Chiefs went into ‘Church mode’ to secure Super Bowl LVII title
The Chiefs call it “church mode” because it typically begins and ends with a kneel-down.
On Sunday the late-game plan worked to perfection although it was capped by a Super Bowl-winning 27yard field goal by Harrison Butker.
It was a masterful example of clock management by Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who during his head coaching tour with the Eagles was ripped at least once in virtually every news conference for misusing his timeouts or failing to manage the clock properly.
First and foremost, the Eagles couldn’t get a stop in the second half. Not one lousy stop. And quarterback Patrick Mahomes appeared to reinjure his ankle in the first half. Serious or not, the Eagles bit into the bait. The vaunted Eagles pass rush with transcendant statistics didn’t get one sack of Mahomes.
” Boy, it stings. You can taste it,” Eagles veteran Brandon Graham said. “You can feel it. All we had to do was make a play on defense. We’re all together, but we know that it sucks that we couldn’t get off the field and make a stop for the offense because the offense put us in a position. They just got us in the end. All credit goes to Kansas City. They had a great year. We’re just going to feel this one for a minute, but it will definitely make me stronger for this comeback.” While everyone except Birds cornerback James Bradberry (pleaded guilty as charged) wanted to blame the officials for his hold giving the Chiefs a first down at the 11-yard line of the Eagles with 1:48 left, they overlooked the play made by running back Jerrick McKinnon who on the next snap ran to the twoyard line and took a knee with the score tied at 35.
With the “church mode” offense, that effectively meant the Chiefs would win in regulation or the contest would go to overtime.
“We relay that to Patrick, Patrick relays it to the huddle,” Reid said at his presser Monday. “We knew they didn’t have timeouts. We knew we could run the clock down to eight seconds if we did it right and still stay within that five, sixyard area where your field goal percentages are 99 percent. And we’ve got a good field goal kicker. And then you don’t really give (the Eagles) much of an opportunity to get the ball back. We practice this every Friday. You don’t get to use it very often but on the biggest stage we were able to use that.”
Eight seconds it was before the Eagles got the ball back, and that barely was enough time for Jalen Hurts to launch a desperation heave that fell incomplete. It was the second Super Bowl title for both Reid and Mahomes, the latter named the game’s MVP.
Watching that was like
dying 1,000 deaths for the Eagles, who were fixated on the clock and the scoreboard.
“Obviously it’s situational football and they are wellcoached in that,” Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert said. “They had a game plan for a situation like that and they executed it perfectly. He went down. We would’ve done the same thing in that situation. It’s tough, I can’t say I was fully defeated at
that time because I knew we would get the ball with a little bit of time and give ourselves an opportunity. But it’s a bummer we didn’t have more time on the clock. The Chiefs have a great team. They played incredibly well today. Sometimes you wish there was a fifth quarter.”
For the Eagles, and other teams, it’s game over when the Chiefs go into church mode.