SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The biggest games can make heroes out of ordinary men. They can make legends out of career journeymen and wide-eyed free-agent dreamers who wouldn’t take no for any answer no matter how many times doors were slammed in their faces.
They can give you a Raheem Mostert, who has bounced around in places such as Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York (Jets) and Chicago the past two years.
All Raheem Mostert (29 carries, 220 yards, 4 TDs rushing) did in the 49ers’ 37-20 NFC Championship game demolition of Aaron Rodgers (2 INT, a fumbled center exchange) and the Packers was invoke memories of Roger Craig and Ricky Watters and the young Frank Gore for a 49ers faithful that has hardly had to wait for a second Super Bowl trip this decade.
Mostert, 27, is a onetime surfer from New Smyrna Beach, Fla., known as The Shark Bite Capital of the World, 250 miles from Miami, and boy, did he smell blood.
He came out of Purdue and went nowhere fast, until there was a Super Bowl on the line, when he rode a magical wave and went everywhere fast and furious.
If there is a defense that has a puncher’s chance against Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl 2020, it is this 49ers defense that rattled and humbled Rodgers when it mattered.
And if there is a back who can help that defense carry Jimmy Garoppolo (6-8, 77 yards, no misprint) past Mahomes and Andy Reid to the Lombardi Trophy, it is the Raheem Mostert who announced himself to America on Sunday night.
A back who nearly abandoned his NFL dream in 2015 after the Browns cut him.
“I had a discussion with my wife, and she told me, ‘If you truly love this game, you’re gonna do what you need to do,” Mostert said amidst the pandemonium of the locker room.
But why was he so down at the moment?
“Too many cuts,” he said. “Too many losses that I’ve taken, you know. I didn’t expect my career to start off like that, but it’s all up to God in putting me in this position.”
First Mostert, as if shot out of a cannon with his 4.38 speed, opened the floodgates on a 36-yard TD run. He would add a 9-yard TD run around the left end and an 18-yard TD run and by halftime, he had rushed for 160 yards and it was 49ers 27, Packers 0, with the most yards for a back in a playoff game since 1964.
He zigged and zagged his way and was not going to be denied on his fourth TD, a 22-yard run that made it Niners 34, Packers 7.
At this juncture, the 49ers had 304 yards rushing and Garoppolo was 4-for-6 for 48 yards. Jimmy GQ’s first pass in the second half came with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Mostert was on his historic mission before RB sidekick Tevin Coleman (shoulder) was carted off early in the second quarter — the only player to rush for 200-plus yards and 4 TDs in the playoffs.
“He’s so fast, and he’s fearless going through the hole,” tackle Joe Staley said. “He’s a great running back.”
Kyle Shanahan knows how and when to ride a racehorse on a day when he decides to show up as Secretariat.
“We wanted to build a team built on speed,” Lynch said. “Raheem had it.”
Now Mike Shanahan’s son gets Mahomes.
“It’s not hard to see on the highlight film that he can do some things that most human beings can’t do,” Mike Shanahan said.
With Rodgers on the other side, you figured that Kyle Shanahan’s quarterback would need to be Jimmy Cool, the way Joe Montana was Joe Cool in those four Super Bowl triumphs.
Biggest game of his life.
Bigger than any game he quarterbacked for Eastern Illinois. Bigger than either of the two games he quarterbacked for the Patriots when Deflategate sacked Tom Brady.
And Jimmy GQ was a virtual spectator to the domination he witnessed around him.
“He was telling me on the podium, ‘How cool is that? We only threw it eight times,’ ” GM John Lynch said. “He just likes winning, and I love him for it.”
Rodgers had no chance to silence a howling Levi’s Stadium crowd, to stand up to a raging 49ers defense hellbent on chewing him up and spitting him back all the way to 1265 Lombardi Avenue.
Mostert — 137 carries, 772 yards, 8 TDs rushing in the regular season — was gashing the cheesehead defense, and Richie James returned a punt 26 yards, and Packers punter JK Scott shanked a 27-yard punt and if you listened closely enough, you might have been able to hear Vince Lombardi bellowing: “What the hell’s going on out there?”
When it was over, Mostert held his 6-month-old son Gunner in his arms.
“That’s the moment I’m gonna cherish forever,” Mostert said, “and for him to be able to have that opportunity to be on stage with me, after what I accomplished, after what I done been through, I can’t put it into words how I feel.”
It was easier for the GM.
“The greatest thing about this team,” Lynch said, “is each and every week it’s somebody different.”
On this great stage, it was Raheem Mostert. They kept knocking him down. And Raheem The Dream kept getting up. And now he goes to the Super Bowl.
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January 19, 2020 at 09:38PM
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