After coming close before, Kansas City Chiefs DE Alex Okafor is finally set to play in the Super Bowl.
He was part of a promising 13-3 Arizona Cardinals team in 2015 that saw a disappointing and early exit in the playoffs. He was part of a New Orleans Saints team in 2018 whose hopes were dashed by a controversial no-call against the Los Angeles Rams. Then, in 2019 with the Chiefs, Okafor injured himself sacking Denver Broncos QB Drew Lock, suffering a torn pec in mid-December.
The opportunity to finally be able to step on that field in Tampa with his teammates is something that Okafor has longed for.
“It means everything to me,” Okafor told Chiefs Wire. “Honestly, I’m blessed beyond belief. So many players play in this league to make it to the game that we’re in. Obviously, I didn’t get to play last year, but to have the opportunity to come back and do it this year, it’s special to me and it’s incredible.”
Like his teammate, Juan Thornhill, perhaps the most difficult part of missing out on Super Bowl LIV against the San Francisco 49ers last year was standing by and watching the game.
“Last year was incredibly difficult, watching the game and knowing that you don’t have any control of the outcome,” Okafor said. “Luckily enough, my teammates were on 10 for the game and got it done and I was happy for that.”
Running it back, was never a given for the team and it was never a given for Okafor. He agreed to a restructured contract to stay with the Chiefs this year because he believed it could be done. But he dealt with his own adversity and struggles with injuries during the 2020 season. It’s been an up-and-down time during his tenure in Kansas City, but he’s persevered, knowing that his teammates wouldn’t let him down as he dealt with injury.
“But moving into this year, my season didn’t start the way I wanted it to,” Okafor said. “A calf injury and two back-to-back hamstring injuries, so that took a lot of my goals away earlier in the season. But what kept me going was knowing that we’re good enough to be in the final game moving forward, so let me just make sure that I get myself ready to go, so when that opportunity presents itself I’ll be ready. And I’m lucky that at this point of the season, I’m playing some of my best ball and I’m ready to go.”
That’s been the mentality for the Chiefs all year too. With the biggest game on the horizon, no one player is playing for themselves.
“Everything we do is about the team,” Chiefs DB Tyrann Mathieu told reporters on Wednesday. “How can we lift the people around us, how can we be better as individuals, how we can make life better for our teammates around us. Obviously, everyone had dreams of playing in this game. These games aren’t always promised, but I think we are grateful. We’re fortunate to be back in this position and we do have some motivation knowing that there’s a lot of young guys on our team, there’s a lot of new faces on our team, a lot of guys who were injured last year who didn’t play in this game. So, it means a lot to those guys. This is their first one… it means a lot not only to them but to us as well, to kind of make sure that those guys are able to win this game and have that same feeling that we had last year.”
Of course, just getting to the Super Bowl isn’t enough for Okafor, Thornhill and all the others who have yet to play in this game.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” Okafor said. “And we’ve got to go get us one.”
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