Super Bowl LVIII is that rare rematch of a recent Super Bowl as the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco met 4 years ago.
The Chiefs prevailed that time, but the 31-20 score is misleading for how tight that game was and how big of a comeback the Chiefs made in the 4th quarter to flip the script.
This game could be even more exciting since the Chiefs are better on defense, the 49ers are better on offense, and you still have the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Nick Bosa on the other side of the ball.
The 49ers are a 2.5-point favorite at many of the top-rated sportsbooks. We are looking at the key coaching matchups with the NFL odds in hand for this Super Bowl rematch.
San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs
Sunday, February 11, 2024 – 06:30 PM ET at Allegiant Stadium
Head Coach: Andy Reid vs. Kyle Shanahan
Two of the longer-tenured and most respected coaches in the league, Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan are both offensive masterminds.
This will be the 4th time a pair of head coaches face off twice in a Super Bowl. The bad news for Shanahan is that the last 3 times produced a sweep:
- Chuck Noll’s Steelers beat Tom Landry’s Cowboys in 1975 and 1978.
- Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys beat Marv Levy’s Bills in 1992 and 1993.
- Tom Coughlin’s Giants beat Bill Belichick’s Patriots in 2007 and 2011.
Reid is 2-2 in the Super Bowl. His 25 playoff wins only trail Bill Belichick (31) in NFL history.
Reid is known for having a great record after bye weeks. He is 8-3 after a bye with the Chiefs in the regular season and 6-1 in playoff games after a week off in the Patrick Mahomes era. The bye week loses some edge for the Super Bowl since the opponent has the same extra time to prepare. In fact, the Chiefs lost to the Eagles in Week 11 at home this year after both teams had a bye before that game.
Shanahan is 8-3 in playoff games as coach of the 49ers.
His teams have had a reputation for struggling to win when trailing after halftime. However, they have rebounded nicely this postseason. They came back from a 7-point deficit against the Packers and a 17-point deficit against the Lions, tying the largest comeback win in NFC Championship Game history. However, Shanahan is still 0-38 when trailing by at least 8 points in the 4th quarter. This is the only team in the NFL since 2017 without a win in that situation.
Blowing Leads
Finishing games when leading may still be the ultimate litmus test for Shanahan.
We know what happened when he was offensive coordinator of the 2016 Falcons and they led 28-3 against New England in Super Bowl LI. The Falcons never scored again, and he was heavily criticized for decisions to throw the ball in short-yardage situations.
As coach of the 49ers, Shanahan blew a 20-10 lead in the 4th quarter against Reid’s Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV. He also blew a 17-7 lead in the 4th quarter against the Rams in the 2021 NFC Championship Game. In both games, the 49ers were held scoreless in the final quarter.
We’ll see what happens this time as the Chiefs always have that ability to come back with Mahomes.
However, they also have a defense this year that allowed the fewest points after halftime. Shanahan’s 49ers scored the most points after halftime and have been pulling off comebacks this postseason after not doing it in the regular season, either because they failed or just rarely ever had to.
That’s what makes this such a fascinating matchup. You have no idea if it will follow a similar script to their most recent meetings. Or if it will look more like the teams we’ve seen this postseason with the Chiefs relying on defense to close things out and the San Francisco offense coming back.
We’ll also see if the 49ers are more aggressive. Teams usually are when they face Mahomes. But the 49ers had a league-low 13 attempts on 4th down this season.
Chiefs Offensive Coordinator Matt Nagy vs. 49ers Defensive Coordinator Steve Wilks
You can say both teams have downgraded at these coordinator positions this year.
The Chiefs replaced Eric Bieniemy with a promotion for Matt Nagy to offensive coordinator. The 49ers lost defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans to the Texans, and they replaced him with Steve Wilks, who did not get as good results as Ryans had in 2021-22.
Chiefs: Just Stop the Silliness
Nagy may be offensive coordinator by title, but we know this is still Reid’s offense and he can call and do what he wants.
The Chiefs have largely hurt themselves on offense this year by making too many mistakes. They led the league in dropped passes, their offensive tackles had a ton of penalties, and they still lose too many fumbles.
Maybe the Chiefs have figured things out just in time for a Super Bowl run.
They only had 1 dropped pass in the playoff wins in Buffalo and Baltimore combined. It is their cleanest 2-game stretch of the season in the catching department. They also had just 1 turnover on the road this postseason, and it was the absurd decision to throw to Mecole Hardman near the goal line on 1st down against Buffalo. He fumbled through the end zone instead. Hardman played just 1 offensive snap against the Ravens.
The team also made Kadarius Toney, the original drop machine, inactive once again.
Toney has not played since Week 15. It looks like the Chiefs are finally holding their worst-skill players accountable and not playing them while focusing the offense around their best players (Travis Kelce, Isiah Pacheco, and Rashee Rice).
Protect the ball, stop with the gadgets and gimmick plays, and the Chiefs should be fine in this matchup.
49ers: Save the Best for Last
New defensive coordinator Steve Wilks has not faced Patrick Mahomes since he was the head coach of the 2018 Arizona Cardinals, a team with far less talent than the 49ers.
However, in that game, it is noteworthy that Wilks’ defense sacked Mahomes 5 times, the highest of any game in Mahomes’ career. The Cardinals held him to a 31-yard touchdown drive and 5 punts over the final 6 drives. The Cardinals still lost 26-14, but that was considered good work against the explosive Chiefs in 2018.
Mahomes has grown as a player since, but it is imperative in a game like this to finish strong and prepare some tendency breakers. The 2020 Buccaneers and 2021 Bengals both broke their tendencies and beat Mahomes in the playoffs. They both went away from blitzing with the Bengals surprising the Chiefs with a 3-man rush after halftime in that AFC Championship Game comeback.
Defensive Mind Games
For the 49ers, they had the 3rd-lowest blitz rate. Generally, they don’t need to do it as much since they have a great rusher in Nick Bosa and can get home with 4 rushers.
However, if you look at Mahomes’ last 2 games against the 49ers in 2019 and 2022, he exploded in the 4th quarter with big plays to wide receivers and multiple touchdown drives. The 49ers have an extra week to prepare some different looks and take the Chiefs by surprise.
Truth be told, the 49ers have struggled on defense down the stretch this season. They lucked out that the Lions dropped multiple passes on 3rd and 4th down in that second half. But the Chiefs have obviously had drop issues this year. Wilks’ unit is going to have to get lucky too in a matchup like this. He needs to prepare some wrinkles the Chiefs wouldn’t have expected to see.
49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan vs. Chiefs Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo
We saved the best matchup for last.
Even more than the Chiefs, the head coach is basically the offensive coordinator in San Francisco.
Shanahan is going to have to be prepared for the blitz. The Chiefs lit up Lamar Jackson last week. However, Brock Purdy has had better success at hanging in there and throwing against the blitz this year. He also showed some good scrambling ability against Detroit with some of the biggest plays of the game coming from his legs. The Chiefs rank No. 2 in sacks and pressure rate this season.
Steve Spagnuolo has stopped multiple MVP quarterbacks in the playoffs.
This includes Tom Brady with the 2007 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Give him an extra week to prepare and you can bet he will cook up something good for a defense that has not allowed more than 27 points all year.
However, Shanahan will not make the mistake the Ravens did. They gave their running backs 6 carries for 23 yards despite never trailing by more than 10 points all game long. That was a shockingly bad game plan by the Ravens. You can count on Shanahan to stick with Christian McCaffrey, who has rushed for 90 yards in both playoff games this year and scored multiple touchdowns in both games.
McCaffrey’s Impact
Look back to the Buffalo game.
The Chiefs were having their worst defensive game of the season for 3 quarters. Then, they made some run stops in the 4th, and Josh Allen’s receivers dropped some deep passes.
The 49ers have better receivers who can get open deep like Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel. McCaffrey is a better running back than anyone Buffalo has, and he can do more damage as a receiver on those short throws even the Ravens had success with. The 49ers have the backs and tight end George Kittle to attack this defense with instead of asking Purdy to challenge those good corners.
It should be a very fun chess match for 4 quarters on this side of the ball.
Shanahan is also going to have to gauge how well Purdy is handling the biggest game of his career against another top defense. He threw an early pick against the Ravens in a big game on Christmas night and seemed to melt down from there with a lot of deflected picks and wild balls that could have been picked too. That is why McCaffrey has to be a big part of what the 49ers do here.
Spagnuolo will understand that too. This is going to be a great coaching matchup to watch.
Calculators
