The game, the call and stuff

 OK, so, first off: That little voice from yesterday is in my ear again. 

It's saying "Told ya."

And, yeah, it did, and I ignored it, and Patrick Mahomes made me pay. Patrick Mahomes was better than the fearsome Eagles defense. Patrick Mahomes screwed up his ankle again and still conjured 24 second-half points in yet another miracle comeback. Patrick Mahomes is the Sith Lord of football, or maybe the Jedi warrior who takes him down.

And so, 38-35, Chiefs.

And so, kudos to Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Juju Smith-Schuster and Isiah Pacheco and Nick Bolton, and also to Jalen Hurts and the Eagles, who were pretty impeccable themselves. They counterpunched whenever the Chiefs punched in the second half, until defensive back James Bradberry briefly grabbed the back of Smith-Schuster's jersey inside the 15 with fewer than two minutes to play.

Flag. Fresh set of downs. Ballgame.

"What a lousy way to ruin a great game!" America howled.

True.

"That game deserved a better ending!" America wailed.

Also true.

"The NFL handed it to Kansas City AGAIN!" America, or at least some of it, complained.

Not true.

Bradberry did that, actually. Grabbed the jersey. Admitted he did it. Was hoping the zebras wouldn't see it.

But they did, and the flag came out, and the Chiefs got what they needed to run the clock down to nothing and kick the chippie field goal to win it.

And, yeah, the end left us all flat, but the Blob has never bought into the whole the-officiating-decided-the-game thing, and it won't start now. Truth is, for every sketchy call in every game that changes its flow, you can find a million other things that helped send that flow down its course to begin with. Happens all the time.

For instance, what happens if the zebras don't rule the second fumble Bolton returned for six an incompletion, wiping out the score?

What happens, for that matter, if Hurts doesn't just flat out drop the football on Bolton's previous scoop-and-score?

What happens if the Eagles don't allow a Super Bowl record 65-yard punt return in the fourth quarter to set up the easy six for Mahomes and Co., putting the Chiefs up by eight?

Truth is, if you want to say this game turned on one play, it was Bolton's fumble return. Without it -- and maybe also without Bolton's eight solo tackles -- the Eagles win by four. Everything else was pretty much equal: Mahomes with his 182 yards and three touchdowns passing, plus a couple of crucial gimpy scrambles; Hurts with his 70 yards and three touchdowns rushing and 302 yards passing. 

A football game pivots on a multitude of fulcrums. A correct if weak call is only one.

A few more thoughts:

* The people who said Bolton would have to have a great game to give the Chiefs a shot were dead on. He had the game of his life, and the Chiefs won.

* The usual suspects hit their cues perfectly, hollering "Wokeness!" because a black woman (actress Sheryl Lee Ralph) soulfully belted out "Lift Every Voice and Sing" before the national anthem, which was impeccably sung by a white guy (Chris Stapleton) and thus duly praised. Yet the same crowd never used to utter a discouraging word when the late Florence Henderson would sing "God Bless America" before the national anthem every year at the Indianapolis 500.

They don't even bother with the dog whistle anymore, these folks.

* I thought the halftime show was fine, though I wasn't its target demographic and the costuming and sets made me want to shout "Renew! Renew!" (See: "Logan's Run"). Again, right on cue, the usual suspects hated it.

And last but not least ...

* Bradley Cooper and his mom (T-Mobile), Binky Dad (Kia) and the Disapproving Rock Stars (Workday). #commercialbowl