Ann Killion: Raheem Mostert is perfect hero for this championship game — an underdog who has had to fight just to stay in the league.
Every championship game needs a hero.
And what better hero for this 49ers team than a player who was waived by six other teams? A man who had to fight and claw to stay in the league? Who is willing to do whatever it takes without complaint? A player who still relishes playing on special teams even when he’s a key part of the offense?
Raheem Mostert is symbolic of all the things that characterize these 49ers. Including the element of unexpected and startling success.
“He’s always been a specialteams ace. He never complained about his carries,” tackle Joe Staley said. “The guy works
harder than anybody. He’s been patient, never complaing about his role. This is what happens when you accept your role on the team and you don’t worry about stats. You have a moment like this.
“One of the alltime playoff performances in NFL history.”
It started innocently enough Sunday. On the 49ers’ second possession of the game, on their fifth snap, Mostert ran for 5 yards. Then he ran for 6 yards. Then he exploded for 36 yards and a touchdown.
By the end of the game, Mostert had four touchdowns and 220 rushing yards and was a part of NFL history.
“It’s so surreal right now,” Mostert said.
He had carried the 49ers back to the Super Bowl, their seventh trip but the first in seven years.
This was not a championship game that would require a historic catch and epic finish. It was not a championship game in which the quarterback would emerge the conquering hero. It was not a championship game with one singular moment.
Instead, it was, from start to finish, a coronation for the newest NFC champions. The 49ers rode their former fourthstring running back past a future Hall of Fame quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. They ground the Packers to dust with a punishing running game, and some secondhalf Green Bay scoring wasn’t enough to create a sense of drama.
Mostert, a Florida native, played as though couldn’t wait to get back to his home state to take the field for a chance at an NFL championship; Super Bowl LIV will be played in Miami Gardens. He and kicker Robbie Gould accounted for all the 49ers’ scoring.
“The lanes we saw, the way he was running, we wanted to keep feeding him,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan, who called a wildly imbalanced game, with 42 running plays and just eight passes. “He battled through camp. He’s just earned everything. He’s such a good person. I can’t say enough about Raheem.”
Billabong’s loss is the Super Bowl’s gain. The player who turned down a surfing career and a sponsorship is cresting football’s biggest wave.
Mostert’s four touchdowns and 220 yards made history. His rushing total was the most in 49ers postseason history, surpassing Colin Kaepernick’s 181 yards in a divisionalround victory over the Packers in January 2013. Mostert finished 28 yards shy of Eric Dickerson’s playoff record. Mostert’s four touchdowns were the most in an NFC Championship Game, second most in playoff history.
Mostert is the kind of story that makes the NFL human. He loved football more than surfing, though he was good enough to be offered a sponsorship. He loved football more than track and field, though he was good enough to be a track champion at Purdue. He tried to make football work, despite all the signs telling him that that it wasn’t in the cards.
In his first two years in the league, he bounced between six teams, released and resigned over and over. The Eagles, the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Browns, the Jets, the Bears — they all said no, thank you. Mostert did not have a single carry from scrimmage. He had to ask his wife, Devon, whether he should stick with it. She told him that if loved his job, he should keep at it.
“I did have a lot of doubters,” Mostert said. “And now I get to tell them, ‘Hey, look where I am now.’ I never gave up on my dreams . ... It just made me stronger. I wanted to show the world what I could do.”
On his seventh team, he found his match.
It might be Chip Kelly’s best gift to the 49ers. Kelly had signed Mostert as an undrafted free agent in Philadelphia in 2015 but cut him. In 2016, Kelly became the 49ers’ head coach and brought in Mostert, who carried the ball once. When Shanahan became head coach in 2017, he kept Mostert, mostly because he excelled on special teams. And coaching Shanahans always like to have a spare running back or two.
Mostert had 34 carries last season. Because of his startling speed, he was a gunner on special teams, careening downfield in an allout sprint. The thankless job gave him an opening in the league and is so special to him that when his son was born last summer, he was named Gunnar.
This season, Mostert was again projected to be a fourthstring back, behind Matt Breida, Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon, who was reinjured before the season.
But Mostert started to get the ball. And almost every time he touched it, he did something with it. But he has continued to play special teams despite his new load as a regular running back.
On the first touchdown Sunday, he hit 21.87 mph. Mostert is cartoonlike fast — his legs are a blur, like the Road Runner’s.
“It looks like he’s moving at a different speed than every single person on the field,” 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman said this season.
Shanahan knows that if something isn’t broke, don’t fix it. He kept feeding the ball to Mostert. When Coleman went down with a shoulder injury in the second quarter, Mostert told him, “I’ve got your back.”
“GYB — that’s our motto,” Mostert said. “We’re all in this together.”
By halftime, Mostert had three touchdowns and 160 rushing yards. He added another touchdown in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, his rushing total moved into second place on the alltime list, leapfrogging names that had been on the books for two decades (Miami’s Lamar Smith), half a century (San Diego’s Keith Lincoln), and three decades (Washington’s Timmy Smith).
No one was telling Mostert. It was only after the game, as he headed up to the stage on the field with 6monthold Gunnar in his arms that it hit him. “I’m still shocked,” he said. He also was beating himself up about a misread on a play late in the game. He said he would work on fixing that this week in practice.
Before every game, Mostert looks at his list of the teams that cut him, and the date each did it. Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, the New York Jets and Chicago. Not good enough, times six.
But good enough Sunday for history. And good enough to carry his team to the Super Bowl.