Allegiant Stadium welcomed in over 61,000 NFL fans to watch the duel between the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs and the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers. This was the first year in the Super Bowl era that the game would be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, the home stadium of the Las Vegas Raiders. The celebrated pop star, Usher, would take center stage and bring out a crew of other music icons for the halftime show. After his performance, which was the most watched halftime show of all time with over 129 million viewers, eyes turned back to the two teams who stayed neck-and-neck with each other through regulation. The game would turn into only the second Super Bowl in history to go into an overtime period after the 31-point swing orchestrated by Tom Brady and the Patriots in 2017, which became known as the “28-3 game.”
Before play began, the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs won the opening coin toss, and coach Andy Reid elected to defer to the second half. Neither team found much success on offense to start the game as second-year linebacker Leo Chenal forced the ball out of the hands of Christian McCaffrey to end San Francisco’s opening drive. The next three consecutive drives of the game would see both teams trade off punts until the second quarter began. San Francisco’s rookie kicker, Jake Moody, set a Super Bowl record for the longest field goal at 55 yards on the second play of the second quarter. After an Isiah Pacheco fumble to end the Chiefs’ following drive, both sides traded off punts once again until San Francisco’s coach, Kyle Shanahan, drew up a gadget play where wide receiver Jauan Jennings completed a 21-yard pass to McCaffrey, this season’s Offensive Player of the Year. Following a successful PAT by Moody, the 49ers took a 10-0 lead with a little over four minutes left in the first half. The Chiefs would put points on the board on their next possession with a Harrison Butker 28-yard field goal with under 30 seconds left in the half.
Following Usher’s lively performance in the halftime show, the Chiefs’ opening drive of the second half came to a screeching halt as Patrick Mahomes aired out a pass that found its way into the hands of the 49ers’ rookie safety, Ji’Ayir Brown, making it both Mahomes’ and Brown’s first interception of the 2023 playoffs. A similar sight of possession changing after fourth down punts carried on until Harrison Butker lined up for another field goal attempt that would break the record Moody had previously set in the second quarter, placing the ball between the uprights from 57 yards away. The Chiefs would go on to add to their run with a Patrick Mahomes touchdown pass to Marquez Valdes-Scantling and they would go on to take the lead with a successful Butker PAT – the score being 13-10 with about two and a half minutes left in the third quarter.
On the very next drive that carried into the start of the fourth quarter, Brock Purdy slung the ball to Jauan Jennings for a quick 10-yard pass that resulted in a San Francisco touchdown. Jennings became only the second player in Super Bowl history to record a passing and receiving touchdown after Eagles’ quarterback Nick Foles did so in Super Bowl LII. Shockingly, second-year linebacker Leo Chenal leaped into the air to deflect the PAT attempt of Moody, keeping the score 16-13. Back-to-back field goals by Butker and Moody would make the score 19-16 in favor of the 49ers with under two minutes left in regulation. Another Butker field goal after another typical heroic drive by Mahomes would tie the game up at 19 and Super Bowl LVIII would be heading into overtime. The 49ers won the coin toss and surprisingly elected to receive the ball to begin the period. Shanahan would later tell the media that he and the coaching staff were unaware of the recently changed playoff overtime rules and that is why he chose to start with the ball, a comment that received a lot of backlash as the head referee explicitly explained the overtime rules before the coin toss. After closer to eight minutes ticking off the game clock, Jake Moody would nail his fourth field goal of the game and the ball would be back in the hands of Mahomes and the Chiefs. The story of the Chiefs’ recent greatness always comes down to one essential piece, Patrick Mahomes is a force that cannot be stopped. The signal caller would put the team on his back as he drove them downfield and dramatically ended the game with a 3-yard pass into the gloves of Mecole Hardman running across the field and into the endzone. The Kansas City Chiefs became national champions for back-to-back years and their star quarterback entered his way into debates that started the next morning, questioning if he was on pace to become greater than Tom Brady who is more often than not referred to as the greatest quarterback of all time.
