“Now it is about how you respond and hopefully we can learn from this like we did from the last loss and try to get even better because it is going to take better football, especially from me, in order to make another run at a Super Bowl.”
Mahomes said he hadn’t played to the standards he had set himself this season and suggested that defences had found ways to frustrate him.
“I’m about to find a way this offseason to combat what defences are doing to me as far as rush lanes and the different coverages they are playing. The beauty of football is that you can’t be satisfied with just playing and thinking you will have success year in, year out.
“These defences are going to continue to get better and better and so I have to get better too. I’ll take a lot of ownership in that.”
Tight-end Travis Kelce said Philadelphia deserved credit but said the Chiefs had delivered their worst performance of the season in the biggest game.
“Hats off to the Eagles, man. They got after us in all three phases. We couldn’t get it going offensively, they got after us, and then on top of that we had turnovers, penalties, dropped passes. There’s a lot that goes into it. You don’t lose like that without everything going bad.
“We haven’t played that bad all year. We just couldn’t find that spark. Couldn’t find that momentum going through the game. This team is going to fight to the end whatever, and you saw that today with the late scores.”
Kelce said that head coach Andy Reid had told the team to let the result sink in.
“[He told us] that this one is going to hurt. Let it hurt, and figure out how to get better because of it,” he said.
Rumours of a possible retirement for Kelce have lingered this season but while stressing the decision was for his tight-end, Mahomes made clear he feels the 35-year-old can still compete for some time.
“He’s given so much to this team and to the NFL and been such a joy, not only for me to work with but for people to watch. He knows he still has a lot of football left in him,” Mahomes said.
“He’ll get to spend some time with his family and make that decision on his own.”
Reid said that he too took his share of the blame for the loss.
“They played well, they are good players and had a good scheme and they executed better than what we did. [They were] coached better, it starts with me,” he said, adding that the loss was painful regardless of the additional aspect of failing in the “three-peat” bid.
“They all hurt. You battle your tail off to get this far, very hard to do, and we spend a lot of time doing this – it’s not a hobby – so we’re in it the whole way,” he said.
“We spend a lot of hours doing it as players, as coaches, so it’s going to hurt, they all hurt when you get to this level and these things happen, three-peat aside or any of these things. When you didn’t play as well as you want to, it hurts”.
