Comparing the Chiefs and 49ers to Super Bowl champions of the past decade

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Could the winners of Super Bowl LVIII end up as one of the top three teams of the last 10 years?

Either the Kansas City Chiefs or San Francisco 49ers will be the 10th Super Bowl winner since the New England Patriots’ thrilling 28-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, widely regarded as one of the best championship games in NFL history. There’s been some amazing talent over the past 10 years, but the players taking the field on Sunday could be considered the best of the best.

Between the 2014 Patriots and whoever wins the next Super Bowl, where would either the Chiefs or 49ers rank among the champions of the past decade if they win?

This is a matter of not only comparing the 2023 Chiefs to the 2023 Niners, but also each of these potential champions against the previous nine and depending on how Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII ends for the winner: A convincing blowout like Tom Brady’s 2020 Bucs over the Chiefs would certainly say more than a nail-biter, while the quality of the opponent matters too.

The good news for the team that wins is that the team that loses will have Super Bowl experience and a strong resume to be considered one of the best losers of the modern era. Who has the best case to be the best champion if they win, and where will they rank?

2023 Kansas City Chiefs

DVOA RANKINGS: 5th overall, 8th offense, 7th defense, 6th special teams

A win for the Chiefs means a third Super Bowl victory for both Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, marking their territory as the first three-time champions since Tom Brady and Bill Belichick won their third Super Bowl together in 2004.

Individually, a third title would bolster all-but-guaranteed Hall of Fame bids for Reid, Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Chris Jones. The only name you sort of question there is Jones, but he just made his fifth first or second team All-Pro list and has two Super Bowl wins to his resume. He’s in and a third championship might only guarantee his first ballot entry.

But can we honestly say that this Chiefs team is better than the previous two Super Bowl-winning Chiefs teams when Kansas City was hardly even the best team in the conference this season?

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To their credit, the Chiefs have taken out arguably the three best teams in the AFC (Dolphins, Bills, Ravens) during the playoffs and two of those wins have come on the road.

However, the Chiefs have been anything but dominant and had head-scratching regular season losses to teams like the Raiders and Broncos, which is not the resume of a team that could be the “best” of any era.

A close Super Bowl win over the 49ers would be historic for Kansas City and a blowout win would strengthen their case for the era, but aren’t the Chiefs with Tyreek Hill likely better than the Chiefs without him?

2023 San Francisco 49ers

DVOA RANKINGS: 2nd overall, 1st offense, 4th defense, 25th special teams

Comparing Patrick Mahomes to Brock Purdy is like scheduling a fight between prime Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. It’s not that Purdy can’t rise in the pantheon of all-time quarterbacks and certainly winning a Super Bowl in his 27th career start would be a mark in his favor that few players have ever experienced.

Mahomes won a Super Bowl in his 36th career start.

But as far as where they are in their careers at the moment, Purdy’s resume appears to be one of the few disadvantages that the 49ers have on their roster as compared to Kansas City’s. In fact, the 2023 San Francisco 49ers have a case for being as talented, balanced, and complete of a roster as any team in the last decade, aside from even looking at quarterback.

The 49ers ranked third in scoring offense and scoring defense, first in points per drive, first in net yards per pass attempt, fourth in yards per carry, sixth in turnovers, first in red zone efficiency, fourth in third down conversion rate, and second in first downs, while the defense was fifth in net yards per pass attempt allowed, fifth in takeaways, ninth in points per drive, and third in rushing yards allowed.

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Both Purdy and Christian McCaffrey are MVP finalists, Brandon Aiyuk’s 1,342 yards ranks seventh in the NFL despite missing a game, George Kittle’s 1,020 yards ranks first among tight ends, Deebo Samuel had over 1,100 yards and 12 touchdowns, Trent Williams is considered far and wide to be the best left tackle in the NFL, linebacker Fred Warner is the top off-ball linebacker in the league, Nick Bosa is a perennial candidate for Defensive Player of the Year, while Charvarius Ward and Javon Hargrave were both Pro Bowlers in 2023.

McCaffrey and Warner were two of three players to receive unanimous All-Pro selections, the 49ers had seven first or second-team All-Pros in total, but then seven other players on the roster received All-Pro votes. This doesn’t even include Talanoa Hufanga, an All-Pro safety in 2022 who was placed on IR midseason.

Compared to a “stacked” Super Bowl roster such as the 2017 Eagles, it’s not even close. It’s Tyson versus Logan Paul.

In 2017, the Eagles had four players on first or second-team All-Pro rosters, one of whom, Carson Wentz, didn’t make it to the playoffs. Philly had a stacked offensive line with Lane Johnson, Jason Kelce, and Brandon Brooks, but not a single player had more than 900 receiving yards (Zach Ertz led the way with 824), LeGarrette Blount led rushers with 766 yards, and Nick Foles led the team in the Super Bowl.

The only Pro Bowl players on defense were Fletcher Cox and Malcolm Jenkins.

The 2023 49ers playing the 2017 Eagles in an NFC Championship? It theoretically should be a slaughter for San Francisco, even though the Eagles beat Brady in the Super Bowl that year and the 49ers were lucky to get past the Detroit Lions last week.

And that’s really the question we have to ask about the Niners at the moment: Why do they shrivel up against good competition?

San Francisco suffered a three-game losing streak in October (against three teams that missed the playoffs) and got manhandled by the Ravens in Week 16, trailing 33-12 until a late garbage time touchdown. They narrowly avoided home losses to the Packers and Lions to get to this point, so Kyle Shanahan desperately needs a convincing win over the Chiefs to prove that the 49ers are for real.

If he does that though, a win over the best franchise of the era would solidify San Francisco’s argument for being one of the three-best champions of the past 10 years.

Previous 9 Super Bowl Winners

Which teams will stand the test of time better than others?

Tom Brady edition

Looking at the last nine Super Bowls only, the 2014 New England Patriots have a lot going in their favor, including an unforgettable championship game and defeating the reigning champions. A Seahawks team with a stacked defense and Marshawn Lynch. Even with Deflategate hanging over them, the Patriots blew out the Colts in the AFC Championship and finally ended a 10-year drought for Belichick and Brady’s historic title run.

The 2014 Patriots have a case as the best team of the past decade.

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Three other champions of the past 10 years can lay claim to having Tom Brady at quarterback: The 2016 Patriots, the 2018 Patriots, and the 2020 Buccaneers.

Which of those teams is the best? The 2020 Bucs ranked fourth in DVOA, slayed Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs, and proved Brady could win away from Belichick. Remarkably the team only sent one player to the Pro Bowl (Jason Pierre-Paul) and emerging from the NFC may have been slightly easier than the AFC.

The 2018 Patriots had an ugly Super Bowl win over the L.A. Rams, but the 2016 Patriots have a strong argument: 14-2 record (the most wins by a Super Bowl winner since the ‘04 Patriots) despite Brady being suspended for the first four games of the season and an ability to erase a 28-3 second half deficit against the MVP. Brady’s non-MVP season: 28 touchdowns and only two interceptions.

I would rank as 2014 Patriots, 2016 Patriots, 2020 Bucs, and 2018 Patriots. The ‘16 Patriots won the most games, but owe some credit to Dan Quinn, Kyle Shanahan, and Matt Ryan’s fourth quarter collapse.

Non-Tom Brady edition

For non-Brady champions, the 2015 Broncos had an all-time defense, but were shot at quarterback, having Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler switch places twice towards the end of the season. The 2017 Eagles had a top-5 offense and defense, but we will never get the chance to get to judge them as a “Carson Wentz team” because of how many important games they had to win with Nick Foles, and soon after neither of them would be starting quarterbacks. The 2021 Rams were never dominant. They had a few star players, a star head coach, and that was enough to squeeze by teams in the playoffs, including a surprise appearance by the Bengals in the Super Bowl.

I would rank as Eagles, Rams, then Broncos.

Patrick Mahomes edition

Finally, you’ve got the 2019 team that went 12-4 and beat the 49ers and the 2022 team that went 14-3 and beat the Eagles.

Although the 2019 team had Tyreek Hill, the 2022 team had a better offense, ranking first in points and DVOA. The 2019 team had a better defense, although the 2023 team has the best defense of the Mahomes era. The 2019 team has the distinction of erasing playoff deficits and then achieving a blowout, beating the Texans 51-31, the Titans 35-24, and the 49ers 31-20. The 2022 team beat better opponents, including the Jaguars, Bengals, and Eagles, as last year was the first Super Bowl featuring two 14-win teams since 1998.

You could even argue that despite his immense talent, the offense is more efficient without Hill when it goes through Travis Kelce and the run game. The 2022 team has the edge over the 2019 team.

How will the 2023 Chiefs or 49ers stack up as champions?

On Kansas City’s side, you have a team that can win its third Super Bowl in the last five years and a franchise that finally has a top-5 defense to pair with its MVP-caliber quarterback. On San Francisco’s side, a team that ranks top-3 on both sides of the ball and can stop a two-time Super Bowl champion in their tracks with a convincing victory.

It will be hard for many to know where the 49ers rank if they win because we haven’t seen Brock Purdy’s future unfold yet. When Tom Brady won any of his first three Super Bowls, he was called a game manager who was lucky to have Belichick. Now he’s called the GOAT and the Belichick was lucky to have Brady.

If Purdy evolves right before our eyes on Sunday to lead the 49ers to a Super Bowl win over Patrick Mahomes, the team is so stacked that it would be hard to ignore them as a top-three champion of the era.

If Mahomes, Kelce, and Jones lead a team that few people believed in going into the playoffs—they were road underdogs against the Bills and Ravens—to a Super Bowl win over a team as talented as the 49ers, they could also be top-three of the era.

Like an important final exam, a lot will be determined by the outcome of the Super Bowl. But both teams enter with arguments to get an A, if not an A+.