Five keys for the Chiefs to defeat the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV
The Kansas City Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV this Sunday. Here are five keys for them to win it all.
The Kansas City Chiefs will play in Super Bowl LIV against the San Francisco 49ers this coming Sunday. Chiefs fans have been waiting for this game for a very long time. Now that the absolute shock and euphoria of our favorite team making the Super Bowl is starting to wear off, it is time to really start looking at how these teams match up.
The Chiefs and 49ers were two of the best teams in the NFL this season and it should make for a very good matchup. However, I believe this is a game that the Chiefs can win if they can do a few key things right.
In the regular season, these teams produced very similar results, with the 49ers scoring 29.2 points per game and allowing 19.4 and the Chiefs scoring 28.2 points per game and allowing 19.2. I’m not sure you could find two teams with closer scoring numbers this season.
While the national narrative around these teams is that the Chiefs are the offensive powerhouse and the 49ers a defensive team, those narratives don’t paint an accurate picture. The Chiefs defense has come a long way from where they were early in the season, and the 49ers were the second-highest scoring team in the NFL this season with an offensive-minded coach.
If both of these teams bring their “A game” on Sunday, it should be a close and highly contested game. The only way I see it being a blowout is if one of these teams chokes under the pressure and self destructs. After all, neither team has lost a game by more than 7 points all season long and the average margin of victory in the teams combined seven losses this season was just 5.1 points.
While their passing attack hasn’t been a big part of the playoffs, Jimmy Garoppolo actually threw one more touchdowns than Patrick Mahomes did this season with a slightly better completion percentage and yards/attempt than Mahomes as well. Now obviously Mahomes missed some games, but fans shouldn’t just dismiss the 49ers as one-dimensional on offense. On the other hand, the 49ers are looked at as having an elite pass rush that could dominate this game, but during the regular season they had just three more sacks than the Chiefs did.
The bottom line here is that I think fans should expect a close game that may likely go back and forth all game long. If the Chiefs want to come out ahead at the end I think there are five key things that they must do. Let’s start with what I think is the biggest key on offense.