The Patriots didn’t let Patrick Mahomes touch the ball in overtime

The Patriots beat the Rams in overtime in the AFC Championship on Sunday, 37-31. Rex Burkhead scored the winning touchdown on a 2-yard run on the OT’s first possession.

Here’s the play:

Under overtime rules the NFL implemented a few years ago, if the team that gets the ball first gets a field goal, the other team gets a chance to tie or win. But if a team mounts a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on the first series, that’s the end.

College overtime rules, of course, would’ve given Mahomes a shot. He finished his day with 295 yards on 16-of-31 passing with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

This was, to state the extremely obvious to anyone who watched, a ton of fun. The teams went back and forth all game, but especially in the fourth quarter.

New England led 17-7 after 45 minutes. But the Chiefs ended the third quarter driving, and Patrick Mahomes threw a touchdown pass to Damien Williams on the first play of the fourth to cut the Patriots’ lead to 3.

The teams were never separated by more than one score again. In the last eight minutes of regulation, they traded leads four times. In the last four minutes, they traded leads three times. Both teams mounted one 75-yard drive of between nine and 10 plays, and otherwise, they traded quick strikes. Williams scored three touchdowns in the second half for the Chiefs, and the Patriots repeatedly answered.

After Rex Burkhead scored to put New England up 3 with 42 seconds left, Mahomes took the Chiefs 48 yards in 31 seconds to set up a 39-yard, game-tying field goal from Harrison Butker. That brought up the second overtime of Championship Sunday, after the Rams beat the Saints in stunning fashion a few hours earlier in New Orleans.

The NFC Championship came down largely to an officiating mistake, a missed pass-interference call that saved the Rams in the final seconds of regulation. The AFC title game felt like a purer exhibition of elite players making huge plays, right down to the end.