STINSON: With six minutes left in Super Bowl LIV, everything changed

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Halfway through the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, the post-game storylines were mostly written.

Patrick Mahomes, who had been lauded for two weeks as the best quarterback in the world, was having his worst game as a pro. Normally an aggressive and electric passer, he was cautious and timid and, oddly, making plain bad throws. He had been a mix of Aaron Rodgers and Lamar Jackson in the previous two playoff games. Now he was Jared Goff. Bad games happen, but having one in your first Super Bowl is like football’s scarlet letter. Ask Andy Reid about that: Mahomes’ coach had been trying to shake the memory of his first Super Bowl, and the branding that came with it, for a decade.

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Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garoppolo, meanwhile, were busy burnishing their legacies. I cannot recall a pre-Super Bowl period where a head coach was praised so much for his specific scheming abilities as Shanahan was before this one, but the San Francisco offence had indeed been mostly unstoppable. They had run the ball effectively and passed enough to keep the Chiefs off balance. Garoppolo had made one dumb throw, a first-half heave while under pressure that was intercepted, but he was otherwise accurate and poised. He had come into the game as the possible weak link for the Niners, and yet there he was, decisively outplaying Mahomes. Jimmy Montana, et cetera.

And then, in about six minutes of game time, all of that went haywire. If nothing else, the remainder of the fourth quarter proved how dumb it is to try to derive larger narratives from the results of a single game. Sometimes sports just happen.

It certainly did on Sunday night. There was Mahomes, down 10 points with seven minutes left, having just badly underthrown Tyreek Hill on a catch that was overturned on review because the nose of the ball hit the ground. Facing third-and-15, the Chiefs were one play from certain doom. Instead, Hill found open space deep down the left sideline and Mahomes launched the ball toward him. It wasn’t a particularly good throw, as Hill had to slow down and wait for a ball that had too much air under it, but it changed everything. For everyone. That 44-yard completion set up all that followed.

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The Chiefs were in the end zone exactly one minute later, which meant San Francisco was protecting a 20-17 lead with more than six minutes remaining. Knowing they need to make first downs to chew up time, Shanahan must have decided that he needed to throw the ball. Up to that point there had been precious little evidence that this was true; the Niners were ripping off about six yards per carry and it sure looked like they could simply plow their way to victory, eating up time and yards awhile doing it. Instead, Shanahan called a pass on second-and-five, and Kansas City lineman Chris Jones got his meaty arms in the way to knock it down. Another incompletion followed, and all of a sudden the Chiefs were getting the ball back. Troublingly for the Niners, the formerly meek Mahomes was now feeling his oats.

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Here is what the drive chart looks for that next K.C. possession: completion, completion, completion, completion, six-yard run. The Chiefs moved 65 yards in about 90 seconds and Damien Williams scored two plays later to give them a 24-20 lead.

With that, it was on Garoppolo to take over and lead a San Francisco comeback. More to the point, it was now on him to do the exact thing that the football world had spent two weeks wondering if he could do. It will be lost to history, but for a while he did. A run and two passes moved the ball 35 yards in less than a minute, and Garoppolo stood at midfield with 1:49 left and all three timeouts. All kinds of time, and all kinds of options. Here is how the drive chart looks from that point: Incompletion, incompletion, incompletion, sack. Good night.

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So much for the narratives. Mahomes went full Mahomes at the end, making plays with his arm and legs and reasserting himself as the most dangerous quarterback in the game, while ensuring that Reid would never again be asked about being out-coached in a Super Bowl. Garoppolo went from tidy and effective to Rex Grossman. From that point at midfield with the game undecided, he had five incompletions, a sack and an interception. No completions. Not great! And Shanahan, having also watched as the Patriots stormed back from 28-3 against the Falcons in the Super Bowl when he was Atlanta’s offensive coordinator, will now have months to wonder why a genius playcaller forgets to call runs when protecting a lead.

It could have easily all been so different. Maybe Garoppolo’s pass slips through the arms of Jones on second-and-five for a completion — the kind of play that happens all the time — and Shanahan is lauded today for the bold aggressiveness that kept the Niners on the march and secured the win. Maybe Mahomes and Reid are explaining this morning how their vaunted offence couldn’t do anything until it was too late.

But, it didn’t and they aren’t. Sports happened. Best not to think about what it all means until the game is over.

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