Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images
The lack of hype is understandable, but it’s not really fair.
Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl should be great. We have two of the best-coached teams in the NFL, each with incredible defenses, exciting star players on offense, and quarterbacks with incredible stories.
And yet, this is somehow the game nobody wanted. Outside of Kansas City and San Francisco there’s a pervasive feeling that people are sick of this game already, and we haven’t even started the media cycle leading up to the game yet. So what is Chiefs vs. 49ers lacking, and why should we actually reset how we think about this game?
Why people are sick of this game already
We saw this game three years ago
Much of the drama surrounding Chiefs vs. Niners played out when the teams met in Super Bowl LIV — and the teams are largely unchanged since then. The game featured the 49ers incredible defense, the Chiefs’ lights-out offense — but had the additional drama of the ascendence of Jimmy Garoppolo and Kansas City trying to win its first title in decades, giving Patrick Mahomes his first ring.
If we look at the rosters from Super Bowl LIV to now the key players are essentially the same. The Chiefs are most notable lacking Tyreek Hill, which is a huge deal — but we’ve seen this team operate and win without him. The Chiefs have become a superior defensive team since the Hill trade, and it’s obviously paid off with this group back in the Super Bowl after winning it all last year.
The changes are more dramatic for the 49ers on offense with Brock Purdy at QB, Christian McCaffrey at running back, and the emergence of Brandon Aiyuk as a top-tier receiver — but outside of that they’re essentially running a more refined version of the same Kyle Shanahan offense.
We were robbed of a chance to witness history
Whoever wins the Super Bowl will feel … fine. It will either be the 49ers’ sixth title in team history, or the Chiefs’ third in five years. Both teams have rich histories of winning, with San Francisco’s predominantly coming with Joe Montana and Steve Young in the late 80s and early 90s, with Kansas City’s dominance coming recently.
What fans are disappointed by is that we didn’t get an alternate timeline where this Super Bowl build is for a team like the Bills or the Lions, long-suffering franchises with interest that extends beyond their local markets. We were so close to getting Detroit in the best underdog story in recent memory, finally getting a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy after decades of being a laughing stock around the league.
It’s not fair to put that back on the Chiefs or 49ers, but it’s a major factor.
The narratives of this game are played out
Part of the fun about the Super Bowl is the build where we get to dive deep into the storylines of teams we perhaps haven’t invested as much time into that we should have. This year the two big talking points have been beaten into the ground.
With the Chiefs it’s obviously Taylor Swift. Personally, I think it’s been super fun this season to see the Taylor x Travis stuff emerge, but I also get why people are tired of hearing about it. At some point it’s just two adults dating, and we don’t necessarily need to put that onto an all-consuming pedestal. For what it’s worth, this was equally annoying with Tom Brady and Giselle when they first got together as well.
Meanwhile with the Niners we’re back to endlessly litigating whether Purdy is good or not. The arguments this season have been at the end of each extreme, and neither is fair. Purdy is neither the best quarterback in the league, nor is he absolute trash. He’s just absolutely perfect for the 49ers, and is able to execute at a higher level than Jimmy G was able to.
Why we should actually be hyped for this game
These teams are similar in fun ways
The Chiefs have reinvented themselves to be a defensive team since we last saw them in the Super Bowl. It was a genius move that accepted they couldn’t find the weapons needed to continue being an overwhelming offensive team, instead investing in becoming more balanced.
As it stands they’re now a great defensive team with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce being the centerpieces of making it happen on offense. The model is now to simple score enough and let the defense close out games, and it’s worked incredibly well in the playoffs.
Meanwhile the 49ers are also a great defensive team. They have been for years. San Francisco managed to move on seamlessly from losing defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, picking up Steve Wilks and keeping this whole thing rolling.
On offense they might not have anyone in the passing game who quite reaches the top-end of Mahomes or Kelce, but the 49ers have more weapons across their offense. Christian McCaffrey is the best weapon, but this is ultimately a battle between an elite quarterback with worse weapon, against a good quarterback with elite weapons.
That’s compelling.
The coaching is top-notch
Kyle Shanahan is the crown prince of new-school coaching, and his tree is extending through the NFL. Meanwhile Andy Reid has perennially been one of the best coaches in the NFL for two decades.
Both are masters or in-game adjustment with the ability to change their team’s approach on the fly, or flip it entirely at half time. At the very least that means there’s no good way of predicting what will happen — even if the result seems foregone.
This game is evenly matched
As fun as the build would have been for a sweetheart team like the Lions, we’ve been there before. The game often fails to match the hype, and that becomes a disappointment.
Chiefs vs. 49ers without a lot of hype means we’ll have a game that exceeds the lack of excitement preceding it. This doesn’t feel like a game that will be over at halftime and we wait for it to play out, but rather something like the NFC Championship game where it could come down to the wire.
