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Adam Teicher
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs will play in the Super Bowl for the fifth time in six years when they face the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans, but Patrick Mahomes said the journey to each of the five has been different.
He will remember this year’s path to Super Bowl LIX for the Chiefs’ knack for making big plays to win close games.
“This team’s been special because it’s been everybody,” Mahomes said. “If you look at our entire season, it’s like someone makes a big play at the biggest moment to go out there and win a football game, if that’s offense, defense or special teams. The fact that it’s been everybody, it’s not just offense, it’s not just defense, it’s everybody on the entire team, it is something I’ll remember this season by and hopefully we can do it the right way and get this final win.”
Eleven of the Chiefs’ 15 regular season wins came by one score. They beat the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in the AFC Championship Game by getting a 41-yard punt return from Nikko Remigio to set up a touchdown, a fourth-down defensive stop late in the fourth quarter and two first downs at the end of the game to kill the clock.
One of the plays the Chiefs used against the Bills was called 65 Toss Power Trap, a nod to the play they ran in their Super Bowl IV win against the Minnesota Vikings to score a touchdown. Then, with coach Hank Stram wearing a microphone and predicting it would go for a touchdown, running back Mike Garrett took a handoff from quarterback Len Dawson and ran five yards for the score.
The Chiefs didn’t fare as well with 65 Toss Power Trap this time. With the Chiefs on the Bills’ three-yard line, running back Isiah Pacheco took a direct snap but was tackled on the one.
“I wish it would’ve scored,” Mahomes said.. “It got close, but the history of that play, the history of this organization, it runs through this entire team.
“Being able to run that play, one that I’ve watched . . . next time, we’ll just try to find a way to get it in the end zone.”
The Chiefs’ failure to score didn’t matter when Mahomes scored on a one-yard run on the next play.
The Chiefs used the play in the Super Bowl 25 years before Mahomes was born in 1995, but he said he was familiar with it after seeing and hearing about it many times since being drafted by the Chiefs in 2017.
“What’s cool about this organization is that we always go back and look at the history of it,” Mahomes said. “If you look at Hank Stram and Len Dawson and all the Hall of Famers, I think it’s like six or seven Hall of Famers on that football team. I’ve talked to other guys and other quarterbacks whenever they come into our room like Carson (Wentz) or Chris (Oladokun) or whoever that is about the history of the Chiefs.
“That was a huge moment for this organization.”