Super Bowl winner: Will Kansas City Chiefs or San Francisco 49ers lift Lombardi Trophy?
The San Francisco 49ers tackle the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII on Monday - JULIAN LINDEN and JAMIE PANDARAM debate who will claim the crown.
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The biggest party in American sport is about to get even bigger on Monday (AEDT) when Las Vegas hosts the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs in what promises to be a Super Bowl blockbuster for the ages.
JULIAN LINDEN and JAMIE PANDARAM debate who will claim the crown.
FOR THE NINERS, IT’S ALL OR NOTHING
- Julian Linden
The Super Bowl has a way of messing with people’s heads.
The margin between greatness and failure is always so thin that the prospect of winning the biggest event in American sport often comes second to the fear of losing.
No team dreads that more than the San Francisco 49ers, who once again find themselves on the cusp of immortality and utter despair.
If they beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas, they will claim a record-equalling sixth Super Bowl, matching the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots.
But if they go down, they’ll be consigned to the long list of teams that keep fluffing their lines on the biggest stage of all.
For the Niners, it’s all or nothing and the stakes could not be higher.
On paper, they are the favourites to win because they have the best roster in the NFL and have been consistent high performers, reaching four of the last five NFC Championships.
They also made the 2019 Super Bowl - losing to the Chiefs - to continue their frustrating run in the title game.
San Francisco won four Super Bowls in the 1980s and 90s under the guidance of Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Steve Young but the wait for a fifth title has been going for nearly three decades.
But this year presents fresh hope for the Niners and a direct link back to their last Super Bowl win that has the team’s followers believing the stars really have aligned.
When the Niners won in 1995, one of their wide receivers was Ed McCaffrey. His son Christian is the team’s current running back and one of the best players in the game.
San Francisco’s head coach Kyle Shanahan also has a family connection to 1995 because his father Mike was the 49ers offensive coach.
A chip off the old block, Kyle Shanahan is regarded as a tactical genius with an array of offensive stars at his disposal.
As well as McCaffrey, who scored 21 touchdowns in the regular season and three more in the playoffs, the 49ers also have star wide receiver Deebo Samuel and tight end George Kittle.
The man calling the shots is Brock Purdy, a once underrated quarterback who has blossomed into one of the best playmakers in gridiron.
He was the 262nd and final player picked from the 2022 NFL: Draft, earning him the nickname of Mr Irrelevant, though he’s been anything but.
This season, he broke the 49ers’ all-time record for the most passing yards, earning the ultimate acclaim from Shanahan.
“We’ve had a lot of really good quarterbacks in this organisation,” Shanahan said. “That’s a pretty big accomplishment by him.”
If there’s an unsung hero in the 49ers offence, it’s Pro Bowl tackle Trent Williams. He doesn’t score any touchdowns because he never gets his hands on the ball but he’s the best in business at stopping the opposition getting to Purdy.
The 49ers also have a stacked roster of defenseman, whose job is to stop Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ quarterback.
If they can make life hard for Mahomes in the pocket, the 49ers will almost certainly go on and win but that’s easier said than done.
The game changers there are Nick Bosa, a defensive end who has made over 30 sacks in the past two seasons, and Fred Warner - who is without doubt the best linebacker in the league, and of the players who lost to the Chiefs five years ago so is out for revenge.
“It’s the thing you’ve thought of all season long, you’ve worked toward, and you’re finally there,” he said.
“I know the feeling of making it. And I know it’s not enough just to make it.“
MAHOMES WILL PROVE AGAIN WHY HE IS THE NFL’S BEST
Underestimating Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs has quickly become a classic of the genre.
But what this generation’s greatest quarterback and his band of disrupters have relished is flipping the script.
The one unquestionable fact about sport’s greats is that they deliver when it counts. Michael Jordan. Lionel Messi. Tom Brady.
Mahomes, at just 28, already has two Super Bowl rings and six AFC Championship titles.
If he wins his third Lombardi Trophy, he will sit behind only Brady and Joe Montana.
The hype is real Mahomes will prove again why he is the NFL’s best.
The Chiefs are underdogs in the Super Bowl, but that is nothing new.
They’ve been underdog in five of their past six playoff matches, going back to the AFC Championship game last season against Cincinnati, and Super Bowl XVII against Philadelphia which they won 38-35.
Kansas City were favourites when hosting Miami in the wildcard round of this year’s playoffs, but were tipped to lose to the Bills in Buffalo, then the Ravens in Baltimore.
Bet against Andy Reid’s team at your peril.
When they lost four of six games late in the season, all but the inner circle wrote them off. It was the Chiefs’ “down season”. Now they’re in the big dance, the fourth time in five years.
At the same time, the 49ers have become the first team in seven years to start every single game of the season as favourites, including the finale.
But the Ravens laid bare the blueprint to defeat the 49ers on Boxing Day by trouncing them 33-19, relentlessly pressuring quarterback Brock Purdy who threw four interceptions.
While San Francisco has improved, Purdy has looked vulnerable during these playoffs, and with a Chiefs defence led by mastermind coach Steve Spagnuolo, the young passer will face the sternest test of his career.
The Niners’ running game is their biggest strength; they’ll hand off plenty to Christian McCaffrey - their best player - and create switch routes for the powerful Deebo Samuel.
It will be up to Chiefs defenders Chris Jones, Willie Gay, George Karlaftis and Nick Bolton to squeeze McCaffrey and pressure Purdy into risky throws on second and third downs. The Chiefs’ backfield defenders, L’Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie, are the best in the business, with Sneed giving up just one touchdown this entire season.
Sneed has the experience and athleticism to shut down Niners receiver Brandon Aiyuk, which will greatly limit San Fran’s attack.
The Chiefs were conceding just 17.3 points during the regular season - that has dropped to a meagre 13.7 points on average in the playoffs.
With what they’ve shown in the past month, and their ability to adjust to different tactics in-game, the Chiefs have greater capacity in defence to shut down what the Niners throw at them.
Conversely, Mahomes has proven time and again to be the master of manipulating the tightest defences.
His game management, anticipation, and ability to create game-changing plays is unrivalled in this era; he has taken that mantle from Brady.
Mahomes has not thrown an intercept this entire playoff series, and Chiefs’ offensive linemen Donovan Smith, Creed Humphrey, Jawaan Taylor and Nick Allegretti have done a fine job protecting their playmaker and creating holes for furious-running Isiah Pacheco to punch through.
And now Mahomes has his key men firing.
For the first time in eight seasons, tight-end Travis Kelce failed to gain 1000 yards in the regular season, falling just 16 yards short (no other tight-end in history has had more than three consecutive 1000-plus yard seasons).
Kelce could have gone for eight straight in the final match against the Bengals, but opted to rest his body instead of chasing individual glory, and the results are showing.
He has returned to peak form in the playoffs.
Kelce was targeted 11 times in their AFC Championship game in Baltimore, and had 11 catches including a touchdown. He is playing at his best when it matters.
The Niners will likely have to double-team Kelce to contain his impact, hoping that the Chiefs’ wobbly wide receivers blunder opportunities.
While KC’s receivers, including Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Kadarius Toney fumbled crucial passes during the season that cost them games, the Chiefs offence has been far more clinical in the playoffs.
Rookie Rashee Rice has become the go-to for Mahomes, while the quarterback showed ultimate faith in MVS by throwing the long ball for him to catch and seal victory against Baltimore.
While Kelce often changes routes on the spot, and Mahomes telepathically adjusts and finds the big man, Rice’s reliability on straight routes – either upfield or drifting across – is the solid secondary option the Chiefs have been searching for this season.
They have the defence to repel the 49ers, they have the attacking options to exploit them, and they have the magician at quarterback orchestrating a dynasty.
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