‘Worst feeling in the world’: Mahomes says Super Bowl loss will fuel remainder of his career

NEW ORLEANS (KCTV) - Before the Kansas City Chiefs fifth Super Bowl in the past six seasons kicked off, quarterback Patrick Mahomes was asked if there was a loss from his career that kept him up at night.

Mahomes, who at the time was 3-1 in his first four Super Bowl appearances, said his first Super Bowl loss was it for him.

“The Super Bowl versus Tampa,” Mahomes said, recalling a 31-9 defeat. “That’s pretty easy.”

Following Sunday night’s 40-22 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX, Mahomes said he’ll have another loss that will stick with him.

Both Super Bowl losses had a similar theme with Mahomes under frequent duress. Sunday night, Mahomes was sacked six times and turned the ball over three times -- twice via interception and once on a strip-sack fumble. All three of Kansas City’s touchdowns came late as Mahomes continued firing after .

“Both sucked,” Mahomes said. “There’s no way around it. Anytime you lose the Super Bowl it’s the worst feeling in the world. It’ll stick with you for the rest of your career.

“These will be the two losses that will motivate me to be even better throughout the rest of my career because you only get so few of these. You have to capitalize on these and they hurt probably more than the wins feel good.”

READ MORE: Eagles dominate Chiefs, end quest for three-peat with 40-22 win

Mahomes finished 21 of 32 for 257 yards, 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions ing the ball. His first turnover of the night came with 7:03 remaining in the second quarter when he was intercepted on a intended for wide receiver Deandre Hopkins. Eagles cornerback Cooper Dejean, who read Mahomes eyes to dart in front of a and weave through several Chiefs to find the end zone for a 38-yard touchdown heading the other direction.

“Losing the Super Bowl just doesn’t feel good in any way,” Mahomes continued. “I was proud of how my team fought the entire season with the expectations we had on us. But we came up short.

“Now, it’s how you respond and hopefully that we can learn from this like we learned from the last loss that we had and continue to get even better because it’s going to take better football -- especially from me -- in order to make another run at another Super Bowl.”

Kansas City’s loss was Mahomes’ fourth of his playoff career, dropping his playoff record as a starting quarterback to 17-4. On the other side of the field, Mahomes’ quarterback counterpart Jalen Hurts was named Super Bowl LIX MVP.

Hurts also became the first quarterback to lose a Super Bowl matchup to a quarterback and win the rematch.

“It hurts. It’s going to hurt for a while,” Mahomes said, “but how can you respond from it? We have a great football team. We still have a young football team.”

Mahomes astutely pointed out that several younger of the Chiefs roster had yet to experience playoff defeat until Sunday night’s drumming from the Eagles.

“For a lot of these guys it’ll be their first time having defeat in a (post)season,” said Mahomes after his fifth career Super Bowl appearance, which ties him for second-most among starting quarterbacks in NFL history. “How can you get better? How can you not be satisfied with just getting here and taking your game to the next level?

“It starts with me and the other leaders on this team but it will feed throughout the entire team and hopefully we can come back next season and put up a better effort.”

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