Conference Championship Record: 1-1 (Correct: 49ers Incorrect: Ravens)
Overall Playoff Record: 7-5
Kansas City Chiefs over San Francisco 49ers:
In all my years of putting NFL predictions in writing, I've never correctly predicted a Super Bowl Champion prior to the start of the season. I picked the Chiefs to win this year, which means I should probably be backing the 49ers without hesitation. But what is the point of flip-flopping at this stage of the game? If the Chiefs are going to lose, I'm going down with the ship damn it!
Even if I didn't feel obligated to stick with the Chiefs, I feel that all the luck the 49ers have enjoyed this postseason is due to run out. All of the shenanigans that transpired (the Packers rookie kicker shanking a kick in the 4th quarter, Dan Campbell's overagression opening the door for a 2nd half comeback, Brandon Aiyuk's fucking hilarious miracle catch that Kindle Vildor's football follie opened the door for) that helped pave the way for them to get here tends to ultimately come with a steep price, which just might be the chance to earn their 1st Super Bowl victory since 1994. Of course, anything is possible-especially in a season as deeply wacky as this one. But quite frankly, the 49ers haven't played well enough over the majority of their two playoff games for me to have faith in their ability to pull this game out.
Now, my confidence in the Chiefs isn't to say that the 49ers don't have their fair share of potential matchup advantages that could allow them to win. Christian McCaffery has the potential to create some serious problems for a Chiefs run D that has some trouble defending the run this year (a deficiency that the Ravens bizarrely elected to not try and exploit in the AFC Championship Game), the Joe Thuney-less Chiefs offensive line that held up pretty well against the Ravens has another really tough assignment in trying to slow down the 49ers aggressive, deeply talented front 7 and it kind goes without saying that the 49ers complement of pass-catching weapons greatly exceeds that of the Chiefs-which could make their passing attack more effective despite the Chiefs pretty considerable edge in pass defense.
As scary as those elements of the 49ers are, the Chiefs list of potential game-breakers is even longer, The Chiefs are the more physical team on both sides of the ball by a pretty wide margin, the 49ers have their own set of offensive line problems (outside of Trent Williams) and run defense woes that vets like Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo could easily exploit and Patrick Mahomes has proven time and time again that he's built for stages of this magnitude while Brock Purdy simply has not.
Ultimately, I think it's this simple: If Mahomes has time to throw the ball, his receivers are able to catch the majority of the passes that come their way and CMC doesn't go completely apeshit on the ground (like Terrell Davis in Super Bowl 37-type apeshit), the Chiefs should be able to win the game.
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