By Howard M. Riell
The historical evidence indicates that the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl every 50 years. If that proves to be true, fans have a long wait for the next confetti drop.
However, here in 2020, the Chiefs did indeed defeat the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 to capture this year’s NFL Super Bowl.
And at least one of the newly crowned NFL champions is a member of the Tribe.
Mitchell Bryan Schwartz, born June 8, 1989, plays offensive tackle for the Chiefs. He played college ball at the University of California, Berkeley’s Golden Bears. He started all 51 games possible from 2008–11, at either left tackle or right tackle. He was named second-team All-Pac-10 as a junior, and first-team All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Academic as a senior. He also earned honorable mention Pac-10 All-Academic (2008–10), and the Brick Muller Award as Cal’s Most Valuable Offensive Lineman (2009–11), for three seasons each.
Schwartz was born in Pacific Palisades, California and grew up in West Los Angeles. He is the son of Lee Schwartz, a business consultant to manufacturing companies, and Olivia Goodkin, an attorney. Schwartz is Jewish and was raised in Conservative Judaism. His Hebrew name is Mendel. Schwartz and his brother Geoff authored the book “Eat my Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith.”
Schwartz didn’t start playing football until he was a freshman in high school. When he started the ninth grade, he was already 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) tall and 240 pounds, too big for the size restrictions of the local Pop Warner youth leagues. Additionally, his parents wanted him to instead focus on studying for his Bar Mitzvah.
His brother, offensive guard Geoff, played in the NFL for four different teams. Geoff and Mitchell are the first Jewish brothers to play in the NFL since Ralph Horween and Arnold Horween, in 1923.
His father, speaking of the fact that he has two sons playing in the National Football League, said: “I just kvell.” His mother, commenting on having two sons play football, said:
I started out worrying that they were going to get hurt, but then I realized it was the other players I should be worrying about. They were like trucks hitting small cars. And I started to kind of feel like maybe this was their destiny.”
Schwartz was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the second round (37th overall) of the 2012 NFL draft. He was named to the Pro Football Focus (PFF) 2012 All-Rookie Team, lauded for his “top-notch pass blocking”, and to the 2014 PFF All-Third Year Team. Following the 2018 season, he was named the winner of the Pro Football Focus Matthews Award, given out by the organization to their highest-rated offensive lineman each year, and was named a First Team All-Pro by the Associated Press. In 2019 he was named to the CBS Sports’ NFL All-Decade Team. He has started over 120 consecutive games, and had 7,894 consecutive snaps (which made him the active iron man leader in the snaps category).
And he is undoubtedly still celebrating with his teammates.
As for the game itself, it was the kind of come from behind victory fans love. Behind 20-10 in the fourth quarter, 24 year old Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, last year’s season MVP led a trio of TD drives in a bit more than five minutes.
The 49ers “had looked well on their way to a first Super Bowl in 25 years, holding a 10-point advantage and with time running down, but few leads are ever safe from Mahomes and the explosive Chiefs offense,” reported Reuters.
All of that being said, and with all due respect to Mr. Schwartz, it is usually the quarterbacks, not the offensive tackles, who lead teams to victory. That rule held true once again. As CBS Sports noted, “Why did the Chiefs win on Sunday night? Well, it’s pretty simple. They have Mahomes, and the 49ers did not… There’s really not much else to say.
He’s the best quarterback in the world, and the fact that he bounced back from that rough start to finish with 286 yards passing, 29 yards rushing and three total touchdowns goes to prove it, despite his two interceptions.”
