Here’s what inspired Chiefs players in the halftime locker room vs. 49ers
JuJu Smith-Schuster leaned over the microphone, ready to take reporters back to what he saw at halftime.
This was about a half-hour after the Kansas City Chiefs’ 44-23 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium, and Smith-Schuster was asked for examples of how the team kept up its confidence after a slow start.
The Chiefs receiver took a second to compose himself, then leaned his chin downward, deepening his voice to a register where he sounded like an over-the-top pro wrestling personality.
“‘Energy all day! Energy all day!’” Smith-Schuster said, giving an impression of teammate Travis Kelce with a laugh. “At halftime, and that’s Trav’s thing. I feed off it. We’re all feeding off of it.”
What happened next, Smith-Schuster believes, was not a coincidence.
Isiah Pacheco returned the second-half kickoff 48 yards. Three plays later, Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran 16 yards around the right side for a touchdown that helped make it 21-13.
It all demonstrated the power, Smith-Schuster believes, of a team remaining together through some difficult times in the first half. He says that mojo starts with guys like Kelce ... and quarterback Patrick Mahomes ... and also defensive end Chris Jones.
“Second half, you can feel that,” Smith-Schuster said. “You can feel the passion that you’re playing for one another.”
KC certainly had to rely on that after putting itself in a 10-0 hole early — the type of deficit that’s become somewhat commonplace this season.
Though it’s also led to a ridiculous fact. The Chiefs have been down at least 10 points in three contests this season: at home against the Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders then again on Sunday when facing the 49ers.
The Chiefs’ record when that has happened this season? A perfect 3-0.
“I think we actually play better when we’re down,” Jones said with a smile. “I don’t like to be down, because it causes so much pressure on us to go out and score or go out and make a stop. But I guess we like challenging ourselves at this point, you know?”
This time, KC’s 10-0 shortfall came after the team’s most significant mistake on offense, as Mahomes threw a first-quarter interception to Talanoa Hufanga.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid clarified afterward that it was a “great learning experience” for rookie receiver Skyy Moore. The play called for him to run a wrap-around route to the inside while working in front of the defender to get to the football.
Reid said Moore ran it too deep, which allowed Hufanga to make a play on the ball.
“Pat trusted him. That was the positive part. So next time around, we’ll knock that thing out,” Reid said. “And they talked through it.”
What came next, though, was most important: Mahomes moved on.
He said after the game that offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy often preaches the most important play is the next one. When facing this challenge, Mahomes said he kept the same mindset from the past.
“I’m gonna compete until the final whistle, until Coach takes me off that football field,” Mahomes said. “So whenever you get down in these games, all you can do is, ‘How can you affect and go out there and have a positive next play?’ And then you kind of continue to do that the next play, the next play.”
Mahomes was surgical from that point. The Chiefs scored a touchdown on six of their next seven drives — and the one that didn’t had a touchdown called back because of penalty. KC converted 6 of 6 on third downs with Mahomes on the field from that point on, and afterward, Next Gen Stats’ “passing score” measure rated Mahomes’ effort against San Francisco as the best performance by an NFL quarterback all season.
“You ever play Madden, and you got like the X-Factor on a quarterback? They had it on Pat today, and it was like fire,” Smith-Schuster said. “And I was like, ‘Dang, he’s on his X-Factor. Let me try to get on mine.’ I ain’t got one, but I tried to get one.”
Mahomes appeared to raise the level of all around him. Smith-Schuster had 124 receiving yards, while teammate Marquez Valdes-Scantling had receptions of 57 and 40. Eight different Chiefs caught passes, while Mahomes threw for 423 yards before getting pulled late in the fourth quarter with the result in hand.
Putting up those numbers — against one of the NFL’s top defenses, no less — only adds to Smith-Schuster’s belief that this offense has a bit of invincibility surrounding it when players are executing properly.
“We always talk about: When we’re down, when we’re losing, it’s us beating ourselves. It’s penalties. It’s unnecessary things that we’re working on or we’re hurting ourselves,” Smith-Schuster said. “We came out second half, and we fixed that.”
And what started the after-halftime rush of emotion?
That would be a future hall-of-fame tight end in the visiting locker room, growling to his teammates that they needed to keep bringing the juice.
Smith-Schuster, for one, was paying attention.
“It’s just a passion. We lost against the Colts, and we came out (the next game against) Tampa on fire. We lost against the Bills, another great football team. We came out here — we kind of started off sluggish — but we picked it up, and we came out fire,” Smith-Schuster said. “I think moving forward, every week’s gotta feel like that: that passion, that energy. That’s why I’m here.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2022 at 9:55 PM with the headline "Here’s what inspired Chiefs players in the halftime locker room vs. 49ers."
