KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - JANUARY 20: Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots celebrates with nn32#2 after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in overtime during the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium on January 20, 2019 in Kansas City, Missouri. The Patriots defeated the Chiefs 37-31. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) In a classy move after the Patriots win over the Chiefs, Tom Brady said he wanted to go and speak to Patrick Mahomes after such a heartbreaking loss. It wasn’t the torch-passing moment that Kansas City Chiefs fans were hoping to see. The faithful gathered at Arrowhead Stadium on a chilling night of football were hoping the on-field performance would be enough for a win—a Super Bowl appearance that would verify the passing of the aforementioned torch from the AFC’s greatest to its next great superstar. The New England Patriots left Arrowhead as the victors, so there are no columns being written this morning about Mahomes as the new torchbearer. Yes, he will have his chance, but he’ll have to wait for now. Tom Brady is not finished. However, Brady, the quarterback for the Patriots, made sure to pass along something in a private moment in Arrowhead’s inner workings. Shortly after the game, it was clear that Brady had requested some time alone with Mahomes, the Chiefs’ phenom. Tom Brady just quietly approached a security guard waiting outside the Chiefs’ locker room — and asked if he could see Patrick Mahomes. Brady was escorted into a room where he spoke briefly with him. A very clear display of respect from one incredible quarterback to another. — Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) January 21, 2019 Brady elucidated on his time with Mahomes in an interview with Peter King, a veteran NFL reporter now writing for Pro Football Talk and NBC Sports. “I just went and saw him,” Brady said. “I mean, he’s feeling like you think he’d feel when you lose a game like this. It hurts. He’s a hell of a … I mean, what a great young player. So impressed with his poise, his leadership. He is spectacular.” There’s no recording of that moment, but according to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports, Brady said, “I just wanted to say hello,” Brady said. “I didn’t get to see him on the field.” Here’s the bottom line: someone had to lose that game. If the Chiefs had walked away with the win, the columns today would all be written about the Patriots engine slowing down with questions of whether or not Brady is finished and/or would ever suit up for the big one again. Instead, it’s all about how the Chiefs weren’t quite ready to tackle the NFL’s very best and that his time is coming. At some point, the torch will be passed and maybe the regular season already gave us the succession we’re all waiting for. After all, Mahomes will be named NFL’s Most Valuable Player in a matter of days. At the age of 23, no other team has the sort of brilliant young talent at the game’s most important position. The road to AFC Supremacy likely still goes through Arrowhead next season and for the foreseeable future. For now, however, it was nice to read about a moment between the players who best represent the present and the future. It was a classy-as-hell gesture by Brady to think of Mahomes in the midst of the post-game celebration. Several years from now, Mahomes himself will hopefully do the same after a storied career and find the young kid setting the league on fire. And, as Chiefs fans, we hope it comes after Mahomes beats him to go to the Super Bowl once again.<doc-sep>Tom Brady sought out Patrick Mahomes after the AFC championship, according to ESPN’s Jeff Darlington. The New England Patriots quarterback wanted to meet with the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback after an incredible and thrilling duel that ended with Brady’s 37-31 overtime win. Brady and the Patriots stole the Chiefs’ trip to the Super Bowl. Brady and Mahomes spoke briefly and privately following the game. Tom Brady just quietly approached a security guard waiting outside the Chiefs’ locker room — and asked if he could see Patrick Mahomes. Brady was escorted into a room where he spoke briefly with him. A very clear display of respect from one incredible quarterback to another. — Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) January 21, 2019 Mahomes was brilliant, despite constant pressure from the Patriots. Mahomes completed 51 percent of his passes for 295 yards and three touchdowns. Brady, meanwhile, had a 65 completion percentage, 348 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. This is their second matchup of the season, with Mahomes and the Chiefs falling short in Week 6, 43-40.<doc-sep>All season, Mahomes was the superhero that lifted the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC Championship game — and his 295 yards and three touchdown passes willed the Chiefs into overtime. But once the Patriots won the coin toss, Mahomes was stuck on the sideline, powerless. KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes had seen the situation play out before — the tailor-made Tom Brady clutch exercise with the game on the line — but never in person and never with the stakes so high. Related: Shaughnessy: Once dissed and dismissed, the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl Advertisement His mind told him to trust his defense. “It’s a thing where all you can do is support your teammates, trust in your teammates, then when you get your opportunity you go out there and make plays.” But Brady never gave Mahomes the chance. Instead, Mahomes had to pull up a seat and watch Brady stack another brick on an already fortified legacy. Brady engineered a 13-play, 75-yard scoring drive that sealed the Patriots’ 37-31 victory, pushing them to their fourth Super Bowl appearance in the past five years and adding another signature moment to the collection. Still slightly shell-shocked after having an otherworldly season come to a crushing end, Mahomes shrugged, “It’s just how the coin tosses, I guess you would say.” The Patriots chose heads and never looked back. But what if it was tails and the Chiefs got the first crack? “No doubt at all,” Mahomes said. “But that’s just like ifs and buts. You can’t look at that. But at the same time, I felt like we were rolling.” Related: Gasper: This is one of Bill Belichick’s greatest game-planning masterpieces Advertisement The Patriots all but froze Mahomes out in the first half. They drained the clock with drawn-out drives that sucked the energy out of Arrowhead Stadium and limited Mahomes to just eight first-half pass attempts. But he didn’t let it faze him. “You just stay within the game plan,” he said. “You can’t try to do too much. They had a good game plan and came out fast. We started slow, but we picked it up and you’ve just got to trust in the process and not try to do too much.” Related: Sullivan: If this is the inevitable march toward Gronk’s end, what a hell of a union it’s been With the season on the line, Mahomes saw every drive Brady made in the second half and raised him. The Chiefs fell into a 14-0 first-half hole — ostensibly a death sentence against the Patriots in the postseason — but battled back by rattling off 31 second-half points. Mahomes’s confidence was contagious on the Chiefs sideline. He jump-started the offense when he found Travis Kelce for a 12-yard scoring strike that finally got the Chiefs on the scoreboard in the third quarter. They kept clawing back. When Steven Gostkowski pushed the lead to 17-7 with a 47-yard field goal with 4:02 left in the third quarter, Mahomes drove the Chiefs 75 yards and hit running back Damien Williams for a 1-yard score that made it 17-14. Mahomes gave the Chiefs the lead with 7:45 left in the fourth when he found Williams again up the left sideline for a 23-yard score that made it 21-17. Advertisement Related: ‘Jules is going to make the play’: Edelman and his prove-them-wrong mentality came up big When Brady marched the Patriots down the field for a 75-yard scoring drive capped by a 10-yard touchdown run by Sony Michel, Mahomes answered with a five-play, 68-yard drive capped by a 2-yard TD run by Williams that put the Chiefs ahead again, 28-24. The 2:03 the Chiefs left on the clock was enough time for Brady to put together another drive, this time capped by Rex Burkhead’s 4-yard touchdown. But the 39 seconds the Patriots left on the clock meant Mahomes still had a chance to make plays. He got the Chiefs in field-goal range and Harrison Butker nailed a 39-yard field goal that forced overtime. From what they’ve seen out of Mahomes all season, the Chiefs expected nothing less. “Pat’s a special guy,” said left guard Cam Erving. “Without him, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in right now. So all the congrats to that kid because he played his [butt] off this year and he put his heart into it just like we all did. It’s definitely a sucky way to go out but it is what it is.” Related: ‘We live and die through them’: The offensive line powered the Patriots’ smash-mouth football At just 23 years old, Mahomes set the league aflame with what will likely be an MVP campaign. But the loss pierced the armor he’s worn all season. Advertisement “He’s hurt,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “He’s a competitive kid, so he’s emotional right now. But he’ll get through that. He’ll grow from this. He knows that. But it’s not easy right at this minute.” Mahomes left the field with no doubts about the future ahead of him, but still shaken by the lost opportunity in the moment. “You have to take in the hurt,” Mahomes said. “You have to accept that this hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. You put in work for this, you’re doing everything you can to get to the Super Bowl and for this opportunity to fall short, it’s going to hurt. “You have to go through that but at the same time when you look back and then you come back and look at the bigger picture, you know that you can build off this, use this feeling of motivation to go out and find ways to win next time.” Related: Chad Finn: 37 thoughts from the Patriots’ win There will be moments that haunt him. There was an overthrown pass to Tyreek Hill that looked so much like a sure score that tight end Travis Kelce had his touchdown hands up mid-throw. The Chiefs couldn’t afford to go scoreless in the first half. In two games against the Patriots this season, Mahomes has thrown seven touchdowns, all after halftime.<doc-sep>Long before Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes prepared to face the Patriots in the 2019 AFC Championship Game, the football phenom was a young member of the Red Sox family. Mahomes' father, Pat, made 21 relief appearances for the Red Sox in 1996 and 1997. Though his stay in Boston lasted just 10 months, the elder Mahomes suited up alongside Sox legends like Roger Clemens, Mo Vaughn, Nomar Garciaparra and Tim Wakefield over those two seasons. Then-Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette had familiarity with Pat Mahomes dating back to the 1988 draft, when the right-hander was selected in the sixth round by the Twins out of Lindale High School in Texas. After five rough seasons in Minnesota, Pat was in the process of transitioning from starting to relieving when the Sox acquired him for a player to be named later (that would end up being lefty Brian Looney) on Aug. 26, 1996. “We always liked Pat Mahomes,” Duquette said Sunday. “He got drafted out of high school and we always followed him. He’s got size, got a great arm.” Mahomes posted a 5.84 ERA in 11 late-season appearances in 1996 before making the major-league bullpen out of spring training the following year. An 8.10 ERA led him to a demotion to Pawtucket, where he would remain for two months before signing with the Yokohama Baystars in Japan in late June. The elder Mahomes, who played football and basketball in high school, didn’t start playing baseball until his senior year. The Red Sox took a chance on him largely due to his impressive athleticism and competitiveness. “I remember Pat being a very good athlete,” said former Red Sox reliever Brian Rose, who played with Mahomes in Pawtucket. “He threw hard. He was a good teammate. He was one of those fiery guys. He wasn’t a quiet guy.” Mahomes and his then-wife, Randi, welcomed their first son, Patrick, months before Pat was traded to Boston. Though the younger Mahomes would have been too young to remember anything from his dad’s time with the Red Sox, he got a glimpse of major-league life from 1999 to 2003, when Pat pitched for the Mets, Rangers, Cubs and Pirates. Duquette believes that kids who spend significant time around professional athletes growing up have a significant advantage in being successful in their own right. “I think it gives those kids a lot of confidence,” Duquette said. “They’re not in awe of professional sports because they grow up in it. That’s what their dads do for a living. So you see a lot of successful kids of professional athletes because obviously they have the talent and the genes. They grow up in the environment and they’re not intimidated by it because they know it. It’s what they do.” More than 15 years after last stepping foot on a major-league mound, Pat Mahomes has a much different role in stadiums these days. As his son has gone from Alex Smith’s backup to the favorite to be named NFL MVP in his first full season, Pat Mahomes has followed the Chiefs around the country and will be at Arrowhead Stadium for the AFC Championship game against Tom Brady and the Patriots on Sunday. “As a dad, it’s a great feeling to have your kid experience what you’re experiencing,” Rose said. “I can just imagine, even now on the flipside, (Patrick) is with the Kansas City Chiefs and you’ve got Pat following him around. It’s funny the way it flipped.”<doc-sep>
Shortly after the New England Patriots won Sunday's AFC championship game, and after quarterback Tom Brady had finished his obligatory meetings with the media, he had one thing he wanted to do. The 18-year veteran left his teammates and wandered to the home locker room at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, seeking a few moments with the Chiefs' second-year quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, according to multiple reports. "Tom Brady just quietly approached a security guard waiting outside the Chiefs' locker room - and asked if he could see Patrick Mahomes," ESPN's Jeff Darlington tweeted. "Brady was escorted into a room where he spoke briefly with him. A very clear display of respect from one incredible quarterback to another." The Patriots defeated the Chiefs 37-31 in overtime and are headed to Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta on Feb. 3. This will be Brady's ninth appearance in the game, which his Patriots have won five times. Of the gesture, Brady told Peter King of Football Morning In America: "I just went and saw him. I mean, he's feeling like you think he'd feel when you lose a game like this. It hurts. He's a hell of a ... I mean, what a great young player. So impressed with his poise, his leadership. He is spectacular." Mahomes led a furious fourth-quarter comeback as the Chiefs scored 24 points to send the game to overtime. New England won the coin toss and never relinquished the ball, scoring a touchdown to win. Mahomes was 16-of-31 passing for 295 yards and three touchdowns. Brady completed 30 of 46 passes for 348 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. --Field Level Media