While there is more uncertainty in regards to the current form of both the Chiefs offense and 49ers defense, the picture is a little bit clearer on the other side ball.
Let's break down the matchup between Brock Purdy and this big-play 49ers offense and a Chiefs defense that's playing better than it ever has with Patrick Mahomes under center. Check out my 2024 Super Bowl preview below.
2024 Super Bowl Preview: 49ers Offense vs Chiefs Defense
While there is more uncertainty in regards to the current form of both the Chiefs offense and 49ers defense, the picture is a little bit clearer on the other side of the ball.
San Francisco had a historically dominant offense that finished No. 1 overall in DVOA (by a wide margin) — which adjusts for opponent — thanks to the top-ranked passing offense and second-best rushing attack. From another viewpoint, even if we include Week 18 when the 49ers sat key starters, and other games with key injuries, San Francisco finished No. 1 in both EPA per play and Success Rate, sweeping the board with the league's top Dropback EPA, Dropback Success Rate, Rush EPA and Rush Success Rate.
They were dominant all year under second-year starting quarterback Brock Purdy, who obviously benefits from a bevy of dangerous skill-position players and the guidance of head coach Kyle Shanahan. If there is one weakness, it would have to be along the offensive line outside of star left tackle Trent Williams.
Jake Brendel is a league-average center. He is flanked by veteran Jon Feliciano, who has played well after taking the reigns at right guard from second-year man Spencer Burford, and Aaron Banks, who is the weakest link up front with PFF ranking the former Notre Dame product 53rd out of 79 qualified guards in 2023.
All three of them struggled in pass protection at times, which could spell trouble against Chris Jones. Speaking of Jones, he had two sacks in last season's game while lining up outside against Mike McGlinchey. Well, now Jones has an even more favorable matchup against Colton McKivitz, who graded out below average this season after allowing 47 pressures and nine sacks.
Niners allowed 18 pressures vs the Vikings, per PFF
Colton McKivitz allowed 6 of them to go along with this sack pic.twitter.com/jKL5ZKwo18
— Coach Yac 🗣 (@Coach_Yac) October 24, 2023
Shanahan's brilliant scheme and the overwhelming skill-position talent can usually hide the weaknesses up front, but will that be the case against the Chiefs?
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Kansas City's defensive improvement was one of the main storylines of the NFL season. After being an afterthought for many seasons, it carried the Chiefs for long stretches and finished in the top two in points allowed, pressure rate and sacks. In fact, the Chiefs became the first team in NFL history to not allow an opponent to go over 27 points over a 20-game stretch in a single season. Meanwhile, when fully healthy, the 49ers offense reached at least 27 points in 13-of-15 contests. Something has to give.
Kansas City's overwhelming strength on defense is against the pass, where it ranks in the top three in both Dropback EPA and Success Rate. Cornerbacks L'Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie lead a very strong coverage group that has received a recent boost from rookie safety Chamarri Conner.
McDuffie and fellow corner Jaylen Watson are effective blitzers in Steve Spagnuolo's scheme. It will be interesting to see how often and what types of blitzes the brilliant Spagnuolo decides to bring against a San Francisco offense that uses as many condensed formations as any team in the league. During the season, Kansas City was one of seven teams that blitzed on at least a third of downs.
It's worth noting Purdy thrived against the blitz this season, finishing first among all quarterbacks in yards per attempt, passer rating and Pass EPA — all while accumulating a 15:2 TD:INT ratio and a near 70% completion percentage.
However, he didn't face a complex defense like Kansas City's every week. Purdy struggled the most against the best (and most complex) defenses he faced, but he also didn't have a fully healthy Williams and Deebo Samuel for a number of those matchups. That certainly muddies the water when evaluating those performances, but I'm sure Spagnuolo spent a lot of time evaluating some of the effective things Brian Flores did with his Minnesota defense against Purdy.
While the Chiefs have dominated all season in coverage (especially against No. 1 wide receivers) thanks to Spagnuolo, a superb cornerback corps and constant pressure, they do have some glaring weaknesses.
First and foremost, Kansas City struggled to defend the run, finishing 27th in DVOA and 28th in Rush EPA, in large part due to a defensive line that can get pushed back, as evidenced by a ranking of 25th in Line Yards.
That could spell doom against Christian McCaffrey, who spearheads one of the league's premier rushing attacks. Even more troubling is the specific types of runs Kansas City struggled to stop, namely power and zone, where they rank as a bottom-five group.
Unlike Todd Monken, I'm fully confident Shanahan won't abandon the run game — although trailing against the league's greatest quarterbacks in the postseason has historically made countless teams go into panic mode. I just can't see Shanahan not sticking to his guns as he's always done.
I envision San Francisco, which uses zone runs more than any team in the league, to feed McCaffrey early and often while mixing in some carries for the electric Samuel. The 49ers will likely use a decent chunk of heavier personnel packages and utilize play-action on early downs, which the Ravens bizarrely decided to shy away from against a Kansas City pass defense that goes from a top-five unit without play-action to 28th in Success Rate and 20th in EPA with it. As you might expect, San Francisco was almost unstoppable when using play-action this season.
The matchup on this side of the ball will likely come down to how much success the 49ers have on early-down runs and play-action passes. Keeping Purdy out of third-and-long situations should be Shanahan's primary focus since the Chiefs defense is at their peak on known passing downs. That's when Spagnuolo shines with his unique pressure packages, which could ultimately lead to key mistakes from the still very inexperienced Purdy.
I expect San Francisco to have success early on in this game, especially with scripted plays. Seeing Baltimore's disastrous game plan should only serve as a reinforcement of what not to do against the Chiefs defense.
However, don't give up on the Kansas City defense if it is getting gashed early. Nobody is better at in-game and second-half adjustments than Spagnuolo. It's not a coincidence that Kansas City has allowed a total of 10 points in the second half of its three playoff games and a ridiculous average of just four second-half points over its last eight games.
From a props perspective, I like Elijah Mitchell to go under 1.5 rush attempts. I think of it as a bet against McCaffrey getting injured at any point. Mitchell got four carries against Detroit, but those came at the very end of the game after McCaffrey hurt his neck. Up until that point, McCaffrey received 100% of San Francisco's postseason running back carries.
This is the Super Bowl, so I fully expect Shanahan to ride almost exclusively with McCaffrey and a few sprinkles of Samuel. Both should get plenty of short passes as an extension of the running game against a Chiefs defense that ranked 21st in coverage against opposing running backs.
I also don't mind going under 12.5 rushing yards on Purdy. I believe this number is a bit inflated due to recency bias after he ran for 62 yards on 11 carries in San Francisco's two playoff victories.
Prior to this postseason, Purdy had gone under 12.5 rushing yards in 20 of his first 25 career starts, including the postseason. In those 25 games, if you remove 17 kneel-downs for -17 yards, he had 51 attempts for 198 yards for an average of approximately two attempts for eight yards. His scramble rate goes up a bit for quarterbacks in the postseason, but this number is still a bit too high in my eyes.
