Patrick Mahomes led his team back from deficits of 24, 10 and 10 in the three postseason games a year ago. So he was convinced, even down 31-9 late, that the Chiefs were going to rally back to win Super Bowl LV.
Mahomes, though, didn’t have Deshaun Watson, Ryan Tannehill or Jimmy Garoppolo on the other side this time.
“Probably when I threw the interception at the very end of the game, you knew it was pretty much over then since we had no timeouts,” Mahomes said. “We battled to the very end. That’s one thing you can say. We played not very good football today. But we battled, and you have to respect the guys for their toughness doing that.”
Mahomes lost his second career postseason game, both to Tom Brady.
Brady was the better quarterback Sunday, winning MVP honors.
Mahomes went 26-of-49 for 270 yards and two interceptions. It was the first time he didn’t throw a touchdown in a game since Sept. 29, 2019, against the Lions, a 34-30 victory.
He took three sacks and eight quarterback hits and had to run for his life behind a patchwork offensive line.
“Obviously, I didn’t play like I wanted to play,” Mahomes said. “What else can you say? All you can do is leave everything you have on the field, and I felt like the guys did that. They were the better team today. They beat us pretty good, the worst I think I’ve been beaten in a long time, but I’m proud of the guys and how they fought to the very end of the game.”
Mahomes vows to rebound from the disappointment he’s feeling tonight.
“My dad lost in the World Series in his career,” Mahomes said. “He continued to battle and continued to be who he was. Obviously it hurts right now. It hurts a lot. But we’re going to continue to get better. We have a young group of guys that have had a lot of success and have learned from that. We’ve had a few failures, and we have to learn from that. We can’t let this define us. We have to continue to get better, going into next year and being even better and preparing ourselves to hopefully be in this game again.”