Fresh off lending his three Super Bowl rings to the cause on Monday Night Raw, Patrick Mahomes has a prediction for how he might win his fourth.
Having defeated the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII and 49ers in overtime of Super Bowl LVIII with the help of near-identical reverse motion plays monikered “Corndog,” Mahomes recently guaranteed Kansas City will return once again to the hot dog-flavored well on the game’s biggest stage this season.
“That play was frickin’ sweet,” Mahomes said of his winning pass to Mecole Hardman on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast. “It was not supposed to go to the guy that caught the touchdown. We ran the Corndog one against the Eagles. Touchdown. Won the game. And then we were gonna run a fake version of that and we were gonna do a little shovel pass, and it was wide open again. So next year in New Orleans, we’re gonna do it again. Put it on the table. We’re gonna do it again. Telling you now.”
Predicted play-call aside, saying the Chiefs will run anything during the upcoming season in New Orleans -- the site of Super Bowl LIX -- also means Mahomes just called Kansas City escaping the AFC gauntlet again to be in position to accomplish the NFL’s first-ever three-peat.
There’s little reason for the Chiefs to be bashful about such a possibility. They’ve won two Super Bowls in a row, with three wins and four appearances in the last five seasons, and K.C. has never fallen short of the AFC Championship Game in six seasons with Mahomes as starter.
Travis Kelce, motivated as ever, just earned a raise to become the league’s highest-paid tight end annually for the next two years, and the Chiefs are a week removed from adding first-round wide receiver Xavier Worthy, the record-holder for the fastest 40-yard dash time (4.21) in the history of the NFL Scouting Combine, to perhaps replicate the danger Tyreek Hill once brought offensively.
It is notable, though, that Kansas City’s special play, in which a man out wide starts motioning across before catching a defender overcommitting and rerouting the opposite way at the snap, has repeatedly gone to non-No. 1 targets.
Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore caught TDs using versions of the play on back-to-back fourth-quarter drives against Philadelphia in Super Bowl LVII. It was Toney's only catch on his only target of the game -- same for Moore, who made it his only TD of the year.
Hardman's game-winner against San Francisco in last season's Super Bowl was also his first TD catch of the campaign, one that came after he was shipped back to Kansas City from the New York Jets that October.
All three were unexpected, wide-open recipients. Mahomes has now stated the Chiefs will be in New Orleans, and that we should watch for Corndog to take place yet again.
Contenders league-wide would be wise to take notice.