LAS VEGAS

— The NFL has a repeat champion for the first time in 19 years. The Kansas City Chiefs, with a third Super Bowl triumph in five seasons, cemented their status as the league’s modern-day dynasty with a 25-22 overtime win against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

This one, the same as the last two for Kansas City and its superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, came with a stirring second-half comeback — and, this time, with some overtime heroics.

Jake Moody’s 27-yard field goal on the first possession of overtime put the 49ers ahead 22-19, but the Chiefs responded with a 13-play, 75-yard drive and won it on a 3-yard touchdown pass from Mahomes to Mecole Hardman.

It was but the latest must-have drive for Kansas City, a team that has built a reputation behind Mahomes as most dangerous when holding the ball last. The Chiefs trailed 19-16 with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter when they marched 75 yards in 11 plays and Harrison Butker kicked a 29-yard field goal. The key play on the drive came on a third-and-7 with 16 seconds left, when Mahomes hit Travis Kelce on a crosser for a 22-yard gain that set the Chiefs up for the easy kick.

It’s the fourth Super Bowl win for the Chiefs franchise and the third for the team under coach Andy Reid, who joins Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs in a tie for third-most all-time. Only Bill Belichick (six) and Chuck Noll (four) have more.

“The number three is a big number in terms of dynasties,” Kelce said this week, adding that he wanted to win this Super Bowl more than any of the previous three he’d played in. Winning three titles in a five-year window puts the Chiefs in a different conversation, one that includes some of the greatest runs in league history.

How the Chiefs stack up among NFL dynasties (and a path past the Patriots): Sando’s Pick SixMahomes earned his third Super Bowl MVP going 34-of-46 passing for 333 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, resulting in a 99.3 passer rating. He joins Tom Brady (five) and Joe Montana (three) as the only players to win three Super Bowl MVP awards.

The championship also elevates Mahomes — a remarkable 15-3 in the playoffs in his six-year career — into elite company: he’s now one of five quarterbacks in league history to win at least three Super Bowls, joining Brady (seven), Montana (four), Terry Bradshaw (four) and Troy Aikman (three). Brady, Aikman and Mahomes, 28, are the only ones to win three before their 30th birthdays. Across the last two postseasons, Mahomes has gone 7-0, throwing 13 touchdowns and just one interception.

When CBS announcer Jim Nantz mentioned on the postgame podium how the Chiefs were underdogs in the last three games of this postseason, Mahomes said, “Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never underdogs. Just know that.”

It’s a devastating defeat for the 49ers, particularly coach Kyle Shanahan, who adds another chapter of Super Bowl heartache to what’s otherwise been a stellar career. As Atlanta’s offensive coordinator in 2017, Shanahan was on the wrong side of the biggest blown lead in Super Bowl history, when the Patriots rallied from a 28-3 third-quarter deficit to stun the Falcons in the only other championship game to go to overtime.

San Francisco’s championship drought is now at 29 seasons. After winning five Lombardi Trophies within a 13-year window from 1982 to 1995, the 49ers have lost in all three of their trips to the Super Bowl since (after the 2012, 2019 and 2023 seasons).

Before this year’s Chiefs, the last Super Bowl champion to successfully defend its title was the 2004 Patriots. What had become routine in the first few decades of the Super Bowl era — there were eight repeat winners across the first 39 editions of the game — became nonexistent, a byproduct of increased parity across the league and an indication of just how taxing Super Bowl runs can.

The title caps a stunning late-season surge from Kansas City, which slogged through its worst regular season since Mahomes became the starter in 2018. Plagued by an uncharacteristically inconsistent offense, including a league-worst 44 drops by its receivers, the Chiefs were just 9-6 after a loss to the Raiders at home on Christmas Day. It looked dire enough that Kansas City general manager Brett Veach was left wondering if his team would even make the postseason.

But the Chiefs wouldn’t lose again all year, finishing the regular season with a pair of victories before ripping off four straight wins in the playoffs. What started in frigid temperatures in Kansas City, a wild-card win over the Dolphins in the fourth-coldest game in NFL history, continued with two gutsy road wins in Buffalo and Baltimore — the first true road wins of Mahomes’ playoff career — and culminated with Sunday’s comeback in Las Vegas.

On Sunday, the 49ers controlled the first half by owning the trenches, particularly when the Chiefs had the ball. San Francisco’s punishing defensive line constantly had Mahomes scrambling from the pocket, sacking him twice and regularly forcing hurried throws. In turn, the Chiefs’…