Mark Madden: Even after Super Bowl flop, Patrick Mahomes still in GOAT discussion

The big game has come and gone. Time to put football to bed with refreshing Super Bowl notes. (The Steelers won’t play in next year’s, either.)

• Patrick Mahomes soiled the bed. Philadelphia’s defense was excellent, putting Mahomes under pressure without once blitzing. But if you’re supposed to be in the GOAT conversation, do better. Mahomes choked.

• Mahomes is still in the GOAT conversation. He’s only 29. Like Tom Brady, Mahomes is 3-2 in his first five Super Bowls. The discussion continues.

• Kenny Pickett mopped up at quarterback for the Eagles, handing off three times and throwing an incompletion. It was a microcosm of his Steelers career.

• Pickett set a record: Smallest hands to win a Super Bowl. They can give him a toddler’s ring.

• It was a funny Super Bowl. Taylor Swift got booed. Travis Kelce dropped two passes. Kendrick Lamar mumbled. Pickett played. It was a laugh riot.

• Tense moment: When a borderline offensive pass interference call negated an early big play by Philadelphia. It looked like the conspiracy wasn’t wasting any time. But the Eagles’ dominance never gave the refs or the Chiefs a chance.

• The Chiefs are obviously very good. But their predilection for winning close games blew up in the most obvious way possible: They got routed. It was due.

• What if the Steelers drafted Jalen Hurts instead of Chase Claypool in 2020? It would make no difference. Plop Hurts on the Steelers, and they still don’t win a playoff game. Hurts is good but largely a product of his situation.

• Hurts was a worthy MVP, if only because the award can’t be given to Philadelphia’s entire defense. There’s a notion that Hurts had all these haters and somehow got revenge: “They said Hurts wasn’t elite!” But that’s not hating, and Hurts still isn’t elite. He’s not Mahomes, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. One game doesn’t change that, not even the Super Bowl.

• Does Philadelphia winning change the NFL? It’s a copycat league. Does the pendulum swing to power football and physicality as a substitute for an elite quarterback? Probably not. It’s hard to assemble those components. The Steelers sure can’t, and the Eagles are exactly what the Steelers want to be.

• If the Steelers want to be the Eagles, dump bean counter Omar Khan and promote Andy Weidl to GM. Weidl was part of Philadelphia’s organization when the groundwork got laid for these Eagles. Weidl knows what to do.

• It’s odd that Philadelphia beat Kansas City with Saquon Barkley getting just 57 yards rushing and 40 receiving. I parlayed the Eagles winning with Barkley going over 112.5 yards rushing. Which guaranteed that one of those wouldn’t happen.

• When the white cornerback got a pick-6, the referee should have stopped the fight.

• If I were Brady on color commentary, I’d have taunted Mahomes: “You’ll never be me, Patrick! YOU’LL NEVER BE ME!” Like Peyton Manning telling brother Eli that he’d never be a kicker. (Eli made the kick. He got the last laugh.)

• It’s time for some of the NFL’s studio analysts to move on, not least Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson. Those shows are gray and stale. Pat McAfee would be a good replacement. McAfee excels at anything he’s not in charge of.

• Best Super Bowl ad: The DunKings. Affleck plus Belichick equals BIG ENERGY! I hope Jeremy Strong finds his character.

• The Steelers are 50-1 to win next year’s Super Bowl. That seems optimistic.

• If the Steelers think Justin Fields is next season’s best option at quarterback, they should have re-upped him already. But now Fields has a whiff of other teams’ interest in his nostrils. If he’s smart, he’ll find a better situation than the no-risk no-man’s-land of Arthur Smith and Mike Tomlin. Someplace where they don’t live in their fears. Where Fields can try to be Lamar Jackson Lite.

• The New York Jets are cutting Aaron Rodgers loose and are responsible for playing him a big chunk of cash next season. That seems to create a situation very similar to Russell Wilson’s when the Steelers got him. If the Steelers have to once again totally reconstruct their quarterback room, they’re stupid enough to take Rodgers on the cheap. Rodgers won’t have many options. Maybe none.