4 Years in the Making: A Preview of Super Bowl LVIII

In 2020, the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battled for the right to become Super Bowl Champions. A young, less experienced Patrick Mahomes had lit up the NFL in 2019, and finally got over the hump—meaning he didn’t have to face Tom Brady. Meanwhile Brady’s expected successor, Jimmy Garoppolo had led the San Francisco 49ers to an electric 13-3 season. If you don’t remember that game, Kyle Shanahan’s poor clock management and a painful deep miss of wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders killed the 49ers chances of winning their first Super Bowl since 1994. Strangely enough, it was that game that laid the seeds for this year’s Super Bowl. The teams are the same as they were in 2020, but the story of how we got here is entirely different.

              With a monster contract and a stacked team around him, Jimmy Garoppolo was going to cement himself as one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Then the injury bug occurred. It was his shoulder, then his knee, then his ankle, and after a 6-10 season in 2020, the Niners needed to find the QB of the future. They needed someone who could stay healthy and make the right decisions. Someone mobile enough to get out of harm’s way and keep the play moving, and they found their guy, or so they thought.  Paying a king’s ransom to move up to third in the 2021 draft, the 49ers drafted Trey Lance. The dynamic playmaker out of North Dakota State was labeled as having the “highest ceiling” in the 2021 NFL Draft—over guys like Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones, Justin Fields. Say what you want, but Lance was the future of the franchise, and he finally got his chance in 2022. And then, Lance broke his ankle.

              Back to Jimmy Garoppolo, he went back to doing his thing. He put up respectable stats in the passing game, he didn’t make many mistakes. He rarely turned the ball over. Still, the move to Trey Lance was going to happen, nothing could change that. Right?

              When Jimmy Garoppolo had another injury, it left the 49ers with their third string quarterback, the Mr. Irrelevant from 2022, former Iowa quarterback Brock Purdy. With seemingly low expectations, not much was expected out of Brock Purdy, but then something strange happened. Much like Jimmy Garoppolo did when he was traded to San Francisco in 2018, 2022 Brock Purdy was unstoppable when he was placed in the starting role. Going 8-0, it looked like Purdy was going to ride momentum into Super Bowl LVII. One Hassan Reddick hit later, and Purdy had a torn UCL, and the 49ers season is over.

              Heading into this past offseason, the conversation raged about who would be the 49ers starting Quarterback? Would it be the third overall pick who the 49ers spent multiple first round picks on? Or would it be the last pick in the NFL draft, the afterthought, a man labeled “irrelevant” by the media? The 49ers stuck with the hot hand and sent Trey Lance to Dallas. Brock Purdy was the starter moving forward. “Mr. Irrelevant” was now Mr. QB1 in San Francisco.

              Immediately, the move paid off. The NFC West Champions started off 5-0, outscoring opponents 141-68. Brock Purdy was slinging the rock, him and 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey were in the MVP conversation, and then something strange happened. The Niners fell off. Three brutal, consecutive losses to Cleveland, Minnesota, and Cincinnati had people asking whether or not the 49ers made the right move. Purdy threw five interceptions in three weeks; the offense became stagnant. Questions loomed about whether or not the 49ers were legitimate contenders with Brock Purdy at the helm.

              After a much-needed bye week, Kyle Shanahan was able to right the ship. The passing game became more consistent, the defense could hold teams under twenty-five points. The 49ers found themselves in the one seed once again, Brock Purdy looked like a legitimate MVP candidate, the defense other worldly, and some have viewed San Francisco as a team of destiny. It’s been 30 years since the 49ers won the Super Bowl, and a win this year would tie the 49ers with the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots with 6 Super Bowl titles.  Brock Purdy is looking to make himself a hero, but every hero needs a villain. What better villain than the Kansas City Chiefs?

              You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the villain. The story of the Kansas City Chiefs starts with a “robbery” in the 2018 AFC Championship game, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs went toe-to-toe with the greatest dynasty in NFL history: The Tom Brady-led New England Patriots. A shootout in Kansas City saw Dee Ford line up offsides, and the Patriots took the game 37-31 in overtime. The Chiefs never touched the ball in overtime. Especially after the snooze-fest that was Super Bowl LIII, Fans were outraged. They were ready for the Patriots to pass the torch to the next generation, and that didn’t happen.

              When Super Bowl LIV came around a year later, the NFL was ready to name Patrick Mahomes the future of the NFL and beating the San Francisco 49ers was more than enough for Mahomes to earn that title. The Kansas City Chiefs had won their first Super Bowl in 50 years, and fans were excited to see what the Chiefs would do next. How times have changed. Four years later, Mahomes is one of the most hated players in the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs are one of the most hated teams in the NFL. A majority of that hatred comes from their success—there is no doubt about that—but other factors have played a role.

              The behaviors of some of the family members of the Kansas City Chiefs aside—this will be the only time I mention Taylor Swift ever on this blog—the hatred for the Chiefs is poetic considering they were at one point considered the “saviors” from the Patriots Dynasty of the 2000s and 2010s. Now, they are looking to be the first team since those early-to-mid-2000s Patriots to be back-to-back Super Bowl Champions. With that level of success has come a similar level of anger. Talks of “missed calls” or “Favorable refereeing” plague the Chiefs because people are tired of Mahomes and co.’s success. He is one of the greatest talents to ever step on a football field, and yes, he does make throws that not many quarterbacks can make.

              Travis Kelce has not had the same level of success on the field this season. 2023 was his first season with under a thousand yards since 2015, and he hasn’t been the only one on the offense that has taken a step back. Marquez Valdez-Scantling and Kadarius Toney have not been consistent enough to be effective for Kansas City, leaving most of the passing production to come from Mahomes throwing to Rashee Rice and Kelce. It’s sent the offense in a tailspin. Mahomes still does inhuman things at QB, but it isn’t enough. How did this team get here?

              Defense. After years of poor defense being the reason this Chiefs team wasn’t a certain pick to win the Super Bowl, they’ve figured it out. Nine of their seventeen regular season games saw the defense allow less than twenty points, with pieces like Justin Reid, L’Jarius Sneed, Chamarri Conner, and Georgie Karlaftis blossoming at times. They’ve battled and won against basically anyone, teams have struggled to get things moving against the unstoppable run defense of the Chiefs, and the pass coverage can make plays against anybody at any time.

              And the Chiefs defense will have to do exactly that to beat the San Francisco 49ers again. They’ve managed to limit the run game of teams all season and going up against an MVP-Caliber running back in Christian McCaffrey, they’re going to need to play at their best. They have to do that while also marking George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel. Of course, this could be overcome by the Chiefs offense, but the Chiefs are not the same team that they have been in previous years. They look beatable, they aren’t immortal. There are cracks in the foundation, and if they’re missing Joe Thuney at Offensive Guard, the 49ers powerful Defensive Line could make this game look more like the Chiefs loss in Super Bowl LV to Tampa (Buccaneers 31 – 9 Chiefs). There’s no real “deep threat” on the Chiefs offense that can turn the game around like Tyreek Hill could, and it leads to the question, can the Chiefs do it again?

              My Predictions? Give me San Francisco 36-17. I Think the 49ers have a defense that can stop Patrick Mahomes. I Have questions about Kyle Shanahan letting the moment get to his head and trying to be cute with his offense, and I think Andy Reid could outcoach him. However, the 49ers stacked defense can play on all three levels—short, mid-range, and the deep ball. Putting them up against a Chiefs offense that is not nearly as dynamic as it once was, it sets up perfectly for the 49ers to exorcise their demons from Super Bowl LIV.

              We are three days away from Super Bowl LVIII. Will Brock Purdy be the hero that the NFL is looking for? Will the villains continue building in their dynasty era? History will be made, but who will be on the winning side of it? Sunday can’t come soon enough.