By Amy Tennery
GLENDALE, Ariz (Reuters) -Patrick Mahomes proved he has toughness and talent in equal measure on Sunday as the Kansas City quarterback played through the pain to become the first player since Kurt Warner in 1999 to earn league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same year.
The 27-year-old led the Chiefs to a 38-35 win over the Philadelphia Eagles at Super Bowl 57, throwing for 182 yards and three touchdowns at State Farm Stadium.
Mahomes had limped off the field wincing in pain after their final possession of the first half, heading into the locker room with the Eagles up by 10 points as Chiefs fans worried he had exacerbated an ankle sprain suffered earlier in the postseason.
“I felt really good until I reaggravated it a little bit,” Mahomes told reporters. “You’re in the Super Bowl – you can worry about getting it healthy in the off-season. So I fought through.”
He showed he still had the magic touch after the break, engineering an extraordinary comeback by throwing two touchdown passes and scrambling 26 yards late in the fourth quarter.
“I knew it was pretty bad when he got up limping,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy told reporters.
“But I knew it wasn’t going to be bad enough where he pulled himself off the field. That’s just Pat; that’s who he is since Day 1.
“He is as competitive as they come and he’s not going to ever pull himself out of a situation with his team, through the good and the bad.”
Mahomes also earned Super Bowl MVP honors in 2020, when the Chiefs ended their half-century championship drought with a 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
It was the cherry on top of a memorable regular season, as he became only the second player to throw for more than 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns in multiple seasons after producing a career-best 5,250 passing yards.
“Pat is a once and generational lifetime type of player and sometimes he does things so special that becomes normality for him,” said Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones.
“We’ve got to just appreciate Pat.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in Glendale, Arizona, additonal reporting by Steve Keating and Rory Carroll; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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