MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Chris Jones' message to Andy Reid was blunt and, as it turns out, emblematic for these Kansas City Chiefs.
Give us a quarter, Jones recalled telling Reid from the sideline entering the fourth. We're not leaving this place unless we have a ring.
Turns out, their comeback really needed only nine minutes, not the full 15.
With his team down 20-10 to the San Francisco 49ers with nine minutes remaining because of a curiously average performance from Patrick Mahomes to that point, Reid's best Super Bowl chance looked to be slipping away -- until a furious run of batted passes, deep balls and clogged passing lanes sparked a 21-0 fourth quarter that started out as a bit of payback to San Francisco's confident bunch, according to pass-rusher Frank Clark.
"We're down 10 points and there's 15 minutes to go, and the guys start celebrating like they about to win the Super Bowl," said Clark, the man who calls himself "Black Elvis," who makes $20 million a year and is playing like it, too. "I went out the next drive and told them, 'Y'all is going home, too, like the rest of them m-----f-----s.' Excuse my French, sorry. They told me to slow down on the cussing, but it's the end of the season, so we gon' vibe. Ha! I'm a Super Bowl champion; they can't tell me anything right about now."
It's not as if they didn't know whether they could do it -- they'd done it before. No statistic explains the Chiefs' Super Bowl run quite like their 5-0 record with Mahomes at quarterback when trailing by double digits, including in three straight playoff games -- down 24 points in the first half against Houston, then 10 points against Tennessee the next week. (The Chiefs went on to win those five games by an average of 12.8 PPG.)
So instead of tightening after a sluggish three-plus quarters, their confidence overwhelmed the opponent. It didn't take a big pep talk from Mahomes or anyone else on the office -- just something like, "Next play, just wait for our time," fullback Anthony Sherman said.
San Francisco hadn't given up 21 points in a single quarter since Week 3 of last season, but double-digit comebacks are practically ho-hum for Kansas City by now. This time, the Chiefs broke their five-decade Super Bowl streak because they overcame bad play with soul-stripping runs. Speed all over the field flips big games within seconds, similar to the Golden State Warriors' signature barrages of 3-pointers.
It certainly didn't come as a surprise to Kyle Shanahan. "That's kind of how they've been all year," said the 49ers coach, whose offense punted with 9:01 remaining and never recovered in the 31-20 loss. "They're not a team that does it every drive. They get a little bit hot and cold. They can score very fast."
Earlier, in the third quarter, it didn't look like the Chiefs could find the rhythm that had defined them for so much of the regular season. Four of their first six drives ended in a punt or interception. Mahomes' legacy moment was collapsing around him, and the Chiefs might as well have been strolling through a supermarket looking for a good sale on oat milk.
When Mahomes threw his second interception of the game two minutes into the fourth quarter, the Chiefs seemed down and out -- but when the 49ers couldn't turn the miscue into points, it was a "turning point," tight end George Kittle said. On the next drive, the 49ers punted for the first time in the game.
And then, as they've done so many times this season and particularly in these playoffs, the Chiefs turned it on.
With 7:13 minutes remaining came what would become the game's signature play, a third-and-15 launch by a backing-up Mahomes to a streaking Tyreek Hill, who called the play a "deep rollout." That means he had to reach max speed to get up on the defender and roll to his left -- to a suddenly open pocket of grass.
The play led to Travis Kelce's 1-yard touchdown catch and capped a 10-play, 83-yard drive that seemed to settle Mahomes.
Mahomes' success on the fourth-quarter touchdown drive seemed to do the same for the Chiefs' defense, which looked determined to match that intensity. The next drive, 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo had Kittle wide-open over the middle, but Jones did "a helluva job" batting the ball down, Shanahan said. The Chiefs had two crucial pass deflections on Garoppolo, who was forced to hold on to the ball because of a surging pass rush and deft scheming by seasoned defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
The architect of the New York Giants defense that once took down Tom Brady in the Super Bowl knows from experience that having two weeks to game-plan can be a curse because of overplanning, so he tried to keep things relatively simple.
Spagnuolo employed a "moon coverage" on the 49ers -- two double-teams, one on Kittle and another on a receiver, and used use delayed "hug rushes" for safety Daniel Sorensen and linebacker Ben Niemann, whose jobs were to occupy a 49ers lineman by pretending to cover the tight end. That led to more rushing lanes for themselves or others. Both got to the quarterback late in the game.
These big plays were all part of the script for Jones, a disruptive free agent who says he wants to play with Kansas City forever to win more titles.
Jones knew the Chiefs would come back because he estimated that Mahomes and his weapons and an opportunistic defense wouldn't need much time.
"Sack nation, baby," Jones declared. "They are going to make a movie about this."
With Mahomes directing. Despite a modest 26-of-42 passing for 286 yards and three total touchdowns (two passing, one rushing), Mahomes knew when to strike. After the big gain to Hill and the Kelce touchdown four plays later, Mahomes dropped a rainbow into the hands of Sammy Watkins over a lagging Richard Sherman to set up a Damien Williams score. Watkins simply outran Sherman. "Teams fear speed," Hill said.
Even earlier, in the first three quarters, when Hill and Mahomes struggled to connect, others had picked up the slack. Hill says Watkins, despite his complementary role in Kansas City, is still the same player drafted in the top five by the Bills six years ago, and he showed it with 98 yards. Williams was brilliant with 133 total yards and two touchdowns.
But even an underperforming Mahomes wears on any game plan, slithering out of the hands of Nick Bosa on one second-down play with less than five minutes left to gain 9 yards instead of taking a sack.
The Chiefs' offense recorded almost half of its 397 yards in the fourth quarter. Determined to hold up its end of the bargain, Kansas City's defense had held the 49ers' offense to just 49 yards on 17 plays with a turnover on downs and an interception.
Several Chiefs emerged from the postgame locker room scene with the belief that this team -- and in particular, Mahomes -- will keep reversing deficits until it owns multiple rings. With this win, Mahomes became the first quarterback in NFL history to win three straight games by double digits after trailing by double digits. In this postseason, he recorded 10 passing touchdowns after being down by 10 points or more. Only three quarterbacks in history have scored more, period.
"It was about never giving up; I think that was the biggest thing," Mahomes said. "Coach Reid kept giving us confidence, the guys kept believing, and we took it one play at a time.
"We've been in these situations all postseason, and guys never give up, and we found a way to get the win."