Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid hailed Patrick Mahomes as the quarterback joined the greats with his second Super Bowl triumph, declaring: “Nobody does it like him”.
Mahomes defied an ankle injury to lead the Chiefs to a thrilling 38-35 victory over Philadelphia Eagles in Arizona overnight, Kansas going ahead for the first time in the fourth quarter and then sealing victory with a Harrison Butker field goal with less than 10 seconds on the clock.
At just 27, Mahomes is by far the youngest player in NFL history to win both the League’s regular season MVP award and the Super Bowl twice, joining Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Steve Young and Peyton Manning as only the fifth man to accomplish the twin feats.
“He’s the MVP. That’s all that needs to be said, right? You saw it tonight,” Reid said. “He’s seen the greats and strives to be the greatest.
“The great ones like him make everybody around them better and nobody does it like him.”
Mahomes’s night looked as if it could be heading for a premature end before half-time, when he suffered a recurrence of the ankle injury he sustained last month, the quarterback hobbling off.
However, Mahomes returned after the interval, throwing three touchdown passes and inspiring a comeback from a 10-point deficit.
“I felt really good until I re-aggravated it [the ankle injury] a little bit,” Mahomes said. “You’re in the Super Bowl — you can worry about getting it healthy in the off-season. So I fought through.”
In five seasons with Mahomes as a starter, the Chiefs have reached five successive Conference Championship games, played in three Super Bowls and now won two of them. There had been speculation ahead of last night’s game that Reid could call time on his career at the age of 64, but he quickly dismissed that notion.
“I look in the mirror and I’m old,” Reid said. “My heart, though, is young. I still enjoy doing what I’m doing. I’m good with what I’m doing right now… Listen, if they’ll have me, I’ll stick around.”
For large parts of the game, Mahomes was outshone by opposite number Jalen Hurts, who set a Super Bowl record for the most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (three) as well as throwing for 304 yards and another touchdown.
