Lead wasted: Up by 10 in 4th, S.F. just can’t close the deal
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — This time, it was the other team’s quarterback who was sensational in South Florida.
On Sunday, in the same stadium where Joe Montana pointed out John Candy before throwing a gamewinning pass and Steve Young threw six TD passes and got the monkey off his back, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes ensured the 49ers didn’t improve to 30 in their Super Bowl trips to Miami.
Mahomes, 24, the wunderkind 2018 NFL MVP, led a comeback from a 10point deficit midway through the fourth quarter to give the Chiefs a 3120 victory in Super Bowl LIV and deny the 49ers their first title in 25 years.
Mahomes threw two touchdown passes in the final sixplus minutes when the Chiefs outscored the 49ers 210. He was named the Super Bowl MVP.
“Extremely proud of us and everything,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “But this is going to take a little time to get over.”
The 49ers, a 412 team in 2018, were agonizingly close to having their turnaround season end with a title.
And it appeared they would do with their secondranked defense, a unit that
stymied Mahomes for 3½ quarters. After the first 53 minutes, Mahomes had thrown for 181 yards, taken three sacks and had a 52.2 passer rating. Mahomes threw interceptions on backtoback secondhalf possessions that played a major role in the 49ers, who were tied 1010 at halftime, taking a 2010 lead.
“I feel like for a second, he started feeling the pressure,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said. “He started throwing ducks and we got two picks. He started feeling the pressure. We were able to get there with four” pass rushers.
But this was Mahomes, who had directed playoff comebacks from 24 and 10 points, respectively, to lead the Chiefs to the Super Bowl.
“They get a little hot and cold,” Shanahan said of Kansas City’s offense. “They can score very fast. … That team doesn’t do it every single drive, but it was a matter of time.”
Mahomes heated up when the Chiefs were in lastgasp mode, trailing 2010 midway through the fourth quarter. Facing a 3rdand15 from their 35yard line, Mahomes uncorked a higharcing, 44yard completion to allalone wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
It was the start of a fourminute flurry in which Mahomes completed 8 of 10 passes for 111 yards with two touchdowns.
Mahomes gave the Chiefs the lead with a 5yard touchdown pass to running back Damien Williams on 3rd and-goal with 2:44 left. That had been preceded less than four minutes earlier with a 1yard scoring to toss to tight end Travis Kelce to close to the gap to 2017.
“We have an ability … as a team to figure out what the other team is doing, put our foot in the ground and say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Kelce said. “We showed it throughout the playoffs and we showed it even more tonight.”
In the fourth quarter, the Chiefs went with an uptempo attack that limited the 49ers’ ability to substitute and gassed a front four that was part of defense that played 75 snaps.
“That was smart by them to go with tempo,” Buckner said. “Obviously, we like to stay fresh and rotate a little bit. And they started getting us out of position, I guess.”
That included AllPro cornerback Richard Sherman, who was beaten on one of the game’s biggest plays. With the 49ers leading 2017, Mahomes fired a 38yard completion to wide receiver Sammy Watkins, who beat Sherman down the right sideline. The Chiefs scored the goahead touchdown three plays later.
Sherman, so loquacious after wins this season, was in no mood to dissect what happened in the fourth quarter.
“Just mistakes,” he said when asked about the final minutes. “Simple mistakes.”
What happened on the deep pass to Watkins? “He made a play,” Sherman said.
Of course, it wasn’t solely on the defense.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo finished by completing 2 of 9 passes for 24 yards and an interception on his final three possessions. Garoppolo had started the game by completing 18 of 22 passes for 195 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
With the 49ers trailing 2420, Garoppolo overthrew wideout Emmanuel Sanders, who had slipped behind the secondary for a possible touchdown on 3rdand10 from Kansas City’s 49.
One play later, the 49ers lost possession on downs when Garoppolo was sacked. Two snaps after that, the Chiefs secured their first Super Bowl win in 50 years when running back Damien Williams ran 38 yards around left end to prompt questions to the 49ers about what they could learn from a devastating defeat.
“How to win a Super Bowl,” tight end George Kittle said. “How to finish. We were up 2010 in the fourth quarter, right? And we didn’t win.
“So that’s on us as an offense. That’s on us as a defense. And that’s on us on special teams. Our players and coaches — we have to figure out to finish.”
Eric Branch covers the 49ers for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch
“Extremely proud of us and everything. But this is going to take a little time to get over.”
Kyle Shanahan, 49ers head coach