We’re just one day away from Super Bowl LVIII. The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will meet Sunday night in the final game of the 2023 NFL season, with both teams vying for the right to call themselves champions.
The defending champion Chiefs are looking for their third Super Bowl victory of the Patrick Mahomes era. They won their first Lombardi Trophy against these 49ers four years ago in Super Bowl LIV, but this San Francisco team is a different beast than that, and is surely looking for revenge after watching Kansas City rally to a 31-20 victory.
Which of these teams will win the Super Bowl in Las Vegas? We’ll know soon enough. But before we break down the match, here’s a look at how you can watch the match.
How to watch Super Bowl LVIII
- Date: Sunday February 11 | Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Allegiant Stadium (Las Vegas)
- TV: CBS, Nickelodeon
- Flow: Available through Paramount+ on all platforms, or connect with your TV provider on the CBS.com or CBS Sports apps
- Halftime show: Bailiff
- Odds: 49ers -2, O/U 47.5 (via Sportsline consensus odds)
When the 49ers have the ball
The 49ers’ superpower as an offense is that they can get into a fairly standard personnel group and line up in all sorts of formations, with players swapping roles and alignments with relative ease. When they have Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Juszczyk, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk on the court together, they’re technically 21 people, but they can do just about anything – especially if the opponent matches their defense. base. What the Niners want to do more than anything is get you a staff that matches their training, then do the opposite of what you expect them to do.
The Chiefs like to pair these larger personnel groups with their base defense, but they do it with a group of linebackers who have very distinct roles. Whether they have Drue Tranquill (an offensive blitzer) or Leo Chenal (a run-and-hit defender) alongside Nick Bolton and Willie Gay Jr. will tell us a lot about how they would prefer the 49ers attempt to attack . them, as will how the Niners will react to this decision. If San Francisco can crush Kansas City with Tranquill and beat the Chiefs with play-action passes and attack the middle and deep middle of the field when Chenal is, that will go a long way toward the Niners’ ability to move. the ball with regularity.
Of course, that’s not the only pressure point in this match. Perhaps the biggest battleground will be up front, where the Niners have struggled in their two playoff games. Brock Purdy has been under a lot of pressure in the playoffs (43% dropbacks, according to Tru Media, compared to 39% during the regular season), and the 49ers are particularly vulnerable on the right side from the left side. That’s largely where Chiefs edge rusher George Karlaftis will line up, and if he can give Colton McKivitz problems, it could force San Francisco to keep Kittle as a blocker more often than it probably would like. Jon Feliciano played pretty well alongside McKivitz, but he’ll probably see a lot of Chris Jones, which isn’t a fun matchup for anyone.
The Kansas City secondary is incredibly tough to beat, especially for quarterbacks who are under frequent stress. The Chiefs finished fourth in opposing EPA/dropback this season, according to Tru Media, yielding just 6.0 yards per attempt on a 61.2% completion rate. They have a very sticky cover group, with first-team All-Pro Trent McDuffie leading the way, alongside L’Jarius Sneed. An important thing to watch will be how the Chiefs choose to deploy this duo against Samuel and Aiyuk, and whether they are comfortable using both players against either receiver.
If it looks like the Chiefs preferred faceoffs, I would expect 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan to get creative by moving Samuel around the lineup so he can avoid that specific look, then try to get him the ball quickly for run-after-catch opportunities. . If the Chiefs play things straight, this could be more of an opportunity for Aiyuk to win on the field. (When they draft 11, Jauan Jennings could have a size and strength advantage against KC’s sub-package corners.) One thing to watch for when they do that, though, is the Chiefs sending that player on one blitz and try to force Purdy into a rushed and inaccurate throw. Steve Spagnuolo loves to send out creative pressures, and the Niners’ love of condensed formations and using players in unusual alignments could leave them vulnerable to quick blitzes out of the slot, in particular.
Of course, San Francisco’s passing game isn’t limited to receivers. McCaffrey is the best running back in the league, and Kansas City’s linebackers and safeties will have their hands full limiting him in all facets of the game. And just when they think they’ve shut down all the major threats, the Niners will free up Kittle or even Juszczyk for a wheel run or short crossover to get them moving and up the field. There’s nowhere to hide weak pass defenders, of which the Chiefs fortunately don’t have many.
What they have had throughout this season is a relative weakness against the run. They finished the year ranked 27th in run defense DVOA in FTN, and they allowed the league’s 11th most yards before contact per carry. We know the Niners will do it early and often, unless your defense proves it can stop the run, and just when you do, they’ll hit you with play action. Finding that balance between defending running without opening up the middle of the field for those crossing routes and post-catch run opportunities is the biggest challenge the Kansas City defense will face.
When the Chiefs have the ball
The way Kansas City’s offensive line has rounded out gives reason to believe the Chiefs can move the ball here. Frankly, the same goes for how the Packers and Lions moved the ball at times against San Francisco. They each had periods of walking the court with relative ease, fueled by runs to the perimeter and largely pressure-free stepbacks.
The Chiefs protected Patrick Mahomes better during the playoffs than during the regular season, and Mahomes responded by raising his level of play. The 49ers desperately need to put pressure on Mahomes’ face and get him in the pocket to that he cannot create. In other words, they need their defensive line to dominate proceedings like the Buccaneers offensive line did in Kansas City’s only Super Bowl loss.
The problem is…the defensive front hasn’t been as formidable as their reputation would have you believe. San Francisco finished the regular season seventh in pressure rate at 40 percent, according to Tru Media, but saw its pressure rate drop to 37 percent and its sacks per pressure rate drop to just 7 percent during the playoffs. The latter figure was 17% during the regular season. That’s a major problem against Mahomes, who is both more likely to scramble and more effective as a scrambler when his opponents play zone defense — an unusual trait that works in his favor against San Francisco, who played in zone on 74% of opposing dropbacks. this season, good for the ninth-highest rate in the league.
Mahomes has also proven over the past two years that he’s more than willing to accept the kind of inferior throws the Niners’ defense wants their opponents to make. His average depth of target was a career low this season, and even through the playoffs it remained that way. The Chiefs are now much more of a YAC-based offense than they were in the Tyreek Hill era, with Mahomes targeting Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice closer to the line of scrimmage and allowing them to work the ball in their hands. The Niners rely on their collective team speed and athleticism to close down these quick passing lanes and especially to limit yards after the catch. The latter will be the key here.
Kelce improved his play in the postseason, hauling in 23 catches for 262 yards and three scores in Kansas City’s three games. He even had plenty of success against the Ravens in the AFC title game, hitting 11 of 11 targets for 116 yards and a score against Kyle Hamilton, Roquan Smith and Patrick Queen. He’ll have an equally tough challenge Sunday night, if not more, when he faces Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw, as well as Tashaun Gipson and Ji’Ayir Brown in the middle of the field. If this group can limit Kelce in any way and force the Chiefs to channel their passing game to someone else, it would drastically change this side of the game.
But the Chiefs now have an interesting complementary target alongside Kelce in Rice. The rookie has 20 catches for 223 yards and a touchdown on his 23 targets in the postseason, and he has increasingly earned Mahomes’ trust as the season has gone on. He’s proven he’s capable of winning inside and out, and while he’s still primarily a short-area threat, he’s won on the ground at times. The 49ers’ best cornerback is former Chief Charvarius Ward, but he doesn’t fit in the slot. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Rice there more often than not. (Deommodore Lenoir occupies that spot when the Niners are at nickel.) And when he lines up on the outside, the Chiefs would do well to try to match him with Ambry Thomas rather than Ward.
Kansas City’s backup receivers aren’t targeted very often and are primarily responsible for creating space, but we saw Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Justin Watson make plays down the field, and we saw Andy Reid design plays to land guys like Kadarius Toney and even Skyy Moore pitched in many big games, including last year’s Super Bowl. I wouldn’t have thought twice if Reid had something creative up his sleeve on that front.
One thing to watch early on is how the Chiefs test San Francisco’s run defense and whether the 49ers’ edge defenders can hold up and maintain control on the outside. If Isiah Pacheco starts rolling and racing down hills, it suddenly opens things up for Kansas City on first downs and in short yardage situations. If Pacheco can’t start and the Chiefs have to ask Mahomes to do everything, it makes their defense a little less complicated.
Prediction
The Chiefs weren’t the best team in the NFL for most of this season. Really, for most of the year, they didn’t look like the team we were so accustomed to. But they have the best player in the league and they have an advantage when games get closer. Until someone drops them, I’m going to ride with them in a situation as bad as this. Take: Chiefs 23, 49ers 21
