A great Super Bowl ending was overwhelmed by Tony Romo’s commentary

As the clock was winding down in overtime, Romo explained that, with the Chiefs down by three points and inside the 5-yard line, time did not matter because the game would not end under postseason-only rules that were changed in 2022. If the clock reached zero, he noted, the game would just roll into a second OT period.

It was an important point about an unusual situation and a new postseason rule, but Romo kept talking and Nantz, the play-by-play man who has made a career of coming up with the right words at the right time, had no entry point for setting up the final play. As Patrick Mahomes was finding Mecole Hardman in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown, Nantz could say only, “First and goal, Mahomes flings it! It’s there! Hardman! Jackpot! Kansas City!”

Romo chattered as Nantz made the call and, when Nantz finished, Romo went into analysis mode as CBS showed reaction shots. Rather than letting the images tell the story, Romo was focused on the game-winning play and Hardman’s return to the Chiefs after starting the season with the New York Jets.

“This was the Andy Reid special we talked about he was saving all day,” Romo said. “He’s going to fake a motion to go across. And at that moment he turns and goes back — Hardman, who they didn’t have, right? And they go get Hardman and bring him back. And the game-winning drive of Mahomes’s career, he’s been waiting for. He’s won Super Bowls, but he’s never had it in an overtime. He is the best. He is the standard — the Michael Jordan.”

Westwood One’s Kevin Harlan chose to be more “just the facts, ma’am” in his delivery of the final play.

“First and goal at the three, lining up and the clock at 10 seconds and ticking,” Harlan said. “In the shotgun Mahomes, four-man front, receiver in motion. Low snap, he runs and he throws — caught, touchdown. It’s caught! Hardman caught the ball!

“The Chiefs have won! The Chiefs have won! The entire bench empties, chasing Mahomes in the end zone. Their third Super Bowl in five years. The Chiefs are back-to-back Super Bowl champions. It is a dynasty.”

That touchdown wasn’t the only less-than-seamless moment for Nantz and Romo, who together haul in around $30 million per year. In the first half, they missed the moment when tight end Travis Kelce accosted his 65-year-old coach, Andy Reid, on the sideline.

Kelce was angry at being replaced by Noah Gray on a red-zone play that ended in disaster when Gray struggled as he helped with blocking and running back Isiah Pacheco lost a fumble. CBS cut to a commercial and caught up with the incident when the broadcast resumed.

“He goes, ‘Keep me in,’ ” Romo said by way of analysis. “What happened is, on the fumble, he was not in the game. Noah Gray went in, and he had to block. Noah Gray, the tight end, had to block [Deommodore] Lenoir. Lenoir made him swim and actually created the fumble. And I think Kelce is like, ‘Just keep me in there, even if we are running the ball.’ ”

Romo had music on his mind several times, singing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” trying to get Nantz to join him on “Viva Las Vegas” and doing a brief “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party).”

He and Nantz had to adjust when the game turned from a defensive struggle to offensive marches and Kansas City gave them plenty of material. The Chiefs rallied from a 10-point deficit — the third time Mahomes has done so in a Super Bowl — and forced overtime by outscoring the 49ers 16-9 in the third and fourth quarters. The Chiefs scored on their final four possessions.

As it was for much of the season, social media criticism of Romo’s performance was intense, a marked turnabout from the adoration he received five years ago for predicting a series of plays between the Chiefs and New England Patriots in the AFC championship game. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said then that Romo was the greatest announcer he had ever seen; the New Yorker called him “a genius.” At that year’s Super Bowl, only Tom Brady was a bigger star and CBS raised his salary from $3 million to $17 million.

In the week leading up to Super Bowl LVIII, Romo acknowledged that things are rockier now. Asked by a reporter how he deals with a more critical evaluation of his work, he answered: “I was the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. This is small potatoes.”

Nantz gently came to Romo’s defense, saying, “We’re all going to end up on the short end of the stick sometimes.” But in an interview with The Washington Post last year, he was more defensive. “Reporters with nothing else to write have agendas and are looking for clicks and attention.”

The situation Sunday night was not new for Nantz and Romo, who were in this territory when they called the Buffalo-Kansas City AFC divisional-round game two years ago. In that game, the Chiefs won the coin toss and scored on the opening possession of overtime. The Bills never got the ball, and the NFL changed the playoff rule just months later.

“You keep resetting for the audience, but other than that, you’re lost in a bubble,” Nantz told the Associated Press. “In terms of just the concentration and the focus level, it’s why you do so many games. During the season, you have a routine and a team that’s working in concert together. I’m proud of our team. Sure, there was excitement, but you try to have the perfect tone and also try not to get in the way because the pictures and the visuals were telling a pretty full story on its own.”