Dominate the Super Bowl-Chapter 790 - : 789 exactly the same

Chapter 790: 789 exactly the same

“Damn it!”

Mahomes couldn’t help swearing.

He took deep breaths, trying his hardest to maintain composure, but the anger was still burning fiercely. Beneath the helmet, his brows were furrowed, showing the tension of the moment.

Watching from the TV, Aaron Donald noticed, “The pressure is too much on him, the more he tries to prove himself, the more he can’t get his arms and legs to move properly.”

Pausing for a moment, Donald turned to look aside, “Just like Jared.”

Jared Goff, a handsome young quarterback often teased as a Hollywood star due to his resemblance to actor Ryan Gosling, had finally proven himself in his position this season, but his performance in the recent National Conference finals was not up to par.

Goff felt a bit embarrassed and cleared his throat, “But they don’t have Aaron Donald.”

Donald chuckled softly, not responding, and looked back at the TV screen.

The American League finals were starting.

The Los Angeles Rams players were now trapped in a hotel, surrounded by an immense crowd of excited and furious New Orleans fans; they were temporarily unable to leave the hotel, so a group gathered in a room, turned on the TV, and watched the matchup between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs—

The winner would be their opponent in the Super Bowl.

In Week 6 of the regular season, the Patriots and the Chiefs delivered one of the season’s most exciting and visually stunning bouts at Gillette Stadium; and now, meeting again in the League finals, there were high expectations from everyone in the League.

Furthermore, all signs, both on and off the field, indicated that it would be a fantastic showdown, with the Chiefs united and spirited from top to bottom.

However, the reality did not reflect this.

Sports are such that the more one wants to prove themselves, the harder it becomes to perform normally; the more one craves victory, the more they falter on the edge of success. Too much tension can lead to a breakdown in performance; the same goes for too much excitement.

There is a delicate balance between nervousness and excitement, and only by finding that balance can one perform at one hundred percent of their capabilities.

The biggest challenge in reality is that players often fail to achieve this balance. Even peak athletes in various sports don’t always manage to do so; thus, sports competitions are not only a contest against rivals but also a struggle within oneself.

That was exactly the case at the moment.

The Chiefs, too eager and keen to demonstrate their prowess, playing at home, seeking revenge, and having witnessed a fan memorial event pre-game, hoped for a commendable performance at Arrowhead Stadium; but this sentiment became a binding burden instead.

Since the beginning of the game, Mahomes’ pass completion rate was very poor, not even reaching 40%, undoubtedly his worst performance of the season.

As his first full season starting professionally, Mahomes delivered a season comparable to an MVP, replicating the miraculous emergence of Li Wei from last year, undoubtedly the current rising star of the league, and this made him even more eager to continue his excellent form into the playoffs.

However, this desire turned into a tight constraint, fully exposing his lack of experience and tendency to become impatient during critical moments.

Belichick, a cunning veteran, naturally wouldn’t miss such a moment.

The Chiefs’ passing attack struggled to make headway, resulting in all the pressure falling on the ground game, where Li Wei’s performance was still impressive; however, when the pressure fell entirely on running the ball, the tactics were quickly exposed, and Li Wei was constantly bogged down in positional battles, unable to leverage his strengths.

Reed made a prompt adjustment, assigning more of the running duties to Damien who was adept at positional battles, yet the push forward was inefficient, and the entire offense was fragmented.

What made matters worse was that the weather was no help at all.

The perceived temperature had plummeted to nearly minus fifteen degrees, forcing the players, who were waiting by the field, to don long down coats and turn on heaters just to keep warm and prevent injuries when they took to the field again.

As a result, the Football leather hardened, making control even more difficult, affecting not only the quarterback and Wide Receiver but also the running back.

Just when it seemed things couldn’t get more chaotic, one third into the second quarter, it began to drizzle, relentlessly so, and as time went on, the light rain only seemed to intensify.

The icy rain wormed its way through the jerseys into their bodies, quickly sapping what little heat was left, soon turning to ice, making toes and then fingers numb, stretching the connection between the brain and the body longer and longer, making control increasingly difficult.

Chaos, disaster, mud.

Not just Mahomes, it was also Li Wei’s first time facing such dreadful game conditions, with the entire Arrowhead Stadium engulfed in curtains of rain—

The game, however, continued unabated.

All these factors combined, the Kansas City Chiefs’ usually unstoppable offense was deeply mired right from the first minute of the game.

And chaos was exactly what Belichick and Brady thrived in.

Experience was one factor, an invaluable asset; fundamentally, the reason the New England Patriots had firmly held the top spot in the American League over the past years was their prowess in chaotic situations, their roster might not have been the most talented or strongest, but Belichick and Brady knew how to make full use of what they had, finding order in chaos.

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Moreover, in the last divisional game against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Patriots’ ground game had been critical, continuing to be a key advantage in this game’s dreadful weather.

Then, the New England Patriots took the lead.

“14:0”.

A touchdown pass, a touchdown run, the New England Patriots led in the biting cold rain away from home, firmly seizing the initiative.

This scenario, it inevitably brought to mind the divisional game of the American League last season.

A whole year ago, the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs met in the divisional round, with the then-defending champions comfortably ahead “0:21” in the first half, nearly everyone thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion, that the Chiefs would once again fall at this stage.

But, Li Wei emerged unexpectedly, completely rewriting that game, pulling off a last-second “Wanfu Mary” to defeat the New England Patriots and advance to the American League finals.

A year later, a strikingly similar situation was unfolding again.

Initially, people were expecting a reenactment of the intense matchup from Week 6 of the regular season, with both teams together delivering a high-scoring game; but it actually turned out to be a repeat of last year’s divisional game, and if the Chiefs wanted to keep their defending hopes alive, they needed to pull off another miraculous comeback—

Comebacks, honestly, are getting tiresome, right? Always falling behind and then catching up, it’s just utterly boring.

This…

Indeed, the Kansas City Chiefs just aren’t up to the mark, looking very impressive on the surface but proving to be paper tigers in the face of real challengers, the three regular season losses being the hard evidence, and now the disaster was set to repeat itself?

After all, the New England Patriots surely remembered the lessons from last year’s divisional game all too well, Belichick and Brady would definitely not make the same mistakes again.

So, were the Kansas City Chiefs ready to call it a night?