Coaching Legacy and Infamy

Chiefs 31

49ers 20

I for one welcome our new Kansas City overlords.

Time will tell if Super Bowl 54 was the dawn of a new dynasty. I would certainly be stunned if the Chiefs are a one off. Patrick Mahomes seems assured of being a dominant force for years to come. He is a cheat code. He won't always have this much mobility, and has already had a significant injury this year that he was lucky wasn't worse. He's obviously way better than Daunte Culpepper ever was, but Daunte took one shattering hit to the knee and he was never able to recover.

Andy Reid finally gets his title. Above all else I'm happy for him. I always thought he was grossly underappreciated in Philadelphia. All anybody wanted to talk about were the NFC title game losses and super bowl loss. Like he did nothing else. Then he goes to KC and has a few similar playoff setbacks. He probably wins the super bowl LAST year if Dee Ford doesn't line up offsides for no reason.

This Super Bowl largely played out how I expected it to until late. The 49ers defense did not completely shut down Mahomes, but they contained him. They pressured him. They got a couple turnovers off of him.

On offense the 49ers never really ran it anywhere close to as dominantly as they did to us and Green Bay, but Jimmy Garappolo was stepping up. He had an ugly pick early but besides that he was really delivering. Clearly the Chiefs were playing the run, and making Jimmy beat them, and for a long time that was working.

That it didn't work for a full 4 quarters is the fault of Kyle Shanahan, who really blew this game big time.

I am baffled at what he was thinking at the end of the first half. The Chiefs are forced to punt with under 2 minutes left, but he lets the Chiefs burn off a full play clock rather than use one of his 3 timeouts. Then he calls 2 run plays. The Chiefs actually call timeout there, then Shanahan finally calls a pass play with like 20 seconds left that got them near midfield. He almost got away with his idiocy when Jimmy hit Kittle on a deep ball, but Kittle had pushed off. That was the half. 

Midway through the 4th quarter that seemed like a distant memory. The 49ers had put quite a stranglehold on the game. They were up 20-10, and had just picked off Mahomes deep in their own end. It felt like a backbreaker. At that point, a few nitpicks aside, the 49ers had basically done everything they needed to do to win.

But remember 3 years ago? When the Falcons, offense led by Kyle Shanahan, did everything wrong to not salt away a 28-3 lead? It happened again, albeit on a less grand scale.

On the 2 drives after that pick, the 49ers passed the ball more than they ran it (and one of the runs was a Jimmy scramble on a planned pass). Just like he did 3 years ago, Shanahan became pass happy when he needed to pound beef. From that pick, til the 49ers lost the lead, they had 3 runs called in total.

Now it wasn't just that. The defense that never stopped bludgeoning Kirk Cousins, or Aaron Rodgers (until undisputed garbage time), took the boot off Mahomes neck. On 3rd and 15, Mahomes chucked a bomb to Tyreek Hill for 44 yards. That was the dam breaking. 

The 49ers defense never recovered. Just a few plays later it was 20-17. It only took 7 plays on the next drive to take the lead. Just like we saw against Houston, and to a less dramatic extent Tennessee, once that Mahomes boulder gets rolling it's unstoppable. 

The 49ers had one chance left. Hey, a 49ers QB has led a late game winning drive in that stadium before to win a super bowl. 

Jimmy got the ball just past the 50, But then it was 3 incompletions (one a near pick) and an ugly 4th down sack. It was an ugly finish for Garappolo. 

Theoretically the game wasn't yet over, since the 49ers still had all 3 timeouts (Shanahan saving them all for next year I guess). But the Chiefs broke a game clinching touchdown run to settle matters for good. 

The Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl Champions. 

Not a bad Super Bowl overall. It was nice not having a team I hate in there. I was pulling for the Chiefs, but only by a little. The Chiefs are oddly probably the non-Minnesota sports team I own the most gear for, since I was down in KC a lot back in the day. Some folks buy postcards from their travels. I would buy sports gear, so I have like a half dozen Chiefs items. Had the Vikings ever actually moved to LA, and I had been willing to pick a new team, the Chiefs would probably have been it. They're sort of the AFC Vikings, except for the now 2 championships. 

If they become the new team that is there every year, at least in the AFC, that's fine by me. If nothing else, it feels like this game and season mark the end of that other dynasty that.made me miserable for 20 years.