Palsgrove’s Points

The NFL season has come to a close after an absolutely thrilling overtime victory by the Kansas City Chiefs, defeating the San Francisco 49ers 25-22. There is a ton of storylines floating around the ether of sports media, and we’re going to discuss a few of those today while we look at some of my winners and losers from the Super Bowl. 

Winner – Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs

Patrick Mahomes is inevitable; he’s gosh darn Thanos. In a season where he faced the hardest path to the playoffs in Super Bowl history (literally, I’m not kidding; that’s based off of stats) and had one of the worst receiving corps in the entire NFL (they led the league in drops), Mahomes managed to will his unit to another Super Bowl victory. The Niners played well, and we’ll talk about them next, but the star of the show was rightfully Mahomes. It’s as if this entire era of the NFL is just his story, and all the incredible teams he’s defeated and lost to are just footnotes in the greater Mahomesian narrative. 

Against the Niners, Mahomes threw for 333 yards on 34 completions, ran the ball for a team-high 66 yards and averaged 7.3 yards per carry, all while Nick Bosa and the Niners’ D-Line were breathing down his throat. Mahomes and the Chiefs, in what was supposed to be a “down year,” claimed back-to-back Super Bowl victories. It’s time to stop hating and just embrace the greatness of this dynasty, because it’s not going anywhere.   

Loser – The San Francisco 49ers

The poor Niners seem cursed. They were one win away from making it to the Super Bowl last season, and then Brock Purdy’s elbow exploded against the Eagles. In this year’s playoffs, they were able fight their way through the red-hot Packers and America’s team, the Detroit Lions, only to make it to the Super Bowl and face off against Thanos himself. And this year, like in the 2020 Super Bowl, they were a part of the 50% of all life to be dusted by the snap (that’s a Marvel reference for all my fellow nerds). 

After a really solid opening half, the Niners were up 10-3 on the Chiefs, but that lead may have been their downfall. Instead of landing the finishing blow on the Chiefs like they wanted to, the Niners suffered injury after injury and failed to convert on down after down, and then in the blink of an eye the Chiefs were leading by three. A missed extra point, a field goal from within the 10-yard line and a muffed punt that bounced off a cleat are all just symptoms of the greater disease that is the Kyle Shanahan curse. He just can’t seem to win, and the Niners fans are suffering because of it. Don’t feel too bad, though; most Niners fans are also Warriors fans, so they’ll be fine.   

Winner – Temu??

I’m not sure anyone predicted this, but we got five (FIVE!) Temu ads from the beginning of the Super Bowl to the postgame celebration, and that feels like too much Temu for me. I heard someone joke that their company credit card got hacked and paid for those five ads, which is rather ironic considering I know a decent amount of people who have gotten their card information stolen by using Temu. 

Loser – Jake Moody

It’s not often I genuinely feel bad for a player who hasn’t been injured or robbed in some form or fashion, but I feel bad for Moody. Moody went three for three in Vegas on field goals, sending the ball through the uprights from 27, 53 and 55 yards, the longest of which set the NFL record for longest field goal in the Super Bowl, and the shortest of which gave the Niners the first lead of overtime. The record that Moody set was his and his alone for a quarter and some change of football, until Harrison Butker nailed a kick from 57 yards to take the record from Moody. 

Oh, and that lead that Moody gave the Niners with his 27-yarder in overtime was quickly erased by Mahomes’ pass to Mecole Hardman that won the Chiefs the Super Bowl. 

On top of all of that, the Niners might not have even had to go to overtime if he had made his one miss of the evening, an extra point that went a tad too low, got blocked by a Chiefs lineman and went careening to the right.   

Winner – Jauan Jennings

It’s not often a player does so much well in so little time with the ball. Jennings, who has been something of a plumber for the Niners this season, doing their dirty work, blocking down field and bringing the occasional third down ball, was stellar in Vegas. He both caught and threw a touchdown and is just the second player to do so ever (Nick Foles did so in his legendary game in the 2018 Super Bowl). Jennings ended the game with 4 receptions for 42 yards and a touchdown, while also throwing the ball once for 21 yards and a touchdown on a beautiful trick play to Christian McCaffrey. To say that he earned himself some money Sunday night would be one heck of an understatement.

Palsgrove is the asst. sports editor for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on X