Prediction: The team that scores the most points will win, eh?
But seriously, let’s talk Xs and Os for a minute.
The Niners offense is a great mix of run and pass. Many say it’s “an outside zone offense” but that’s not what it is. They run pretty much every run game concept, and even if you just watch the playoffs you’ll see Power O, Counter Trey, Traps, Sweeps, Iso – everything. As for zone, they run all variations of Zone, which many people say is “inside or outside” but encompasses all sorts of concepts (split flow, lead or no lead, handoff and tosses). One of their best plays is a zone misdirection run in which the FB leads the HB to the backside. I especially like when they run their 21 personnel stuff but from shotgun instead of under center.
The pass game is often built off zone action. While they haven’t thrown much to FB Kyle Juszczyk in the playoffs, he could be a tough matchup for the Chiefs, as could the Niners HBs. Presumably the Chiefs will play base versus the Niners 21 and 22 personnel. But oh man, it’s hard to bet against Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo with an extra week to prepare. It’s been a long time since he shut down the 2007 Patriots in Super Bowl 42, but he did it by going against the tendencies they’d prepared for. And I love watching the Honey Badger, he should be all over the field Sunday. He’s the rare defender who will blitz, play the slot, play box safety, play deep safety. Which safety is on Kittle could go a long way to deciding the game, because if that guy needs help, Jimmy G should be able to throw to the backs. I’m just talking in circles, huh?!
The Chiefs offense has a QB everyone agrees is already an all-time great, and it’s hard to argue. It felt like the Chiefs win was inevitable against the Texans even when the Texans went up 24-0, because the only thing the Chiefs had done wrong at that point was drop passes. The Niners pass rush has been really good, but that doesn’t mean Mahomes won’t be able to move around and throw incredible passes into small windows, often from unique arm angles. Pat Mahomes is a great example of why I no longer gamble on sports.
Sure, the Niners Robert Saleh defense play the Carroll-era Seahawks “Cover 3 zone” but like the Seahawks there’s plenty of Cover 3 variations, plus some Cover 2 and Cover 4). It’s not your grandaddy’s “country cover 3”! Most of the zone stuff is pattern match zone (which is very close to Man coverage) and they play Man on lots of 3rd downs. Which means they’ve gotta have a plan to match the Chiefs’ speed. Probably often out of the Gun Dakota formation (a 3×1 formation with 3 WRs to the wide side, TE Kelce to the short side) which the Chiefs love to run all sorts of vertical concepts and crossing concepts out of.
Cover 3 note: The Chargers play some of the same stuff as the Niners, and they had SOME success taking away what Mahomes wanted to do. But maybe that helps Reid prepare?! The Chiefs of course won both games but the matchup zone seemed to take away some of what Mahomes likes, and most of the Chiefs TDs came from the run game (which notably in the red zone was 2-back and often 2 TE). Maybe Reid will come into this game with some run wrinkles. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chiefs have trouble blocking the Niners front four. It’s not just Nick Bosa. If the Chiefs have to use extra pass blockers, I could see the Niners having a lot of success.
In the end, it’s two good play-callers, each with extra time to prepare, so it could be a lot like Super Bowl 52 (or Chiefs v Rams last year, or Niners v Saints this year) – a shootout. I’ll be with the dogs, rooting for a defensive masterpiece like Super Bowl 53, the most fascinating game in years from an Xs and Os standpoint.
All I really want is a game that DOESN’T come down to bad situational football decision-making. But here we have Andy Reid, who pissed away a chance to win Super Bowl 39 by not telling his QB Donovan McNabb to hurry up, and Kyle Shanahan, who pissed away a chance to win Super Bowl 51 by not telling his QB Matt Ryan to slow down. Sure, in a way, “all football is situational football” and that’s the beauty of it, but lot of the decisions are fairly simple, you can literally use your time to prepare writing it down and laminating it.
Side note: It was alarming to see Andy Reid give his time to Peter King, just to get another “OMG I was up at 3 am” article, like the article with McVay last year. McVay, who looked like he’d never seen Quarters coverage. Hopefully Reid’s not just preparing for Cover 3. One easy comparison would be Super Bowl 48, in which everyone talked about the Seahawks Cover 3 but then Kam Chancellor nearly killed Demaryius Thomas on a crosser against Cover 1 Robber.
Just be glad we have two good teams (both have been good all year, and both are healthy) and we’re not dealing with the NFL lying about air pressure like we were at this point 5 years ago. (NEVER FORGET!)
Most Super Bowls come down to 3 things: turnovers and red zone scoring, often with a crucial catch or drop or dropped INT in the closing moments. This will probably be another one of those. But if I put that at the top, you’d never have read this far!
Whiskey Over Milk 