Barnwell’s Super Bowl LIV preview: What to know for 49ers-Chiefs, with predictions and more
Super Bowl LIV feels like the dawning of a new era. For the first time since the 2015 season, the New England Patriots will not be competing in the NFL’s title game. With serious questions about the future of Tom Brady and the viability of the New England dynasty, Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET, Fox) brings an opportunity for two of the league’s most vibrant, entertaining teams to take their place as the league’s new model franchise.
The San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs have plenty in common. They’re both built in the image of brilliant offensive minds in Kyle Shanahan and Andy Reid. Their offensive philosophies in 2019, at their core, are identical: speed kills. They force defenses to guard every blade of grass on the field and punish them in seconds when they try to get away with taking a play off. At their best, it seems absurd that anybody could stop them. For most of this postseason, nobody has.
Of course, these teams serve up the same problems in two totally different ways. The Chiefs have to set an alarm on their phone to remind themselves to run the ball; this is the offense that called 31 pass plays against just six runs while scoring seven consecutive touchdowns in a furious onslaught of a comeback against the Texans in the divisional round. The 49ers, meanwhile, have dialed up runs on 71 of their past 88 plays. The Chiefs are often the entry point for new ideas into the NFL. Reid has been ahead of the curve for nearly two full decades as a head coach. The 49ers just set the tone in their NFC Championship Game win by running something Vince Lombardi would have had in his playbook for the opening score.
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You can make a credible case for each side using the weapon the other doesn’t have to win in Miami. The 49ers have a dominant front four and the league’s second-best defense by DVOA. Nick Bosa & Co. took over in dominant regular-season performances against the Rams and Packers and squeezed the hope out of the Vikings during the second half of their divisional round playoff game. The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, and that seems to grant them access to a previously unimaginable realm of football at his best.
With both the Chiefs’ offense and 49ers’ defense capable of overrunning the competition for stretches of time, I wonder whether how each team performs on the other side of the ball will end up deciding this game. Let’s start by examining what the 49ers can do with the football and how the Chiefs can try to stop them:
Jump to a section:
• Predicting Kyle Shanahan’s plan of attack
• Where the 49ers excel, and what the Chiefs have to tweak
• The Chiefs have a big defensive weakness
• The safeties who can win (or lose) the game
• Where the Chiefs can exploit the Niners
• Where San Francisco has one huge mismatch
• Six mini storylines that will influence the outcome
• Wait, shouldn’t the Chiefs win just because of Mahomes?
• Will either of these teams stop scoring?
• All the other stuff that could decide the game
• My final score prediction
I’m hoping we get a few memorable moments in Super Bowl LIV, but the play of the postseason so far came in the first quarter of the NFC Championship Game. With the Niners facing a third-and-8 on the edge of field goal range, Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine dialed up an exotic front, with just one defender placing his hand on the ground. Prized free-agent addition Za’Darius Smith stood in the A-gap, while fellow new arrival Preston Smith lined up as a wide-nine end far outside left tackle Joe Staley. Pettine naturally hoped that the two Smiths would meet in the backfield for a drive-stalling sack of Jimmy Garoppolo.
Preston Smith (91) ended up in the backfield, but by the time he got there the ball — and any sense of Packers invincibility — was gone. Coach Kyle Shanahan had called a trap — the same trap you ran with your junior high team — on third-and-8. Preston Smith and Blake Martinez (50), both nominally playing defensive end, shot into the backfield. Linebacker Kyler Fackrell (51) followed suit after left tackle Staley (71) pushed him down, but both Smith and Fackrell were taken out of the play by pulling guard Mike Person (68). Staley climbed to the second level and sealed off Adrian Amos (31), Darnell Savage (26) took a poor angle to the ball carrier and Raheem Mostert (31) was off to one of the biggest games in playoff history. All that off a third-and-8 trap. Check it out, courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats:
The 49ers beat up the Packers for four quarters with virtually no defensive reply, overwhelming a defense that ranked 23rd in the league in rushing DVOA for 285 yards on 42 carries. On Sunday, Shanahan and his offense will face a Chiefs team that finished the season 29th in rush defense DVOA. Kansas City just did an effective job of slowing down Derrick Henry to make it to the Super Bowl, but there are reasons to worry whether it will be as effective on Sunday.
If you’re a baseball fan, you’ve heard the adage about how great teams need to be stout up the middle. I think Shanahan’s game plan on Sunday will be to try to exploit the middle of the Kansas City defense at all three levels. Let’s start in the trenches and work our way into the secondary, beginning with one of the many players whose health could help swing this game.
The Chiefs will have to change one of the key components of the defensive game plan they used against the Titans. Steve Spagnuolo was able to bring back star defensive tackle Chris Jones from a calf injury, but with Jones still not close to 100%, Jones’ snaps were limited. The pending free agent is an excellent gap-shooter and capable of making plays in the backfield against both the pass and the run, but fellow tackle Mike Pennel is much stouter at the point of attack and was likely a better fit against the Tennessee rushing attack.
Spagnuolo’s solution was to use the two in a rotation, with Jones and Pennel never seeing the field together. Pennel was on the field when the Titans came out on early downs with rush personnel packages, and Spagnuolo subbed in Jones in obvious passing situations. It worked brilliantly; Pennel did a great job and came up with consecutive short-yardage stops against Henry, while Jones harassed Ryan Tannehill throughout the game on third downs.
That will change for the Chiefs on Sunday because Shanahan doesn’t offer many tells with his personnel groupings. While the 49ers’ most common package during the season was 11 personnel (one RB, one TE, three WRs), Shanahan’s offense was far more effective out of 21 personnel (two RBs, one TE, two WRs). It should be San Francisco’s base package, getting both Kyle Juszczyk and George Kittle on the field together.
The 49ers ran 21 personnel more frequently than any team in football during the regular season, using it 26.7% of the time. During the playoffs, with their run game dominating, they have upped the ante and gone with their favorite grouping on just under 40% of the offensive snaps, including 11 of Garoppolo’s 27 pass attempts.
The problems that personnel package brings up for the opposition are similar to the issues James Develin and Rob Gronkowski brought up for the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII — which I addressed in my preview — dominating the only touchdown drive of the game for the Patriots. The Patriots did that out of 22 personnel (two RBs, two TEs, one WR), which the 49ers have used nearly 33% of the time during the postseason.
The 49ers thrive on their ability to use Kittle and Juszczyk as weapons in the running and passing games. We’ll get to what Kittle can do as a receiver later on, but his blocking has become the stuff of internet legend; he’s such an honorary Gronk at this point that I expect the All-Pro to throw a cruise for himself this offseason. Kittle essentially gives the 49ers a sixth offensive lineman when they want him to block; he can help out right tackle Mike McGlinchey with Frank Clark, come across the formation to wham defensive linemen and get upfield to engulf and overwhelm second-level defenders.
I’ve written about Juszczyk’s contract a lot in recent years, but when you put the money aside, it was always easy to understand why Shanahan saw Juszczyk as an ideal fit for his offense. He’s a reliable, consistent blocker who can move all around the formation to create ideal angles within the running game. Juszczyk isn’t often going to line up outside and beat a linebacker one-on-one off the line of scrimmage, but he’s athletic enough to run for a big play when Shanahan schemes him open. And while advanced metrics suggested that Juszczyk didn’t make an impact on the offense in 2017 or 2018, the 49ers have been much better with him on the field in 2019. (He also drew the most absurd pass interference call of the season with some post-play complaining, which is just hustling.)
Former Shanahan assistant Rich Scangarello didn’t have much success against the Chiefs in his one-and-done season as Broncos offensive coordinator, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shanahan went back to something Scangarello used to free up fullback Andy Janovich for a big play by faking outside zone one way and having the fullback twist to run across the formation the other way. The Broncos left Clark unblocked and lofted the throw over him to a totally uncovered Janovich, who ran for 22 yards. Shanahan might not run the same exact play, but he could try to get to that same concept at least once during the game.
One thing the 49ers do well with both Juszczyk and Kittle is get them in motion just before the snap and create leverage on the defense before they can adjust. As Warren Sharp noted, the 49ers use motion in the running game more than anybody else in football, while the Chiefs are the NFL’s worst run defense when teams use motion.
Here’s an example of the 49ers playing off that, with Kittle motioning to the right. The defense adjusts, and then Juszczyk motions at the last second to the right like they’re about to run outside zone in that direction … only for it to be an end around the other way. After taking his first step like he’s going to block at the presumed point of attack, Juszczyk reverses field and even goes to cut-block Za’Darius Smith (55) on the opposite edge. With Smith distracted and desperately trying to find the football, Juszczyk sees that Smith isn’t going to be involved in the play and bypasses him to head upfield. This isn’t a huge play, but it’s an example of how Shanahan uses Juszczyk to mess with defenders’ heads:
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