Where the Super Bowl will be won and lost

The Super Bowl this year plays out on two theatres. On one hand — the hand that I think everyone wants to watch — a star-studded match up between Patrick Mahomes and Robert Saleh’s ridiculously good 49ers defense. On the other, Jimmy Garoppolo and Kyle Shanahan’s multi-faceted run schemes go up against an underrated Chiefs defense that has improved steadily over the course of the season. 

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

Here are the three places I think the game will be decided:

Strength-on-strength: Kansas City’s deep passing versus San Francisco’s pass defense

The Chiefs finished with a league-best 161.8% DVOA on deep passes. The 49ers allowed a deep passing DVOA of 53.9% — average deep passing DVOA this season was 71.1%, so it was a little above-average. However, the 49ers allowed just 79 deep passes as a team this season, the third lowest in the NFL and only three behind the Chargers and Bills for the league lead. 

That’s not surprising because a lot of the playbook in San Francisco has tended to be Cover-3 (three deep defenders) heavy, but it does mean that the structure of the defense should in theory be harder for Mahomes to test. The Chargers — another team that plays deep as a main construct — kept Mahomes under 200 passing yards in each of his two starts against them this year and under his seasonal completion rate. 

The 49ers will ask Mahomes to be methodical down the field. The Chiefs did win both games against the Chargers this year, but they were hardly easy wins and the offense only scored 24 points in each of those games. (The Chiefs scored 31 against the Chargers in Week 17 because of a Mecole Hardman return touchdown.) 

On the other side, because of how good Mahomes is, the 49ers will be stressed on every play to play perfect deep coverage. If they mess up even once — and recall that last Super Bowl we had Jason McCourty save a blown-coverage deep touchdown — Mahomes will make them pay. That makes whoever wins this battle likely to win the game. 

Strength-on-weakness: San Francisco’s run offense versus Kansas City’s run defense 

The 49ers have been phenomenal as a rushing offense this year when they are able to get their best lineup on the field:

https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/1220124529013460992

George Kittle and Kyle Juszyzck are not really the first people that come to mind for most when we use the term “multiple” — but that is what they are in Shanahan’s offense. Any time you can get two players on the field that can block like that and be dynamic (in Kittle’s case) or at least legitimate (in Juszyzck’s) receivers, you can keep defenses off-balance constantly. That is the name of the game for Shanahan. 

Kansas City’s run defense has also improved as the season has gone along, but they’ve needed to. On the season, they’ve allowed 4.9 yards per carry — 29th in the NFL. They were every bit as bad as that on an advanced statistical level before their bye week. But since then, they’ve turned it around:

https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/1219306844893609986

They shut down Derrick Henry in the AFC Championship game by game scripting him out of existence. This feels like a game where the Chiefs would be behooved to do the same thing against the 49ers, because they don’t want to deal with this offense with a real threat of the run. Give them Garoppolo dropping back every down 10 out of 10 times. 

The hidden ex-factor: Special teams

Kansas City started slow, but finally got around to their typical special teams awesomeness behind Hardman and Harrison Butker. The Chiefs finished second in special teams DVOA, and were only below average in one area: punt coverage. 

The 49ers, meanwhile, finished with negative points added in field goals and extra points with Robbie Gould hitting just 23 of 31 field goals and being especially unreliable from 50 and out, where he missed all four of his attempts this year. They’re essentially a league-average special teams unit outside of their punt coverage.

In a game that is projected to be pretty close by most people — and one where I’m honestly leaning towards the 49ers — the special teams edge could be enormous for the Chiefs. One field turn could mean a lot.