Tag: 2019 Super Bowl

After Jets declined his option, Mike Pennel boosted Chiefs’ run defense

After two years with the Jets, Mike Pennel has become one of the best run-stoppers on the Kansas City Chiefs defense

After two seasons with the Jets, Chiefs DT Mike Pennel finds himself on the cusp of a championship in his sixth year in the league.

The Jets claimed Pennel off waivers in 2017 to play alongside Leonard Williams, Muhammad Wilkerson and Steve McLendon. He didn’t play often, recording 35 tackles on 27 percent of snaps in 16 games, but he did enough to earn a three-year contract that offseason. But after a down 2018 season (27 tackles in 7starts/16 games), the Jets declined the option on his contract and sent him to free agency on Feb. 19, 2019.

The Chiefs picked up Pennel midway through the 2019 season after his two years with the Jets and a five-month stint with the Patriots. Though he’s only played in 13.94 percent of the Chiefs’ defensive snaps in 2019, Pennel is a crucial contributor to the Kansas City run defense. Before Pennel joined the team, the Chiefs allowed 148.6 rushing yards per game between Weeks 1-7. But after he signed in October, the Chiefs gave up only 126.1 rushing yards per game. Even better, Kansas City didn’t allow more than 100 team rushing yards during their two playoff games and held Titans running back Derrick Henry to only 69 yards on 19 careers – his lowest total since Week 9.

Pennel’s massive frame – he stands at 6-foot-4, 330 pounds – gave him incredible leverage in the run-stopping game this season and it’s helped him become a great rotational lineman for Steve Spagnuolo’s defense. He hasn’t put up wild numbers in Kansas City with just 24 total tackles, one sack and two quarterback hits, but he’s also never played more than 41 percent of snaps in a game.

Pennel will always be a quality role player, but he likely wouldn’t have seen much action on the Jets this past season after they drafted nose tackle Quinnen Williams third overall. Foley Fatukasi has also been a revelation for the Jets on the defensive line and came at a cheaper price than Pennel.

The Jets didn’t see a use for Pennel after a dip in production, but it appears the Chiefs have found a way to maximize the time he’s on the field. They’ll need all the help they can get against a San Francisco 49er running game that finished second in rushing yards per game in the regular season and tallied 235.5 rushing yards per game and three total rushing touchdowns in their two playoff games.

When the 49ers look to run the football in the Super Bowl, look for ex-Jet Pennel to be on the field.

How Raheem Mostert went from Jets practice squad cut to 49ers postseason hero

Six teams but Raheem Mostert before the 49ers picked him up, and now he’s their best running back.

San Francisco running back Raheem Mostert’s story from undrafted free agent to record-breaking hero is one Hollywood couldn’t write up.

Before he became the only NFL running back to rush for over 200 yards and score four rushing touchdowns in a playoff game, Mostert couldn’t find a spot on the roster of six other teams before signing with the Super Bowl-bound 49ers in 2016.

The Eagles, Dolphins, Ravens, Browns, Jets and Bears all signed and cut Mostert over a two-season span from 2015-2016. He never saw a regular-season carry for those teams despite being an incredible track athlete at Purdue. This past season, though, the 49ers gave him the ball 137 times in the regular season, which he turned into 772 yards and eight touchdowns.

Mostert keeps the dates he was cut by every team in the Notes app of his phone, per Yahoo Sports’ Kimberely Martin, to remind him of his own journey and those who doubted his ability. The one cut he said most surprised him, though, was when the Jets released him from their practice squad six days after they signed him in September 2016.

“I was on the practice squad and I thought I was going to get bumped up,” Mostert told Martin. “But they released me after a week.”

That season, the Jets cycled through a bevy of backups behind Matt Forte and Bilal Powell and never really took a look at Mostert, who signed with the Bears the day after the Jets cut him. He lasted 65 days in Chicago.

So, who discovered this eventual record-setting running back among the scrapheap of NFL free agents? You’d never guess it, but it was a 49ers organization led by former general manager Trent Baalke and ex-coach Chip Kelly. San Francisco signed him to their practice squad on Nov. 28, 2016, but it would take Mostert two more years and a regime change before he saw meaningful carries with the 49ers.

The 49ers didn’t need to keep Mostert when Kyle Shanahan took over as coach and John Lynch became GM in 2017. Mostert mostly played special teams the season prior and only touched the ball once on offense. But they kept him around for depth, and Mostert saw only six carries behind Carlos Hyde and Matt Breida and missed the final five games of the 2017 season with a knee injury. The next season, Mostert finished with 34 carries, but the 49ers saw his worth as a quality backup and special teamer and signed him to a three-year, $8.7 million before the 2019 season – a bargain now considering what he’s been able to accomplish.

With that resume, it would have been hard to predict what happened in 2019. But with a combination of skill, scheme and opportunity, Mostert broke out.

He took the speed he became known for in college – Mostert won gold in the 60- and the 200-meter dash at Purdue and ran the fifth-fastest 40-yard dash time (4.34 seconds) – and used it to prove to the coaching staff how he was tailor-made for Shanahan’s offense. His quickness and agility proved to be perfect for an offense designed to be interchangeable among rushers and Mostert took full advantage of his skillset when injuries struck.

When the season opened, Mostert sat third on the unofficial depth chart behind Brieda and Tevin Coleman after presumed starter Jerick McKinnon landed on injured reserve. Mostert earned more playing time when Breida and Coleman battled injuries throughout the season and excelled whenever he saw double-digit carries.

Mostert didn’t see consistent work in the backfield until Week 12, and by that time he had proven to be the best running back on the roster and the perfect sparkplug for the offense. Mostert finished the regular season with 54 carries for 322 yards and four touchdowns.

“He’s perfectly built and designed to do what Kyle needs him to do,” 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman said. “And for some people, another scheme may not be effective; he may be a regular Joe. But in this, he’s one of the best backs in this league.”

The Jets missed out on a potential star in Mostert back in 2016, but there’s no way to know how he would have played in John Morton’s and Jeremy Bates’ offenses, and it’s even harder to conceive him playing well behind the Jets’ 2019 offensive line with Adam Gase running the show. It’s typical Jets to see a former practice squad player perform so well after leaving — remember Danny Woodhead? — but that’s just the way it goes sometimes in the NFL.

Mostert’s story is amazing, and he’ll be a testament to other players who look for their chance to prove themselves in a league that continues to devalue the running back position.

“I did have a lot of doubters and naysayers,” Mostert said after Sunday’s win. “Now I get to tell them, “Hey look where I’m at now.’ You know, I never gave up on my dream.”

Chiefs’ Super Bowl woes were almost as bad as the Jets’

The Chiefs hadn’t reached the Super for Bowl for 50 years before 2019. The Jets haven’t reached the championship game in 51 years.

It took 50 years, but the Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl. 

Despite all their recent success, the Chiefs actually had one of the longest Super Bowl droughts in NFL history before beating the Titans Sunday to reach Super Bowl LIV. Kansas City had not reached the Super Bowl since the 1969 season when they beat the Vikings, 23-7. 

Only three other teams now have a longer drought than the Chiefs: The Lions, Browns — neither of which have ever reached the Super Bowl — and the Jets. 

It’s been a harrowing stretch for both the Jets’ and the Chiefs’ fanbases during their Super Bowl-less seasons. Both teams watched 22 other franchises compete for a championship since either the Jets or Chiefs played in the Super Bowl, with 15 teams hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy before they even had the opportunity to play for one again.

After winning Super Bowl III, the Jets made the playoffs 12 times but only sniffed the Super Bowl four times when they reached the AFC title game in 1982, 1998, 2009 and 2010. All four championship games ended in devastating losses: Either the Jets blew leads, failed to mount comebacks or just fell flat in the face of better opponents. 

The Jets haven’t even made the playoffs since their wild card run to the AFC Championship in 2010, thanks mostly to inconsistent coaching and quarterback play.

Similarly, the Chiefs made the playoffs 17 times during their 50-year Super Bowl drought, but only reached the conference title game twice during that span. They made the AFC championship the year they traded for five-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Joe Montana in 1993 and then most recently in 2018 with a roster not unlike the one that just made the 2019 Super Bowl.

A key difference, though, in the suffering of both fanbases is the consistency to which both sides competed in the postseason. 

The Chiefs enjoyed long stretches of playoff appearances as well as long stretches of not making the playoffs at all. They made the postseason every year from 1990 to 1995, and then again from 2015 to 2019. But besides those two streaks, they failed to make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. 

The Jets, meanwhile, have been sporadic with their postseason appearances. While they’ve had a couple of multi-season playoff streaks, the Jets mostly were one-season wonders during a plethora of coaching changes between 1968 and 2019. Besides their back-to-back AFC title game appearances, the Jets only reached the postseason in two consecutive seasons twice since making and winning the Super Bowl.

Coaching plays a huge part in both droughts. The Chiefs had 11 different coaches since their Super Bowl win before Andy Reid took over in 2013, while the Jets have hired 16 since 1968 – including Adam Gase. Consistency on the sideline would inevitably equate to postseason success. 

Reid, who has 207 career coaching wins with 28 playoff games, will be looking to break a drought of his own as he attempts to win his first career Super Bowl. Despite his illustrious career, he’s only coached in the Super Bowl one other time – in 2004 when his Eagles barely lost to the Patriots.

The Chiefs have been on the rise ever since Reid was hired, so it only makes sense this team led by 2018 MVP Patrick Mahomes and a bounty of offensive stars would be the team to break the drought. They will have a tough task against the 49ers, though, who boast one of the best all-around teams in the league anchored by a top-flight defense and a formidable rushing attack.

Super Bowl LIV should be an exciting one. It will also be a Super Bowl Jets fans will once again watch from their homes, wondering when their drought will end.