© Mark J. Rebilas | 2020 Feb 2
It’s the play that changed everything. Down 10 points with a little over seven minutes to go in the game, the Chiefs faced what seemed like a do-or-die 3-and-15 in Super Bowl LIV. What happened next will go down as one of the most iconic plays in Kansas City sports history, and the stuff of nightmares for 49ers fans forever.
Patrick Mahomes avoided the 49ers’ four man pass rush, and uncorked a 58-yard bomb from his back foot, hooking up with Tyreek Hill at San Francisco’s 21-yard line. The play gave the Chiefs life and belief. Kansas City would score a minute later, and then twice more before the game ended, to hand San Francisco their second heartbreaking Super Bowl loss in as many tries.
49ers free safety Jimmie Ward was at the center of the play, and told Murph & Mac on Thursday morning that after watching the film, he wishes he’d played it differently.
“I wish I could’ve stayed more square,” Ward said. “It’s a route that they love doing. The crazy thing about that play, is they ran it twice. They ran an outside dig, they probably ran it 10 yards. This time — I can’t remember if there was a timeout before, I don’t watch the live copy — the second time they ran it they put [Travis] Kelce on the outside. He ran a 15 yard dig and Tyreek [Hill] kind of bent it in and ran a deep post corner. So I understand what they were doing now.
“They got us in the right call, because we were in Cover 3 and I don’t know if they were expecting us to be in Cover 3 or what. We probably could’ve made another call and that would’ve helped us out, but it probably would’ve played out the same way. But regardless of the situation, if I would’ve stayed square it wouldn’t have even been a play.”
The loss was so hard for Ward to deal with, he admitted he wasn’t able to watch tape from the game until recently. Now he can’t stop.
“It actually took me awhile to watch the game. I watched the game like two weeks ago, it was my first time watching it. Since then I’ve probably watched it like 20 times.”
Listen to the interview below.