I do know that most would consider this the greatest Super Bowl ever if Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense had a chance to try to tie or win it with about 1:40 left on the clock after a sure Butker field goal would've put the Chiefs up 38-35. But on what I believe was 3rd down the Eagles defender was called for holding on JuJu and the Chiefs got a new set of downs to allow them to burn up that time, keeping the Eagles from having a chance to do that. As it was Butker kicked that game-winner with only :11 left.
Lots of people lamented the call, but it was the right one. The guy held JuJu, JuJu said 100% he was held, the Eagles defender admitted he held, the television referee said it was holding, and the referee himself, the infamous Carl Cheffers, put out a notice citing the rule so it was indeed pretty black & white.
With that in mind, I myself do kind-of agree with those who didn't like the call. I do. It could've gone either way, and with those, ya gotta live with whatever the ref says. I've always shared that sentiment even in my rantings about how much the most egregious ref calls could be much better mitigated. It does get really dicey, however, when people say things like "That call shouldn't have been made so we can all see a better ending of a game." Please know, I get it. I'm actually with you. But the call still needs to be correct no matter how much it makes for a slightly less entertaining affair.
Thing is the Eagles themselves aren't complaining, and most thoughtful fans aren't either. There was so much the Chiefs did to deserve the win, and so much the Eagles could've done to win but didn't. Yes it would've been nice to have won the greatest Super Bowl ever instead of one that'll probably go down as, oh, maybe the 6th or 7th, I don't know -- simply because the holding call made the ending just that much more anti-climactic. Not a lot, but enough to bump it down in many people's minds.
It is funny, after that penalty, we faced a situation where we needed not to score a touchdown. A number of years ago, November of 2016, when playing the Broncos, their guy caught a touchdown pass late in the game when I thought it would've been better if he didn't score the touchdown. He could've just stopped and kneeled a few yards from the goal line so the Broncos could run clock for the expressed purpose of keeping the ball from the Chiefs offense so they'd have little time left to try to come back.
The Chiefs did have that time after all, and I believe they tied it and won it in overtime. I wrote about this idea at Arrowhead Pride and actually got quite a few people responding. I titled the piece, "When Will NFL Teams - the Chiefs? - Start to See the Value of Not Scoring a Touchdown?"
Wow. Did that idea pay off for us last night. In the series that followed the penalty one play featured Jerick McKinnon running free towards the pylon on the left side, and it sure looked like the Eagles defenders were trying real hard not to stop him. Sure enough...
McKinnon slid down in bounds a yard short of the goal line.
The Eagles were forced to burn their last time out, and on the next two snaps Mahomes just stepped back and kneeled setting up Butker for the game-winner with only seconds left.
The Chiefs saw the value of not scoring a touchdown.
And it helped them secure the Super Bowl win.
As far as the overall officiating goes even with that reffing crew that has been not-very-good for the Chiefs in the past, they did pretty well, except against the Chiefs there was one pretty egregious pass interference call, also against JuJu, happening early in the 2nd quarter. It did have a negative impact contributing to a stalled Chiefs drive.
The main officiating question was the interpretation of what constitutes a catch. I believe there were poor calls on both sides, but that is much because the NFL has this convoluted rule about how many steps you must take and all the rest of it. Here were the cases in the game:
First the Eagles Davonta Smith made a terrific grab on a deep ball along the sideline as the 1st half was coming to a close. To me, it was a catch. And I'm definitely rooting for it not to be one. But it was. He made this terrific David Tyree-type snatch against his helmet, he had control, he got both feet in bounds -- a legitimate catch. Give it to them.
Nope. They ruled against it. Wrong wrong wrong. Now it didn't hurt the Eagles much because they still got the FG to go up 24-14 at the half.
Second, early in the 2nd half Hurts completely a pass on the right flat to his back who caught it, turned to make a "football move," and was plowed into by L'Jarius Sneed. He fumbled, it was scooped up by Nick Bolton who ran for what would have been his second fumble recovery TD of the game. After further review, not a fumble - incomplete pass.
Not.
Sorry, that was a catch too, overruled by the officials because apparently he didn't make a third step or something silly like that. No touchdown for the Chiefs.
Third, their tight end made an amazing catch at the sideline that was ruled a catch on the field, but the Chiefs threw the challenge flag because it sure did look like he bobbled it before getting both feet in bounds. I believe he did, but sure enough, they ruled it a catch. The television ref said he barely had his foot down when he gained possession.
To be honest, I'd give it to them. This was legitimately a close one, nothing conclusive was seen to overturn the call on the field, really, that's fine.
That's the whole point though. When a player makes a great play and it's close, I'm great with giving them the benefit of the doubt on a catch. Great. But with the Bolton recovery play, that should have been a catch too.
One more note about the game that I think requires mention is the state of the field of play. What a joke. I'd even heard or read before the game that they were experimenting with some putting-green golf course type turf, and sure enough right then and there I'm thinking please no. Please don't do that. That's sounds really dumb. You can't play football on putting-green turf, you can't. This will not go well. Did anyone else think that?
Well, sure enough, players on both teams were slipping and sliding and vocally complaining about it for the duration. Not sure what the Chiefs did but I was told Eagles players changed their cleats at halftime, which in some ways, while seemingly the right thing to do, may have actually messed with their rhythm and game play on the field.
Now to a few brief notes about the play and the game. Yes we can talk about Patrick Mahomes and his once-again courageous play, awesome awesome, but here're some other things:
Kudos to our O-line who didn't allow a sack for the entire game. The whole team also did really well keeping the running game going, but I think a lot of that was Andy Reid's beautiful game plan that took advantage of the Eagles softness on the edges. We both ran and passed at those edges constantly throughout the game, even scoring our last two touchdowns on routes that took advantage of the Eagles D-backs over-aggressiveness in the middle.
Kudos to our run defenders -- not just the D-line but those key linebackers, Nick Bolton, Willie Gay, and sure enough another rookie who wasn't in all that much before, Leo Chenel. What a great call to stick him in their for meaningful minutes to help shut down the Eagles vaunted running game forcing Hurts to try to hurt us with his passing. Hurts almost did, by the way, with both his running and passing. He played phenomenally well -- we just did enough to contain him to win it in the end.
And just a kudos to our rookie D-backs. Justin Reid and Juan Thornhill played well enough, for sure, but that we had that McDuffie-Watson-Williams-Cook quadrantes needing to do just enough, now besting by numbers that 49ers rookie D-backfield of Lott-Wright-Williamson that helped them win Super Bowl XVI back in 1982.
It was also a very nice disciplined game by our team. No turnovers, no penalties at all in the 2nd half -- in fact the 2nd half game plan by our coaching staff was just terrific. What a blessing it is to have a now extraordinarily experienced Andy Reid who has been known to do a not-the-best job of making the real halftime adjustments that he should make, yet last night, his adjustments were fantastic. Three touchdowns and the game-winning field goals on our possessions - we outscored the Eagles 24-11 in the 2nd half.
I have to add this, that the Chiefs now have a better Super Bowl winning percentage at .600 than the Patriots at .545. Yep! True! How great is that. The Chiefs are now 3-2 in Super Bowls, while the Patriots are 6-5. Boo-yah! I also have to just add this, that finally, we now have the same Super Bowl record as that archrival Raiders, who also have a 3-2 Super Bowl record.
Can this get any better than that?
Well, of course, when we play again in the Super Bowl next year in Las Vegas!!!
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The first image is from Matt Starkey and the second is from Evan Sanders at the official Chiefs website, thank you.
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Bonus coverage! Just looking around on the web, very much standard practice for some time after days like yesterday, there was this tweet. Too much fun not to post here. There're probably a hundred more like it, but here's this one for now:
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