpassed Dave Krieg in both categories
Eli Manning (Giants), Jay Cutler (Bears) and Tony Romo (Cowboys) all retired, but still hold their franchise records
The 2020 season could be a massive changing of the guard with Eli's retirement and the Chargers parting ways with Rivers. We also don't know if Cam Newton will return to Carolina, so Jake Delhomme may still hang onto these records. We don't know if Andy Dalton will ever start another game in Cincinnati, clearing way for the Joe Burrow era to begin. We don't know if Tom Brady will add to his record amounts in New England. We don't know if Brees will do the same in New Orleans. We don't even know if Carr is truly safe in what will now be the Las Vegas Raiders to break that Stabler record.
Deshaun Watson beating those low bars set by Matt Schaub in Houston is likely to happen in 2020 or 2021. Other than that, don't expect many changes to this table in the coming years. Patrick Mahomes will be expected to have all the Kansas City records, but these two could take a few more years. The Chiefs, Jets, Raiders and Eagles are the only teams that have different players holding sole possession of the 4QC and GWD records.
The bottom four teams (SF/TB/TEN/WAS) have records held by quarterbacks who haven't played for those teams since the salary cap era began (1994). That's not likely to change any time soon either.
Oscars' Diversity Problem Has a Simple Solution
February 7, 2020 ~ scottkacsmar	~ Leave a comment
There is no NFL on this weekend, but another passion of mine (film) is front and center with the Oscars on Sunday night. I used to watch the award show annually until Shakespeare in Love absurdly beat Saving Private Ryan, so I quit on it for a solid decade until I recaptured a love of film around the time No Country for Old Men won.
But now you can't really have an Oscars discussion without the issue of diversity at the forefront ever since #OscarsSoWhite became a popular hashtag. The other issue has been about the lack of women nominated in categories that are open to both genders such as Best Director or Best Screenplay.
Personally, I've always been of the belief that you pick the best options available and you don't discriminate over gender or race. The Oscars doesn't need a Rooney Rule. If you think Greta Gerwig should have been nominated for Best Director in what became an all-male field, then that's fine. Just tell me which of Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips, Sam Mendes, Quentin Tarantino, and Bong Joon Ho you're kicking off the ballot.
For me, the Oscars have always had diversity problems, though I've looked at it more from the viewpoint of they don't pick enough foreign films to highlight great efforts from other countries, and they aren't inclusive enough in terms of genre. You've basically had to make a drama to win a lot of the major awards for decades. Comedies rarely get anything and it's even worse for action/horror/comic book type of "genre" movies. I think this was a big part of my Oscars burnout as a youth because I really couldn't care less about The English Patient and other yawns they would push on us as being instant classics.
From that standpoint, I think the 2020 field is diverse and impressive to include a South Korean film with subtitles for the major awards of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Parasite is an incredible film, and while I haven't seen the full field of nominees yet — I'd really like to see 1917 — it's the one I would pick to win most of these awards. I also think Joker being up for 11 Oscars is a phenomenal feat for a "comic book movie" that is far more of a character study than any traditional comic book movie. Still, 5-10 years ago I don't think it would have received any Oscars buzz as the Academy has tried to include more genres. I haven't seen Jojo Rabbit, but a dark comedy getting recognized is nice to see as someone who loves that genre. Don't forget, Rushmore (1998) barely received one Golden Globe nominee, let alone anything from the Oscars.
So change has been slow, but the process has been improving over the years to include more diverse films. If the Academy wants to stop taking so much heat for its choices, then the solution is actually very simple.
Nominate more films.
The most prestigious award of them all is Best Picture, yet did they not already dilute it a bit with raising the nominees to 10 in 2009? We have nine this year, so this has been the standard for a decade now. If you're willing to "weaken" the field of the top award, why would you not nominate six or eight films for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and the four acting awards? Right now they go with just five nominees for those awards.
This way Gerwig could be nominated for Best Director and more non-white actors could also be included. It's really that simple, and reading a few more names and showing a couple more short clips isn't going to overrun a broadcast that is already too long each year anyways. Hell, get smarter and ditch the music performances. You're not the Grammy's. You're supposed to be highlighting films.
How would it not be a benefit to all if more films are nominated? All of these companies would love to stick a "Oscar-nominated" sticker on the Blu-ray of their release. Underrated films like The Lighthouse and Midsommar could get more attention if you include them in expanded categories.
Continuing to nominate five films like they did in the 1930s doesn't make any sense in a world where so many films are released each year. Just a little expansion can go a long way in making the field more diverse. At the end of the day the Academy still has to vote for the one best choice to win the statue. Sure, people are going to complain then too, because that's just how people are.
Like how I still complain about that god damn Shakespeare in Love, which was a Harvey Weinstein production in case you forgot…Now that was a shameful moment in #OscarsSoWhiteSoMale history.
Go Parasite.
Pro Football HOF: You Vote for the Best, Peter King
The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced their 2020 class this past weekend, and the only first-ballot choice was a logical one in safety Troy Polamalu. Long-time voter Peter King admitted in his column this week that he did not vote for Polamalu, because he wanted to push other more marginal candidates, feeling that Polamalu was safe without his vote. He explained here:
6. I think an explanation for the lack of vote for Polamalu on the final five is necessary. I believe he was one of the top five candidates this year, and I believe in voting for the best five candidates. But because I felt certain Polamalu would make it regardless of my vote, I decided to vote for three players I felt were marginal after listening to the deliberations—Atwater, Boselli and Lynch. I don't feel great about doing that, honestly. Our jobs are to vote for the best five, and I was totally on the fence about the fifth yea vote had I marked down Polamalu. It still bothers me a little bit. But I felt so strongly about the cases of Atwater, Boselli and Lynch, who were exceedingly close in my eyes, that I wanted to vote for them, knowing that a vote not for Polamalu was not going to keep him out. I've done this a couple of times before, and I absolutely do not want to make it a habit. It just felt like the right thing to do this year.
This is a bad voting process to follow when the goal should be to choose the five best candidates. What happens if several others on the 48-person panel had the same idea to push an Atwater or Boselli forward and just assume Polamalu was safe? What if this happens next year and everyone assumes a Charles Woodson or obviously Peyton Manning are locks on their first ballot, so let's start voting to get others out of the debate room?
That's why you should always vote for your best five. Don't assume what others will do in a vote. I think enough of us did that in 2016…
As for the fan outcry that accompanies every HOF class, I think I had a bit of an epiphany this year. I saw a list of 15 finalists where pretty much everyone is bound to get into Canton one day. Maybe Bryant Young or Sam Mills fall into the senior category down the road, but I would feel confident about most of those guys getting a gold jacket. So we should stop crying about snubs or putting the "wrong" players in when there's a limit of five and they can't help it that deserving players will have to wait. That's just how it works.
The main goal for the voters should be to make sure they nail the first-ballot players. You get 20 cracks at putting a player in the HOF, but only one time to make him a first-ballot HOFer. That distinction has to mean a lot to a player. It may only matter enough to a media member if they choose to remember that fact when talking about the player, but being a first-ballot choice is extra special.
When I looked at the list of 15 finalists for 2020, Troy Polamalu is the only one that screamed "first ballot" to me. So since they got that one right, Peter King's flub aside, I find it pretty hard to argue with their selections.
Let's dial it back from the finalists and look at the semifinalists. Starting in 2004, the HOF has to list 25 (sometimes 26 or 27 due to ties) semifinalists. I've tracked how many of those players are in the HOF versus how many are still eligible or have been demoted to the senior nominee pool only.
Hall of Fame: Semifinalists Breakdown (2004-2020)
Year Semis HOF Pct. Still Eligible Seniors Only
2004 25 16 64.0% 2 7
2018 27 12 44.4% 10 5
2020 25 5 20.0% 19 1
It looks like roughly 75-80% of semifinalists eventually make the HOF when we focus on the older years when players had more opportunities to go through the process several times. Obviously the numbers in recent years are still low as players have only had a couple ballots.
The most recent season where the HOF% dips under 70% is 2015, but I think we'll see Torry Holt and John Lynch get in soon to bring that rate up to 76.9%. You probably won't ever see 90% or higher for one of these years since people do tend to nominate those who belong more in a Hall of Very Good rather than HOF. For some examples, look at the semifinalists for 2015-2020:
It would be a surprise to ever see Fred Taylor or Simeon Rice or Ricky Watters get past the semifinalist round, to name a few. Focus on the players who have been finalists (top 15) recently as those likely to get in soon, but they will face a lot of stiff competition in the next few years from first-ballot choices: Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson, Calvin Johnson, Jared Allen, Andre Johnson, Steve Smith, DeMarcus Ware, Antonio Gates, Rob Gronkowski, Joe Thomas, Darrelle Revis, etc.
Those are the players that deserve top priority in voting. If you're a fan of LeRoy Butler or Richard Seymour or Tony Boselli, you just have to have some patience. They'll get it right eventually.
The Decade the Scoring Juggernauts Died in the NFL
The 12 teams with the most points scored in NFL history have won zero championships.
Read that sentence a second time and it comes off just as shocking. That's a dozen teams, including eight from this decade, who scored more points — at least 527 — than anyone in the NFL's first 100 years, and not a single one of them won the Super Bowl that year. Oh a few were pretty close, especially the 2016 Falcons and their 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI, but even that was a disappointing outcome for the offense.
I said eight of these teams happened in the last decade. The 2019 Ravens were the latest to join the group, going one-and-done at home after a season-worst performance on offense in that 28-12 loss to Tennessee to sour Lamar Jackson's MVP season. Baltimore scored at least 20 points in every week of the regular season on its way to 531 points, the 11th-highest mark in NFL history.
The upset that night had me looking into just how crazy this was for the decade. I found that the 2019 49ers (ranked 17th in scoring since 2010) were the decade's last hope for a top 20 team in scoring to win a Super Bowl:
Well, as you know now, the 49ers lost Super Bowl LIV to the Chiefs, who ranked 31st in scoring this decade. The 2014 Patriots (22nd) and 2017 Eagles (30th) were the only top 30 teams in scoring to win a Super Bowl this decade.
That doesn't greatly differ from the results of the previous decade where only two of the top 30 scoring teams won Super Bowls, but at least the 2009 Saints finished fourth:
When you go back to the 1990s, eight of the top 25 teams won Super Bowls, including every team ranked 2-5:
That was back when the league was just getting used to the salary cap and the NFC tended to dominate the Super Bowls until the 1997 Broncos upset Green Bay. As for the offensively-fun 1980s, four of the top 12 scoring teams won a Super Bowl:
When we get back to the defensive decade that was the 1970s after the merger, we still saw five of the top 30 teams win a Super Bowl with the 1979 Steelers ranking third to end the decade:
We know winning a Super Bowl takes a lot of things going your way, but scoring a ton of points in the regular season has never really been a big requirement for pulling it off. You can combine the top 30 scoring teams from the 1980s, 2000s and 2010s and have the same number of Super Bowl winners (eight) as the top 30 scoring teams from the 1990s alone. The 90s were really the decade for juggernauts to go all the way and deliver in the playoffs too with not that many upsets around the league. Had Buffalo's Scott Norwood made his field goal in Super Bowl XXV and if the 1992 49ers were able to prevail instead of the Cowboys (and dust off Buffalo) for that Super Bowl, then we would have had nine of the top 17 scoring teams with rings that decade. Eight of the top 25 is still pretty great when you look at the history here.
With the 2000s, Bill Belichick's Patriots obviously have a lot to do with those results. The 2001 Rams (20-17), 2004 Colts (20-3) and 2006 Chargers (24-21) were three of the top six scoring teams that decade, but they all lost to the Patriots in the playoffs with disappointing performances on that side of the ball. Of course, the 2007 Patriots also blew it in the Super Bowl with the 17-14 loss to the Giants to deny themselves a perfect 19-0 season. The Patriots' 589 points that year still ranks second all time. I'd also be remiss to not give the 2000 Ravens some love here. We know they got to face Kerry Collins in the Super Bowl and played a lot of shoddy offenses in the regular season, but they also shut down two of the 10 highest-scoring teams of the decade in Denver (21-3) and Oakland (16-3).
Putting a bow on the 2010s, we experienced so many famous crash-and-burn efforts from some of the best offenses in NFL history. None were bigger than the 2013 Broncos, who lost 43-8 in the Super Bowl to Seattle's historic defense after setting the record with 606 points in the regular season. From the first snap that led to a safety the Broncos were out of sorts that night. We also saw the Patriots crumble three years in a row (2010-12) in playoff losses, Aaron Rodgers' best season in 2011 ended with a playoff dud against the Giants, and Belichick once again denied several teams (2018 Chiefs, 2018 Rams, 2016 Falcons) on his way to more rings for the Patriots. But at the very least, Patrick Mahomes put up 31 points in the second half of that AFC Championship Game loss for the Chiefs, the second-highest scoring team of the decade. Very few of these historic offenses can say they delivered in their playoff defeat, but the 2018 Chiefs, 1998 Vikings (damn kickers), and 2011 Saints (36-32 in San Francisco) are three who can say that.
However, one thing we've seen several times is that it's not always your best team that wins the Super Bowl. The 2011 Giants, 2012 Ravens, 2015 Broncos and now 2019 Chiefs are all certainly proof of that.
Finally, for those curious here are the results for the top 30 team scoring defenses for each decade:
2010s: Three of the top nine won a Super Bowl (peak: 2013 Seahawks were 4th)
2000s: Six of the top 28 won a Super Bowl, including 1st (2000 BAL) and 3rd (2002 TB)
1990s: Six of the top 28 won a Super Bowl (peak: 1996 Packers were 4th)
1980s: Six of the top 20 using points allowed per game (due to strikes) won a Super Bowl (peak: 1985 Bears were 2nd)
1970s: Five of the top 23 using points allowed per game (due to season length change) won a Super Bowl (peak: 1973 Dolphins were 9th)
That's 21 offensive champions and 26 defensive champions over the five decades. While you don't want to rely too heavily on one side of the ball, it's always fascinating to see how scoring juggernauts have had such a rough time throughout NFL history. If you look at the top 12 (13 total teams due to a tie) scoring teams from 1940-1969, only three of them won a championship. That includes the 1961 Oilers (first 500-point team) winning the AFL Championship Game by a 10-3 score, and the 1964 Browns (tied for 12th) shutting out the ninth-ranked Colts 27-0 in the NFL Championship Game.
The 1950 Rams still hold the NFL record with 38.8 points per game, but they lost 30-28 to the Browns in a classic championship game. Hey, at least they scored 28 and not just a field goal like the 2018 Rams did in Super Bowl LIII.
Coming full circle, I said the 12 highest-scoring teams have zero championships. The 1999 Rams are the reason it's not the 15 highest teams that are ring-less. They still rank 13th with 526 points scored in that shocking Super Bowl-winning season. But even that example of The Greatest Show on Turf struggled mightily against Tampa Bay, scoring a late touchdown to win 11-6 in the NFC Championship Game. They also caught a break on defense when Bert Emanuel's catch was ruled incomplete, and then ended up winning the Super Bowl 23-16 over Tennessee after stopping a late completion short of the goal line.
Kurt Warner in 1999 is still the last regular season MVP to win the Super Bowl in the same season, though maybe that's a streak for Patrick Mahomes to end next year. Yes, it's all coming back to Mahomes one way or another this offseason. Just accept it now.
Patrick Mahomes and the Race for the Most Yards and Touchdowns
February 4, 2020 February 4, 2020 ~ scottkacsmar	~ Leave a comment
After the dramatic ending to Super Bowl LIV, we face the reality of seven months without meaningful football again. That means seven months until we see Patrick Mahomes continue his assault on the NFL record books, raising the standard at the position with each game he plays. We'll also see if Drew Brees returns for a 20th season to add to his passing records, which I've documented recently.
A couple of tables I like to post on Twitter from time to time are the leaders in passing yards and passing touchdowns by X number of regular-season games (no playoffs here). This is always an interesting way to look at the progression of these records and see who is really on pace to topple Brees some day.
Let's start with the passing yardage leaders (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Mahomes already has the most passing yards through a player's first 33 games (9,412), except he's only played in 31 games so far. You can see he is on track to completely wipe Kurt Warner off this list, which used to include Andrew Luck and a first 17-game offering from Marc Bulger.
I'm not going to entertain the Matthew Stafford for Canton takes I've seen on Twitter recently in this post, but you can see he has the volume here to perhaps finish very high one day. Of course he could also get wiped out by Mahomes. But there's a good chance we'll see Stafford continue to erase some of Brees' marks and probably take out that Matt Ryan chunk for Games 165-168.
If we turn our attention to touchdown passes, we see a higher caliber of quarterbacks (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Mahomes once again has been downright historic, though like Dan Marino in 1985 he did see a little decline towards the end of the season that has him neck and neck with the HOFer.
Aaron Rodgers has taken control of the leaderboard since Game 112, and he is technically currently tied with Brees at Game 187 with his 364 touchdown passes. It's not a given that Rodgers continues to stay ahead the pace of Brees and Peyton Manning. Rodgers has had his lowest TD% of his career in each of the last two seasons. He'll be 37 in 2020. If he maintains his average of just over 2.0 TD passes per game, he'd be at roughly 553 touchdown passes in his 275th game, or 6 TD passes above the Brees mark. That's 94 games away, so Rodgers would have to play all but two games of his next six seasons to get there assuming we stick with 16-game seasons (hopefully) for the time being. He'd be 42 in the 2025 season at that point so it's far from a lock.
Brees is reportedly thinking about retirement, but he finished 2019 so strong (playoff loss aside) that it would be a real shame if he didn't return for his age-41 season. He is currently six touchdown passes ahead of Tom Brady (541 TD in 285 games), who only gets mentioned now because he's never had the lead in any of these statistics.
Whether it's Brees, Brady or Rodgers with the eventual lead here, it'll be most interesting to see how dominant of a run Mahomes can have. Marino once look poised to put the record books out of reach, but he too slowed down after a torrid start.
When does Mahomes fall back to earth?
Close Encounters: Super Bowl LIV
February 3, 2020 February 4, 2020 ~ scottkacsmar	~ 2 Comments
No matter if it was the NFL's first season or its 100th, the stingy defense with the great pass rush takes down another prolific passer. The QB who walks into the building with 23 points is stuck on 10 in the biggest game of his career.
Because football…football never changes.
Record a Ron Perlman voice-over for that.
That Fallout reference was going to be my tweet tonight more than halfway through the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIV. That was my gut feeling around the time when the 49ers led the Chiefs 20-10 and Kansas City faced a 3rd-and-15 at its own 35.
For the first time in 36 games, I actually doubted Patrick Mahomes.
Then with just one snap, everything changed and the Chiefs are Super Bowl champions and Mahomes even walked away with the MVP award. It was one of the more dramatic fourth-quarter finishes in Super Bowl history even if the game itself wasn't an instant classic.
So here is my Super Bowl LIV recap, my first game recap in ~54 weeks in a new section I'm calling what I have long wanted to call these recaps: Close Encounters
Mahomes: From Worst Game to Best Comeback to Champ Forever
The best player in football is the reigning Super Bowl MVP. That feels great to say after what's felt like many years where it hasn't been the case, and I'm grateful we never have to bother with the question of "can Mahomes win the big one?"
However, this was not a walk in the park for Mahomes like the first two playoff games. In fact, until those final ~7 minutes, it looked like he was having the worst game of his career in the biggest game of his career. But if there's anything I absolutely nailed in my 5,000-word preview for this game, it was the very last paragraph:
There are a lot of areas that favor the 49ers, and I think historically the 49ers are the type of team more likely to win this game than a team like the Chiefs. There are just more ways for the 49ers to win while practically every positive outcome for Kansas City involves Mahomes playing really well. Then again, Mahomes is 9-0 in his career when his passer rating is under 90.0 because he's the best at doing what the coach who succeeded Reid and preceded Shanahan used to say: f***ing score points.
Final: Chiefs 31, 49ers 27 (MVP: Patrick Mahomes)
Yeah, just score some f***ing points by any means necessary, and Mahomes has done that better over 36 games than any quarterback ever has. You sack him four times and he still puts up 31, even if the final touchdown was a killshot from the ground attack. You keep his passer rating under 90.0 (it was 78.1 in this game) by getting a pair of picks and he's still 10-0 in his career with the scoreboard looking full.
He doesn't have a weakness, but let's look at how things progressed tonight because Mahomes had to lead the most significant late-game comeback of his career to pull this one off.
Mahomes started the game with a couple erratic throws for a quick three-and-out before rebounding well enough. Nerves in a first Super Bowl make sense. The 15-play touchdown drive that took up half the first quarter was in line with some of the great drive engineering he's done this postseason with short passes. Not taking advantage of Jimmy Garoppolo's interception and settling for a field goal was disappointing, but the Chiefs led 10-3 early.
The first big mistake of the night, at least coaching wise, was with just over two minutes left in the half tied 10-10. The Chiefs should have played this better with the 49ers getting the ball to start the third quarter. They essentially ran a series of plays that negated Mahomes' existence. They ran the ball for 2 yards to get to the two-minute warning, then tried a trick play with Mecole Hardman that was blown up in the backfield for a 6-yard loss. How many tricks like that do you need with Mahomes? On 3rd-and-14, the Chiefs just ran a screen that was not effective on the night and the team punted. That was a really bad ending to the half and that wasn't Mahomes' fault at all, but he also wasn't wowing us either like usual, so the game went to the half tied at 10.
Then in the third quarter, Mahomes recovered a fumble forced by Nick Bosa to set up 3rd-and-12. Mahomes has fumbled six times in the playoffs (five games), but has been fortunate not to lose any of them. But on the very next snap, he threw a terrible pass that was intended for Tyreek Hill and intercepted for his first ever postseason giveaway. That led to a 20-10 San Francisco lead and suddenly Mahomes looked rattled by the pass rush, the deficit, and the magnitude of the situation. He wasn't attacking deep, or improvising big plays, and the short passing game was pretty well bottled up.
I've mentioned in the preview how the Chiefs had so many third-down drops in this postseason to kill drives. I can't call what Mahomes did early in the fourth quarter a drop since he was so off target again to Hill, but the pass was tipped for an interception while the Chiefs were driving at the San Francisco 23. After seeing Mahomes step up from a decent pocket and still come up short on a pass to Hill, I was really convinced this was going to be a big scar on his resume. The 49ers were quick to challenge and the replay system correctly took away the 16-yard completion that should have been an easy one for Mahomes.
And then the play of the game on 3rd-and-15 happened. What a time for Mahomes to complete his longest pass (57.1 air yards) of 2019:
Patrick Mahomes' 44-yard completion to Tyreek Hill (on 3rd & 15) traveled 57.1 yards in the air, Mahomes' longest completed pass by air distance this season.#SBLIV | Powered by @awscloud pic.twitter.com/WrtEarc4VT
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) February 3, 2020
Without that play you would have seen a punt and probably a San Francisco win. It's only the second time since 1994 that a team converted on 3rd-and-14 or longer in the fourth quarter (last time: Tom Brady to Julian Edelman vs. 2014 Seahawks on 3rd-and-14). Mahomes had to take such a deep drop to fire that one deep and Hill was free enough to make the catch. Game on. Three plays later, I thought the defensive pass interference call on third down was a good one since the defender made contact without ever playing the ball. That put the ball at the 1 where Mahomes found Travis Kelce for an easy 1-yard touchdown with 6:13 left to make it 20-17.
I made this thread in November to show that Mahomes has been much better than his 3-7 record (now 4-7) at fourth-quarter comeback opportunities:
Thread: Patrick Mahomes is 3-7 in his first 10 4QC opportunities, but he's been as good as anyone at them.
First, here's the updated records for relevant active QBs with >10 opportunities (sorted by overall 4QC/GWD win%) pic.twitter.com/1xdUccp2qw
— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) November 12, 2019
So with 5:10 left he had his chance and the Chiefs put the ball in his hands on seven straight plays. The deep throw for 38 yards to Sammy Watkins made it look like the Chiefs might score too quickly again, but it came down to a 3rd-and-goal at the 5 this time. Kelce cleared some room and Mahomes just had to throw a short toss to RB Damien Williams, who did enough to cross the plane for the go-ahead touchdown with 2:44 left. I'm not 100% sure he broke the plane with the ball before stepping out, but that was the ruling on the field and there wasn't anything conclusive enough to say he didn't score. The Chiefs led 24-20 and put it in the defense's hands again to much success. Williams delivered the deathblow with a 38-yard touchdown run to give us a 31-20 final.
Mahomes was really the default MVP in this one. He finished as a passer with 26/42 for 286 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT. He rushed nine times for 29 yards and a touchdown, though he actually lost 15 yards on three kneeldowns when the Chiefs ran the clock late. So he was effective as a runner once again. I can understand people wanting Williams as MVP for the late touchdowns, though he didn't really need to score the last one. He could have gone down after the first down at any point and the Chiefs would have ran the clock out and won 24-20. I swear I'm not just bringing this up because my #1 bet was Chiefs by exactly 4:
(My real bet was $20 to win $500, but this still hurts)
So it wasn't the cleanest game for Mahomes, but he was money in crunch time. He led the team to 24 points on their first eight drives, or 3.0 Pts/Dr against the best defense in the NFC. That's nothing to take lightly. Most quarterbacks would have imploded against that pass rush, but Mahomes stepped up on back-to-back touchdown drives.
But make no mistake about it — 3rd-and-15 changed everything in this one and that throw was vintage Mahomes, the first NFL player to ever win an MVP and Super Bowl MVP before he was 25 years old. Hats off to him for capping an incredible first two seasons.
The Chiefs Did What!?
Some stats are hard to believe, but this one takes the cake:
The Chiefs trailed by 10+ points in all three playoff games, but still won all three games by 11+ points.
If you know my work, you know I don't like using the final score to judge the closeness of a game. Things are going to be especially misleading for this downright historic Kansas City playoff run. The Chiefs trailed 24-0 to Houston before winning 51-31 and never even trailing in the second half. The Chiefs trailed by 10 twice to Tennessee and won 35-24. The Chiefs trailed 20-10 in the fourth quarter before beating the 49ers 31-20.
It's the first time a team has three double-digit comeback wins in the same postseason. Think about that for a second.
Winning three straight games after trailing by 10+ points would be a crazy NFL feat (the 2013 Patriots did this Weeks 12-14).
Winning three straight games by double digits AFTER trailing by double digits would be an insane feat.
Doing that as your Super Bowl run is inconceivable and I am using that word correctly.
The Chiefs are just the third team to win a Super Bowl after trailing by more than 14 points in the postseason, joining Peyton Manning's 2006 Colts (18 points down vs. Patriots in AFC-CG) and Tom Brady's 2016 Patriots (25 points down vs. Atlanta in SB LI). The Chiefs are now the fifth team to win a Super Bowl after trailing by double-digits in the fourth quarter during the playoffs:
Well only four out of 53 Super Bowl winners trailed by 10+ in the 4th quarter in the playoffs:
1976 Raiders (11 vs. NE – DIV)
2001 Patriots (10 vs. OAK – DIV)
2014 Patriots (10 vs. SEA – SB)
2016 Patriots (19 vs. ATL – SB)
— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) February 3, 2020
The Chiefs are the second team in NFL playoff history to enter the fourth quarter down by double digits and win the game by double digits. The Eagles did it to New Orleans, 36-20, in 1992.
Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy G: The San Francisco Blame Game
When it comes to Super Bowl collapses and heartbreak, Kyle Shanahan and Dan Quinn probably know it better than anyone now. Shanahan and Quinn shared the 28-3 collapse in Atlanta, but Quinn also saw the 10-point lead disappear to the Patriots with the 2014 Seahawks. Now Shanahan sees a 10-point lead disappear to the Chiefs in this one, and this graphic is particularly hard to swallow:
Per @ESPNStatsInfo, Kyle Shanahan has now been a coach on the two Super Bowl teams with the highest win probability … that ended up losing the game.
Falcons 99.7% (vs. Patriots in SB LI)
49ers 96.1% (vs. Chiefs in SB LIV)
— Ben Fawkes (@BFawkesESPN) February 3, 2020
I really don't want to rehash 28-3 tonight, but let's just say Shanahan didn't finish the game as badly this time. If anything, he didn't do enough in the first half and that hurt. A few too many screens and horizontal passes slowed down the 49ers, who were much better at using Deebo Samuel in motion and getting quick-hitting plays from the middle of the field instead of testing the Chiefs on the edges. In fact a couple of screens turned a promising opening drive into a field goal instead of a touchdown. Jimmy Garoppolo threw a bad pick under pressure early, but overall he wasn't playing that poorly for Shanahan. The offense looked deadly in the second quarter after gaining a first down on five straight plays, including a touchdown to tie the game at 10.
But things fell apart a bit after the two-minute warning. I mentioned Reid's shortcomings in that part of the game, but Shanahan did even worse with clock management. He had three timeouts but failed to use one to stop the clock after KC's screen pass failed. So instead of saving about 100 seconds and two timeouts for Garoppolo, he saved three timeouts and 59 seconds. Then he remained conservative with two runs to set up a 3rd-and-5 with 20 seconds left. Garoppolo delivered a 20-yard completion, then seemed to follow it up with a great 42-yard bomb to George Kittle. However, that was wiped out for offensive pass interference. I thought it was a pretty soft call for a little hand fighting that is let go quite often in this league. That felt pretty cheap to me and cost the 49ers three points, but the bigger question is why the hell wouldn't you try to save as much time as possible and shoot for a double score against Mahomes?
So that was bad for Shanahan, but he and Garoppolo came out strong from the half and took that 20-10 lead into the fourth quarter with 11:57 left. Look, you have to keep scoring when you play Mahomes. There weren't any errors this time like calling a pass on 3rd-and-1 deep in your own end with a 16-point lead, or not just running the ball after a Julio Jones catch when you're up 8. That didn't happen here. The 49ers did call three pass plays on second down with a lead, but I can't fault the calls there with the Chiefs obviously expecting the run. And let's face it, the running game wasn't that outstanding on the night as most of the best plays were unconventional tricks with Samuel.
Garoppolo also completed the first of those second-down passes, which proved to be the only first down the 49ers offense would get in the fourth with a lead. Pressure definitely had an impact on Garoppolo with not only the pick, but also a few batted balls. NextGenStats had Garoppolo as 0/7 passing with two picks while under pressure on the night. He was 20/24 otherwise for 219 yards. Ouch.
Garoppolo was off in the fourth quarter while the Chiefs were surging to that 24-20 lead. Still, you don't mind the situation of having the ball with 2:39 left and 85 yards away from glory. In fact, it's probably the situation quarterbacks dream about for years. Garoppolo has been pretty good at comebacks in limited opportunities, but he definitely will regret the 3rd-and-10 pass from the KC 49 with 1:40 left. Emmanuel Sanders got behind the defense, but Garoppolo overthrew him deep. On 4th-and-10, there wasn't much of a chance and Garoppolo was dumped for a sack. Two plays later, Williams exploded for a touchdown and it was basically game over. Garoppolo's second pick looks worse in the box score than anything else.
This game did not swing on many plays, so I really look at what each QB did on a third-and-long in the fourth quarter as being very decisive to this Super Bowl. Mahomes was able to deliver deep on his 3rd-and-15 to save the day, but Garoppolo was off the mark on his attempt despite an open receiver. So I really don't want to jump on a "Shanahan can't finish off a big one" or "Garoppolo will never win them a Super Bowl!" narrative when the margin is that small. Had the defense, the strength of the team for most of the year, did its job first on 3rd-and-15, we're probably asking if Andy Reid will ever win a ring and wondering what the hell happened to Mahomes on the big stage.
Now an extra field goal on the board for the 49ers probably would have changed that drive, but again, that was a big blunder in the first half. I can't crush Shanahan for how he called the game late, and I don't think Garoppolo's performance is one to crucify, but he just didn't redeem himself in the way that Mahomes did.
The NFC has been a lot tougher to get back to this point too, so I'm not sure the 49ers are in an advantageous spot in 2020, especially given the strength of their division. Don't discount the Cardinals getting really good in a year or two. We already know about Seattle and the Rams still have talent. So this is a tough blown opportunity for San Francisco.
Andy Reid: Hall of Famer… and Dynasty Starter?
Finally, we'll end on a positive note as this win should wrap up a spot in Canton for Andy Reid. I've made my clock management jokes like everyone else, but he's been arguably the best coach not named Bill Belichick this century. It wasn't a perfect night for him, but good on the two fourth-down calls and now he has the ring to go along with the seventh-most wins and his winning percentage is over 61%. If we're putting Bill Cowher in, then we're absolutely putting Reid in, right?
In fact, Reid just shattered a Cowher record by winning his first Super Bowl in his 21st season, by far the longest wait a coach has had to earn his first championship. Cowher needed 14 years with the Steelers, which is still a record for one franchise, but Reid spent 14 years with the Eagles before winning in his seventh season with the Chiefs.
We know Mahomes has only been the starter for two seasons, but this highlights a five-year playoff run for the Chiefs that finally resulted in that coveted ring for Reid. It's similar to other recent five-year runs to the top from the 2011-15 Broncos and 2008-12 Ravens. The 2002-06 Colts also needed a fifth-straight playoff trip to go the distance in the Tony Dungy-Peyton Manning era.
So does the dynasty talk already start tonight? We know this happens when a franchise QB wins one Super Bowl. We saw it in back-to-back years with Drew Brees (2009) and Aaron Rodgers (2010), but neither has even made it back to the Super Bowl. The last young franchise QB to win his first ring was Russell Wilson in 2013, and while the Seahawks made it back the next year, we know how that ended and they haven't been past the divisional round since. We're still in the longest drought in NFL history without a repeat champion (2003-04 Patriots).
The sky seems to be the limit for Mahomes and Reid together. We have seven months to talk about 2020 and repeating so let's save it, but I am happy to see a new champion that is a joy to watch.
Whether it's on this blog, another website, or maybe in a PDF you'll order from me, I hope to bring a lot more analysis (and perhaps random musings) in 2020. Like Mahomes and scoring points, I'm a writer and I just need to write as often as I can while I can.