The favorites won both games on Championship Sunday as the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs dominated en route to clinching berths in Super Bowl LIV. Both teams exercised their dominance in very different ways. The Chiefs roared back from an early 17-7 deficit and put up twenty-eight unanswered points before the Tennessee Titans tallied again in garbage time. Superstar QB Patrick Mahomes roasted the Titans secondary to the tune of 292 yards through the air, 53 rushing yards, and 4 total TDs. KC’s much improved run defense, which ranked 29th in the NFL during the regular season, held the seemingly unstoppable Derrick Henry to 61 yards on 21 touches--his lowest output since Ryan Tannehill took over as Tennessee’s quarterback in Week 7--and effectively choked the Titans out of the game.
Later, in Santa Clara, an openly unaffiliated Rob Lowe looked on as the 49ers made mincemeat of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Niners QB Jimmy Garopollo seemed to finally embrace his underwear-model looks and stood still as a mannequin in the San Francisco backfield, handing the ball off 42 times and throwing just 8. Rodgers and his fellow Aaron, Jones, never got traction. Rodgers threw for two picks and coughed up the ball once in the redzone, and Jones was unable to gain more than 11 yards on any of his 21 touches. Although he scored both of the Packers’ touchdowns, it was far too little, way too late, and Green Bay fell 20-37.
And so, on the first Sunday of February, the Chiefs and 49ers will clash in Miami Gardens for SB LIV. This game is ripe with juicy matchups of styles, players, and schemes; below, we’ll look at the ones that will make you sound smart at your Super Bowl party.
The Chiefs’ O-Line vs. The Niners’ D-Line
This game will be won in the trenches. San Francisco’s outside zone scheme needs smart blocking to succeed (more on that later) and KC needs to hold up in pass protection in order to give Patrick Mahomes time to launch his trademark missiles. But that time will be hard to come by. The 49ers front four, made up of Joey Bosa, Arik Armistead, Dee Ford, and DeForest Buckner, absolutely terrorize opposing lines. In 2019, they recorded 48 sacks (third in the league), a pressure rate of 28.7% (second), an Avg. Depth of Target of 7.0 yards (first), and an adjusted sack rate of 9.1% (second). All of these stats are made more impressive by the fact that San Francisco sends extra rushers just 20.9% of the time, the fourth-lowest in the league.
Their ability to get pressure with four players and drop the other seven will be essential against Mahomes. He is tied for twentieth in time to throw, averaging 2.82 seconds between snap and release, and our friends at FiveThirtyEight have shown that the amount of time the QB holds the ball correlates strongly with the amount of sacks an offensive line gives up. If the sophomore passer continues to hold the ball for that long in Miami, he’ll get eaten alive by the Niners front four. It doesn’t help that Football Outsiders rate KC’s pass blocking 29th in the league. Head coach Andy Reid will need to find ways to get the ball out quickly and into the hands of playmakers in space. In return, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh could bring pressure more often to try and force Mahomes to make some of his trademark scramble plays, which are electrifying in isolation but detrimental en masse. San Francisco probably can’t stop Mahomes, but how well they contain him will set the pace for the game.
Niners’ Outside Zone vs. KC’s run D
The aforementioned outside zone scheme is brilliant in its simplicity. Instead of massive men being assigned other massive men to block, slightly less massive men are assigned an area to block. If no one is in that area, then the lineman simply chooses to keep steamrolling until he finds someone to block or double team the nearest defender. This concept is so simple that it only has two play types: inside zone and outside zone, which can be furnished with different personnel and motions.
This scheme, developed by Mike Shanahan and Alex Gibbs for Denver’s offense in the ‘90s, has the ability to turn late-round picks into absolute studs (see Terrell Davis, Clinton Portis, and Alfred Morris). This offense is no exception. Breakout rusher Raheem Mostert is a 7th rounder who has been cut by 7 different teams in his career before he found a home in San Francisco as a special teamer. He had 41 total carries in the NFL before 2019. Sunday, he popped off for the second largest rushing total in playoff history, putting up 220 yards and scoring 4 times against a helpless Packers defense.
KC will have to match the Niners’ run game with a red-hot unit of their own: their run defense. Over the course of the regular season, they were seventh worst in the league by rush Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) against and were one of only 7 teams to allow positive rushing efficiency. But in the last few weeks, they’ve started to regain some ground. They refused to let Houston run to secure a 24-0 lead and roared back with 51 unanswered points in the Divisional round. They then shut down Derrick Henry in the AFC Championship by relying on interior lineman Chris Jones to create disruption in front of an 8 man box. This limited Tennessee’s overall ground game to 3.7 yards per carry and -1.8 expected points added. Ryan Tannehill, a play action reliant quarterback not unlike Garopollo, was unable to pick up the slack. Whether they can hold up against the 49ers’ different brand of running dictate the tempo of the game.
The Chiefs’ weapons vs Cover 3
Richard Sherman effectively ended the Niners’ win Sunday by picking off an Aaron Rodgers bomb and allowing San Francisco to bleed to double zeroes. After the game, he proceeded to get some heated Twitter beef with ex-corner Darelle Revis, who accused him of not being a true shutdown corner. Revis claims that the All-Pro should have shadowed Packers superstar Davante Adams on every snap, instead of sticking to the left side of the Cover-3 like defensive coordinator Robert Saleh requires of him. However, the viability of this scheme is questionable against Patrick Mahomes and his cavalry. Their number one receiver, Tyreek Hill, is the fastest man in football. Mecole Hardman isn’t far behind. Sammy Watkins is often quiet, but is capable of explosive games like on Sunday, when he racked up 7 catches for 114 yards and a score. Tight end Travis Kelce is the best pass-catching tight end in football and the key to the Chiefs unlocking the Niners’ secondary.
Cover 3 requires that 2 corners and a safety each drop deep in zone coverage and divide the field into thirds while linebackers, strong safeties, and the like cover underneath. Sherman was part of the Legion of Boom that first popularized this approach in Seattle, and is the best Cover 3 corner in football. It requires him to be physical with receivers when necessary, but also allows him to use his ridiculous ballhawking skills to deflect and pick wayward passes. However, Ahkello Witherspoon and Emmanuel Mosely have been inconsistent performers on the right.
Kansas City is incredibly well equipped to break this scheme. Because dropping 7 men deep in coverage requires weakening the pass rush, Patrick Mahomes has time absolutely shred zone coverage with powerful tosses (if his O-line can hold up). Travis Kelce’s ability to find holes in the defense, sit and wait for the ball, then run doesn’t hurt either. Cover 3 generally leaves the area between the tackles and within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage undefended, and that would be RIPE territory for Kelce to do a ton of damage. Playing man is slightly more effective against the Chiefs on a play-to-play basis, but it leaves corners vulnerable to being beat one-on-one with speed. For San Francisco to quiet this offense, they will need their talented pass rush to hurry Mahomes, their safeties to blanket Kelce effectively, and some over the top help against the outside burners. While Sherman on an island against Tyreek Hill would make for a fun game, it’s unlikely to happen.
Andy Reid vs. Kyle Shanahan
This Super Bowl will be the first to feature walrus battling a white rapper. Just kidding. Mostly. It promises to be a matchup of two of the greatest offensive minds in modern football. Filling up the entirety of one corner is Andy Reid, the future Hall-of-Famer who just needs a ring to round out his resume. In his career, he has adapted to every new challenge proficiently, and has changed the way the NFL thinks at least once. Andy became one of the NFL’s first adopters of the Air Raid and has never been afraid to experiment and take risks. He’s outfitted Mahomes and the offense with ungodly speed at every skill position. He’s used the pure velocity of Tyreek Hill to stretch the field like taffy, whether on a jet sweep (which he helped turn into an NFL staple) or a straight fly route, and Mahomes is capable of making every throw The Walrus (Coo Coo Ca Choo) has required of him and then some. The Chiefs’ offense was not quite the statistical juggernaut it was last season (they dropped from first all the way to third in DVOA), but with a fully healthy quarterback, they’re capable of catching fire and scorching anyone.
In the other corner stands NFL legacy student Kyle Shanahan. You might remember his dad, Mike, for inventing the outside zone scheme around which the 49ers are built. Kyle spent 9 years calling offensive plays before getting his first lead gig, and was versatile enough to get both Robert Griffin III ROTY honors and Matt Ryan an MVP as their OC. In the Bay Area, he has turned an offense populated with mid-round picks, Tom Brady wannabees, and other assorted pieces into a juggernaut. He has an ability to call plays that put his best players in space (as he showed against Green Bay with Deebo Samuel and Raheem Mostert) and allow players to be both blockers and ball movers (George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk). He also has a knack for designing plays that start out looking very similar to each other, creating layers of deception. These abilities solidified him as one of the game’s premier play-callers in just his third season as a head coach.
As strong as both coaches are with playcalling, both have a reputation for poor clock management. Both the Chiefs and 49ers made mistakes on Championship weekend that kept their opponents in the game for longer than necessary. Andy Reid punted late and gave Tennessee the ball back with a grain of hope that was ultimately unrealized. Shanahan could have stepped on Green Bay’s throat with a late fourth down conversion, but wussed out and kicked instead. It is not out of the question that one of these coaches loses on Sunday becasue of poor time management late.
Final Prediction: Chiefs 38, 49ers 34
In the end, the result will really come down to who can establish the pace of the game better. The 49ers are better suited to winning a low scoring grinder, and Kansas City has the advantage in a shootout. I think the best player on the field will end up deciding the pace, and that player is Mahomes. I don’t think the Niners can stop him.
Chiefs 38, 49ers 34
Thanks as always to my lovely editor Brooke Jones. DVOA stats are taken from Football Outsiders, and other numbers were taken from ProFootball-Reference and FiveThirtyEight.
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