Patrick Mahomes could become the NFL’s first $200m man after Super Bowl heroics

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Patrick Mahomes has been tipped to become the NFL’s first $200million (£153m) player after his heroics once again rescued Kansas City Chiefs in the early hours of this morning — this time on the sport’s biggest stage, the Super Bowl.

With the Chiefs seemingly dead and buried against a team generally regarded as the best of the season, the San Francisco 49ers, quarterback Mahomes had struggled to click and his team were facing a 20-10 deficit.

But in a season of comebacks for Mahomes and the Chiefs, this was undeniably the most audacious and dramatic — the final scoreline unthinkable when heading into the fourth quarter.

Another quarterback — Russell Wilson — is currently pocketing a record $140m for his current four-year deal with the Seattle Seahawks, but former NFL general manager Mike Lombardi predicted Mahomes’s next pay cheque would be the biggest in the sport’s ­history.

“He’s going to set the bar,” said ­Lombardi. “I could see the deal being huge, being $160m, $200m for five years. I think those would be realistic numbers to look at for the best quarterback in football.”

At 24, Mahomes became the youngest player in Super Bowl history to win the most valuable player award as well as the Super Bowl title.

A captivating match turned in the space of just five minutes as he single-handedly wrested the Vince Lombardi Trophy out of the clutches of the 49ers.

“We never lost faith,” he said afterwards. “Everybody on this team, no one had their head down and we found a way to win in the end.

“The defence got some big stops for us and we found a way to win. Coach [Andy] Reid told me to keep firing, keep believing and he gave me a lot of ­confidence to go out there and do it.

“The 49ers have an amazing defence, one of the best defences I’ve ever played against so far, and I’m just glad our guys kept fighting. This team has heart and the coach pushes us to be the best we can be. We did it, baby!”

The first pivotal moment came when Mahomes avoided being sacked to find Tyreek Hill 44 yards upfield, taking the deficit to within three points with a pass to tight end Travis Kelce.

Moments later, a pop-up ball to Damian Williams took lengthy ­deliberation before the officials judged Williams had just stayed in play for a touchdown. Another Williams score moments later capped what looked on paper a comfortable win at its conclusion, but was far from it.

For Kelce, who had helped reignite the turnaround, and for anyone else inside Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, the occasion belonged solely to the Chiefs’ star quarter-back.

“It’s Magic Mahomes,” said Kelce in the immediate aftermath. “It’s a showtime Mahomes. He’s going to be himself no matter what the scenario. And you know what? I love him. He willed this team back into the game.”

Magic Mahomes: The Super Bowl MVP celebrates after the victory
AP

All season long, Mahomes had been spoken of as the game’s future star but, with one Super Bowl win already to his name in his second season, he is the present. And he is immensely marketable, already this season his jersey sales outweighed those of Tom Brady, for so long the League’s star act.

Having given the Chiefs their first Super Bowl win since 1970, Mahomes’s status in Kansas City

will be even more revered. Their next trick is to ensure he stays in the city beyond 2021, when his current contract expires.

Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said: “I hope Patrick is here for his entire career and that’s going to be our goal. There will be the right time for both player and club to extend.”

For 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, the result was particularly cruel. As offensive co-ordinator of the Atlanta Falcons when they blew a 28-3 lead over the New England Patriots in the 2017 Super Bowl, this was another bitter pill to swallow. Shanahan said: “Those guys are ­hurting in there, just like I am — we all are right now.

“It’s tough when you lose a Super Bowl but I’m so unbelievably proud of those guys, what they’ve done all year. I’ve been coaching a while and it’s as special a group as I’ve been around. It’s tough that it had to end today in the way it did.

“We just didn’t get it done when we got the ball, came up short on just a couple of plays. We had our chance a little bit there at the end and they made some good plays.”

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