Photo Credit to https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/how-to-watch-super-bowl
If you don’t already know, we lost. When I say we, I mean me and you. The Swifties have won, and they are taking over. We are doomed…but not all of us.
On a serious note, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime, giving fans one of the biggest thrillers since Michael Jackson in 1982.
Super Bowl Record Breaking Stats
The winners this year were not just the Chiefs or even Taylor Swift and her fans (“Swifties”). The biggest winner of all was the NFL. This Super Bowl was the most-watched U.S. television event of all time, with an average of 123.7 million viewers and a max of 202.4 million viewers at the high point. Leading up to the Super Bowl, it’s estimated the NFL made around $330+ million just from Taylor Swift’s presence since week three of the season. Surely, they are now raking in even more with those Super Bowl numbers.
Super Bowl LVIII was not only the most-watched event of all time; it was also the longest-played Super Bowl of all time. The game itself lasted a record-setting 74 minutes and 57 seconds. It also became only the second Super Bowl to make it to overtime, the other being Super Bowl LI in 2019 between the Patriots and Falcons, which everyone remembers for the 28-3 collapse of the Atlanta Falcons and the comeback of the ages for the New England Patriots as they went on to win the game in overtime, 34-28. This year’s Super Bowl may not have had a significant comeback, but it did deliver lots of fireworks and a first-of-its-kind overtime game.
This was the first overtime game played under the new postseason rules, which, interestingly, were put in place because of the Chiefs, though not in their favor. In 2022, in one of the greatest games ever played, the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills had just 13 seconds left when Patrick Mahomes drove his team down the field to eventually tie the game and send it into overtime. The Chiefs subsequently won the coin toss and, naturally, took the ball since their team had momentum while the Bills seemed fatigued on defense. At the time, the overtime rules stated that if your team scored a touchdown on the first drive, the game would be over, but if you got a field goal, the other team would have a chance to either match it or get a touchdown. In 2022, the Chiefs successfully scored a touchdown on the very first drive, winning the game.
That unprecedented event prompted the NFL to make some changes to the postseason overtime rules, allowing both teams an opportunity to take possession of the ball, even if the first team were to score a touchdown. That brings us to Super Bowl LVIII and the first postseason overtime under this new rule. This time, the Niners won the coin toss and chose to start with the ball.
(Personally, I thought that was a mistake, but one could certainly argue that the Niners’ defense was in desperate need of a rest and that the Chiefs’ energetic offense needed to be kept off the field. Regardless, with the new rules, both teams were guaranteed to get the ball).
The Niners received the ball and began to drive all the way down the field, where they were held to a field goal, which almost sealed their fate. Once Patrick Mahomes intercepted the ball, he did what he almost always does and produced magic on the field. The Chiefs drove all the way down and scored the game-winning touchdown as Mahomes connected with Mecole Hardman for a three-yard pass to win Super Bowl LVIII for the Chiefs 25-22.
Patrick Mahomes Overshadows Kelce & Swift
Though Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are garnering all the media attention, Patrick Mahomes is the real star of this show. At age 28, Mahomes already has two league MVPs and three Super Bowl MVPs. He is tied for second all-time in the latter category behind Tom Brady, who ended up with five when all was said and done. Mahomes also has 15 playoff wins already under his belt, trailing only Brady, who has 35, and Joe Montana, who has 16. Mahomes, however, has already earned his 15 at the age of 28, whereas Brady and Montana didn’t reach 15 until they were 34 and 37, respectively. Furthermore, in the playoffs, Mahomes boasts a 1.2% interception rate. He rarely makes mistakes in the postseason. And, my favorite stat by far: Since 2001, there have been 125 drives in the playoffs in which a game came down to a fourth-quarter drive with under a minute left and the offensive team trailing by 7 points or fewer. Of those 125, 40% were successful. Tom Brady is credited with five of those successes. Drew Brees has three. But Patrick Mahomes is a PERFECT 7 for 7. Ultimately, in the postseason, when it matters the most, we get to see the best Patrick Mahomes there is.