Patrick Mahomes played this song after sending Chiefs to Super Bowl. Why it’s relevant

The Chiefs’ locker room was bumping by the time the media arrived, the chaos of yet one more celebration engulfing every corner. The music pulsated from a speaker stationed next to the locker of Patrick Mahomes, and he bobbed his head and mouthed the words toward no in one particular.

His song choice: “God’s Plan.”

The release date: Jan. 19, 2018.

The next day, Tom Brady, with a knock on the Chiefs’ locker room door, would stand about 50 yards from the location of those speakers and deliver a message to a dejected Mahomes.

“I’m turning the keys over to you,” he said.

Been a hell of a ride ever since.

Mahomes led the Chiefs to a 32-29 victory against the Bills in the AFC Championship Game, and for the fifth time in six years, he will lead Kansas City on a trip to the Super Bowl, this one in New Orleans.

Kansas City.

In the Super Bowl.

For a half-century, nothing about that thought appeared part of any plan. It was so improbable, if not impossible, that it seemed it would require divine intervention.

Well, it has a savior.

Mahomes has replaced two decades of playoff heartbreak with a postseason run so routine that is has its own conspiracies.

It shares results, but Chiefs head coach Andy Reid deviated from the usual script Sunday. Reid — you know, the long-shot NFL Coach of the Year candidate— unleashed the best football of the Chiefs’ season because he unleashed the best player of the Chiefs’ history.

What a game, yeah? The back-and-forth second half, in doubt until one final Steve Spagnuolo blitz for a fourth-down stop, produced all the drama of, ahem, a Chiefs-Bills playoff game.

In result. Even in the revenge.

The Chiefs’ starters lost one game during the regular season, a trip to Orchard Park, New York, in which Bills head coach Sean McDermott made a decision that left the game in the hands of his quarterback. In a rematch Sunday, Reid returned the favor.

Early.

Late.

Every last chance he got.

In the second quarter — the second freakin’ quarter — Reid left his offense on the field on fourth-and-1. The Chiefs were at their own 39-yard line. His play-call gave a run-pass option to Mahomes, and his quarterback delivered a six-yard run.

It’s the first time since 2021, more than three years, that Reid left his offense on the field for a first-half fourth-down try on his own half of the field.

“I just want to give you something to write about,” he joked when KC Star colleague Vahe Gregorian asked him about it.

Uh, OK, done.

But he wasn’t.

At every turn, every big moment, Reid turned loose his quarterback, and while that sounds elementary when Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback, there’s some nuance to it. It wasn’t just the arm but the legs, too. And the finest quarterback in team history responded with his finest hour, or few.

Literally, by one metric.

Mahomes had a 64.7% success rate on his dropbacks, per Next Gen Stats, a mark that couples the scrambles and the passes and puts him in the 99th percentile of quarterback performances.

And when measured with his own? One of one.

You might be surprised to hear that, given he threw for only 245 yards and one touchdown. He’s had better stats. But that stat line omits so much of his night.

The story of any Chiefs-Bills matchup is about the running quarterback. The other one. In fact, all week, I thought the more compelling plot of championship weekend originated in Buffalo, home of Josh Allen, who has done everything but beat Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs.

Allen has won three times at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in the regular season. He’s pinned Mahomes to his last 13 seconds. He’s made Mahomes travel into a snowstorm, evade an onslaught of actual snowballs from the stands and and play on the Bills’ turf.

And then this year, Allen intentionally imitated Mahomes, the quarterback who limits the mistakes without losing the knack for the spectacular. What more could he do?

Well, for three hours Sunday, Mahomes reversed the trend.

He imitated Allen.

The threat of the run came from the Chiefs’ sideline. Mahomes rushed for two touchdowns for the first time in his career. He took four other first-half carries for first downs, and, keep in mind, he did not run the ball a single time when the two teams met in Week 11.

The initial touchdown came on a scramble.

The second, a designed run.

Kind of.

The Chiefs scored on the same play twice against the Bills, and without watching them closely, you wouldn’t even know it. In the first quarter, running back Kareem Hunt broke through some ill-advised arm tackles for a 12-yard touchdown.

The part that didn’t stand out: It was actually an option play, but Mahomes just elected to hand it off.

In the fourth quarter, Chiefs down by one, Mahomes scored on an identical play call as his bruising running back did.

The difference? Mahomes kept it. And you know, he just might have told his offensive line there was no way he would be giving the ball up, and from the sideline, his coaches sure hoped he wouldn’t. That was the idea, after all.

Mahomes noticed a defensive end crashing on the Hunt touchdown. This time, he figured, he’d be open. He barreled into the end zone on the run — and told his offensive coordinator, Matt Nagy, that he simply closed his eyes and lowered his shoulder.

His explanation for the entire sequence:

“I pulled some of those reads that I’ve had all season long just because it’s the playoffs,” Mahomes said.

On the bench, some of the Chiefs’ defensive players who had spent the week preparing to stop one running quarterback began talking about the other.

“Sometimes in the playoffs he gets to be Pat Vick or Patrick McNabb,” Chiefs lineman Mike Pennel quipped.

“He’s going for that Josh Allen look,” safety Jaden Hicks said.

The running look.

And Allen just keeps chasing.

They all do. That’s what’s remarkable about this stretch. The Chiefs are gunning for their third straight Super Bowl title when they face the Eagles in a couple of weeks, an accomplishment reserved for no predecessors.

Led by a man who has no peers.

All part of the plan.