What we learned:
The Chiefs ended a 50-year title drought, but what else did NFL writer Nate Davis glean in and around Super Bowl LIV?
❚ Shanahan faces secondguessing again, Page 8
❚ 49ers feel cruel reality of defeat, Page 9
❚ Four key plays from the game, Page 10
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – The 54 things we learned from Super Bowl LIV:
1. The Kansas City Chiefs, then members of the American Football League, most recently won a championship at the conclusion of the NFL’s 50th season, winning Super Bowl IV 23-7 to cap the 1969 season ... that was until Feb. 2, when K.C. put a bow on the NFL’s centennial season by winning its second Lombardi Trophy.
2. Andy Reid’s 222nd victory means he’s finally a Super Bowl winner as a head coach ... and no longer owns the most wins in that role without a ring. Congrats, Andy, most of the NFL world is thrilled for you.
3. At 24 years and 138 days old, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, the NFL’s 2018 MVP, became its youngest quarterback to win Super Bowl MVP honors.
4. At 23 years and 320 days back in 2006, Ben Roethlisberger is the only quarterback younger than Mahomes to start for a triumphant Super Bowl team.
5. Mahomes and Hall of Famer Kurt Warner are the only players in NFL history to win the league MVP award and win the Super Bowl in their first three seasons.
6. Mahomes and Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith are the only players to win a Super Bowl and MVP award before reaching age 25.
7. What a night for fervent K.C. fans like Paul Rudd, Eric Stonestreet and Brad Pitt.
8. Congratulations to Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, deservedly recognized last weekend at NFL Honors as just the second unanimous MVP winner in league history.
9. In one of the weirder Super Bowl records we can recall being broken, 49ers rookie Deebo Samuel rushed for 53 yards – most every by a wide receiver on Super Sunday.
10. Travis Kelce and George Kittle provided the best tight end matchup in Super Bowl history. However, no one at their position has ever won the game’s MVP award.
11. A pause here to recognize this was the 11th Super Bowl hosted by Miami and greater South Florida, an NFL record. The weather was (mostly) great all week, and the volunteers who helped folks – specifically the media – get from place to place could not have been more pleasant or enthused. That said, the general feeling from my colleagues was that this was worst-devised Super Bowl, from logistical and transportation perspectives, in recent memory – and that includes Super Bowl XLIV, the last time the game was here (Saints and Colts), which was largely run out of Fort Lauderdale. Very challenging to do your job and provide stories and insight when you’re forced to travel all over creation ... and probably stuck in traffic anyway. Let’s not rest on your laurels and do a little better next time, Miami?
12. But credit to the 49ers and the Chiefs, none ensnared by the Miami social scene that has been a distraction for so many players over the years. Always better for everyone when Crockett and Tubbs are not part of the Super Bowl narrative.
13. And, aside from an undercooked hamburger Thursday night and mandatory room checks from the staff even if you had “do not disturb” posted to your door – I shudder to think why that was necessary – the hotel situation in Miami did work out pleasantly. Sunday morning, I bumped into Adam DeVine, who did not appear to have a wedding date.
14. And, again, Super Sunday’s weather was resplendent. Temperature at kickoff was 64 degrees for the first outdoor Super Bowl (appropriately played by two outdoor teams) since the Niners’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, staged Super Bowl 50 four years ago.
15. Happy birthday to Shakira, who turned 43 on a Super Sunday that featured her and Jennifer Lopez in the game’s halftime performance, one of the best in recent memory. Bravo to the proud Latinas.
16. Nice job by referee Bill Vinovich and his crew, who were under quite a bit of scrutiny for drawing this assignment just a year after presiding over the Saints’ controversial loss in the 2018 NFC championship game.
17. Outgoing Chiefs DT Chris Jones proudly presides over “Sack Nation” and predicts a movie will be made about this championship march. Yet until DE Frank Clark’s sack of Jimmy Garoppolo with 85 seconds left in the game, it appeared Sack Nation was going to be held sack-less by the Niners.
18. A toast to Jones, who apparently planned to make many more late into Sunday night.
19. Pretty great that not only do the Eagles and their fans
have a Lombardi Trophy, they can also be happy for Reid even though he got his with a different franchise.
20. In the first 27 postseason games in Chiefs history, they scored at least 31 points three times. In Kansas City’s five playoff appearances with Mahomes, the club has managed at least 31 points every time.
21. San Francisco’s Kyle Juszczyk is not only resurrecting the fullback position, he became the first Harvard man to score a Super Bowl TD.
22. Yale, Princeton and the rest have to eat it, too – Juszczyk was also the first Ivy Leaguer to score a Super Bowl TD.
23. As good as Juszczyk is, check out the block Chiefs FB Anthony Sherman made to spring Damien Williams on Kansas City’s final TD.
24. Really nice pregame tribute to Kobe Bryant by both teams, who lined both 24-yard lines about a half-hour before kickoff.
25. In case you were wondering why Chiefs DE Tanoh Kpassagnon looks so ripped, it’s because – according to him – he’s a “fake vegan.” He admitted to me he eats fish.
26. How about a salute to all of those great Chiefs who didn’t win rings: Derrick Thomas, Tony Gonzalez, Willie Roaf and Will Shields.
27. Not a single Chief or 49er was listed on the pregame injury report. Nice when both teams are essentially playing with a full deck.
28. Hate it for 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, who’s probably going to take heat for being too conservative just three years after he was skewered for being too aggressive while with the Falcons.
29. The team that scored first has won eight of the past 10 Super Bowls. The clubs that lost? The 2016 Falcons and 2019 49ers. Oy.
30. San Francisco surrendered a 10-point third-quarter lead in large part because it failed to convert all three of its third-down attempts in the final period.
31. Provided he stays healthy, defensive rookie of the year Nick Bosa is going to be a force in this league for a long time.
32. Kudos to Williams, who has more than replaced Kareem Hunt as the Chiefs’ lead back. He made a strong MVP case with his pair of TDs and 133 total yards. And to think the Dolphins castoff shone in the spotlight on the very field he used to call home.
33. Chiefs LT Eric Fisher, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2013 draft, became the first top pick to emerge victorious in the Super Bowl since ... Eli Manning. Fisher also became the first No. 1 pick to win a Super Bowl with the team that selected him since ... Peyton Manning.
34. Kansas City P Dustin Colquitt claimed his first ring for the NFL’s first family of punting. Brother Britton got his with Denver four years ago, and father Craig earned two with the Steel Curtain Steelers.
35. Mahomes’ teammates adore him. Take it from me. Real admiration for No. 15 – “one of the guys” – no matter whom you ask in that K.C. locker room.
36. TB12 > JG10 ... for the foreseeable future.
37. Garoppolo threw 31 passes Sunday after totaling 27 in San Francisco’s first two playoff games. He was also picked off twice in a game for the fourth time this season.
38. Mahomes was picked off twice for the first time this season.
39. RB Raheem Mostert, the 49ers’ leading rusher this season, has still never started an NFL game.
40. Looking forward to what Kelce does at the Kansas City victory parade. He and brother Jason have both won rings over the last two years, but the Philadelphia center’s parade performance was an all-timer.
41. Super Bowl LIV was only the fourth to be tied at halftime (10-10).
42. Why is Darrelle Revis so determined to pick on Richard Sherman?
43. Garoppolo’s TD pass to Kyle Juszczyk was the Super
Bowl’s first since Nick Foles connected with Zach Ertz for what proved to be Philadelphia’s game-winner two years ago. 44. Remember when everyone wanted to wear white jerseys on Super Sunday? Welp. The team in white has dropped two of the past three.
45. The Chiefs averaged 39 points per game this postseason.
46. Niners assistant Katie Sowers became the first woman and first openly LGBT coach in Super Bowl history. Congrats, coach.
47. Kansas City became the first club in the NFL’s 100 seasons to win three games in the same playoffs despite trailing by at least 10 points in all of them.
48. The Chiefs’ win gave the AFC 25 Super Bowl victories, matching the NFC total. The AFL and NFL also split the first four Super Sundays.
49. After going 5-0 in Super Bowls in the 20th century, the 49ers are 0-2 in the 21st.
50. The 2020 Chiefs will now aim to become the first team to repeat since the 2004 Patriots.
51. If this was the last game for Joe Staley, the only 49er to play in the team’s past two Super Bowl appearances, salutations on an impressive 13-year career. The Niners should think hard about retiring that No. 74.
52. Hard Rock Stadium has undergone an impressive renovation since the Super Bowl was last played here a decade ago. But the capacity is lacking, the game’s attendance of 62,417 the lowest since the very first Super Bowl failed to sell out LA Coliseum in 1967, drawing “just” 61,946 customers.
53. But what a turnout by Chiefs fans, who chanted the Tomahawk Chop at full throat much of the night and did a pretty decent job of making the venue feel like Arrowhead East at times. 54. How ’bout those CHIEEEEFS!