Super Bowl Post-Mortem
I wanted to let my emotions cool a bit before writing this one, in hopes that the takeaways would somehow differ and be more productive when given time and space to breathe. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. While time has made me less heated, it’s only because the sweet embrace of nihilism is seldom fiery hot. What’s done is done, and that’s something that the NFL must live with as much as any of us.
The great beauty of football lies in the fact that every moment matters. A single play can swing a game in its entirety. A single bounce of the ball–whose mere shape incites chaos–is often the difference between winning and losing. Possessions are few. Every game matters. Playoffs are one-and-done. Even careers are short. So all you can ask is that your team play 1% better than their opponent at the exact right time and hope that the rest falls your way. But this appeal assumes a fair playing field. Because bias in this sport swings outcomes more so than any other. And as we now know for certain, a fair playing field is far from what we’re dealing with. We’ve learned twice in five years that to beat the Chiefs in a Super Bowl–with a team that doesn’t have any popular podcasts, or Amazon Prime docs, or a quarterback that hocks insurance and hair products, or a player who’s dating the biggest pop star on the planet–you need to be at least 20% better. Or 50% better. You need to blow them out. You need to leave no doubt. Because if you don’t, and you let the game be close, the refs will make sure you lose.
We could have played better, and we’ll need to if we want another shot at taking home the game’s ultimate prize, but the topline takeaway from this Super Bowl was that–despite mistakes and mishaps–we played more than well enough to win. We just weren’t allowed to. And that stings in a way that will forever change my perception of both this game and a league that has fully blown past any supposed ideals of impartiality and fair play.
When I think of this Super Bowl, I’ll think of the opportunities we missed and the others that were taken from us, but I’ll also think of the end of “Hot Fuzz,” when a bunch of crotchety old hags butcher their prized town while droning on about “the greater good.” They’ve kept up their image. They’ve kept up their sense of self. But at what cost? Then I’ll think of Roger Gooddell, sitting down in his La-Z-Boy and putting on his best human skin while whispering to himself in parceltongue those very same words: “the greater good.” Perhaps it was worth it to cement the NFL’s darlings as a dynasty. Perhaps the league will retain all those mercurial Swifties when Kelce retires or Taylor starts dating some British guy who you vaguely remember from one episode of Game of Thrones and a BBC miniseries that you started but didn’t finish. I’m not naive enough to believe in the moral fortitude of the National Football League, but when it comes to overt favoritism, this was uncharted territory. They’ve got their dynasty. They’ve fashioned it out of the league’s most marketable and exciting pieces and stuck it together with duct tape, chewing gum, and some good old-fashioned corruption.
But at what cost?
OVERALL
Even people who don’t do their jobs have to roll up their proverbial sleeves first
“I Swear I’m Not Corrupt, I’m Just An Idiot.” If there was any justice in this world, Bill Vinovich would be sent out to pasture and turned into glue. Perhaps then–since we’d be relying on a chemical reaction rather than his all-encompassing incompetence–he could finally do a task correctly, like adhere a sole to a shoe or help a child complete an art project. But Bill will be around for a while because the NFL loves a corporate shill, and because he’s the league’s best option for implementing their no-call policy.
This game wasn’t lost by a suspect roughing the passer or a defensive pass interference deep down the sideline. While that’s certainly been the case in the past–more specifically, in Bill Vinovich’s past–the NFL has realized that singular calls at the point of attack—called or not—generate too much attention. Too much backlash. They’ve learned–as most morally bankrupt entities do–that the best way to swing things in your favor is to puppeteer the game where others aren’t looking. Now, the NFL relies on calls OFF the ball that are NOT made. If throwing a flag for an on-ball penalty late in the fourth is like assassinating a foreign president, refusing to call holding for an entire game is like bankrolling a fascist movement over decades to let them do the dirty work for you.
I charted 11 obvious holding calls against the Chiefs, none of which were flagged. Six were on third downs, and every single Chiefs scoring drive–other than their one-play touchdown after the fumbled punt–included at least one of those holds. This only includes offensive holding, even if there was also some defensive holding that went unchecked–especially on Kittle–like this one, where two dudes blatantly held him on second-and-long two plays before a third quarter punt:
For absolute clarity in the argument that the officiating in this game goes far beyond variance and sour grapes, feel free to look at the NFL’s official language on illegal offensive blocks. Holding is—in summary—using your arms or hands to restrict or alter a defender’s path or angle of pursuit, regardless of whether those hands are inside or outside of the body. Examples include, but are not limited to, hooking, turning, grabbing, tackling, twisting, etc.
I’ve also included the two grainy screenshots below, taken directly from an NFL teaching video on what constitutes holding. There are other examples of what could be a hold, but these images make pretty clear what is definitely a hold.
Finally, before we get into the rogues' gallery of offenses, if anyone wants to try and big-brain you about these calls through rules exemptions, I am fully aware that clipping (blocking in the back) is allowed within the box. Any shot of a player being blocked in the back below includes him being tackled, which isn’t legal wherever the block occurs. I also understand that there is a “rip exception” to holding calls. This states that if a player executes a rip move (a shoulder dip and uppercut motion with the arm nearest the blocker) to put the blocker into a hold, that hold won’t be called. For any of you basketball fans, think of it like the Harden/Durant rip-through rule. I won’t go into too much detail on this rule because not a single one of the shots I’m about to show you includes a hold on a rip move.
If we exclude rip moves at the point of attack, the simplest way to determine holding is to look at the offensive lineman’s feet and his hands. If the back of his feet are NOT facing the quarterback but the back of his hands ARE and the defender being blocked is being turned, tackled, or restrained from changing direction it is almost certainly a hold. There are many ways to hold someone, but there are few (if any) ways not to hold someone within those parameters. With that in mind, behold but a small cross-section of the human embodiment of ineptitude we call Bill Vinovich:
If you look at the timestamps, the holds got much more prevalent as the game went on. Once again, that’s 11 missed holds on 6 of 19 third downs and holds on every scoring drive except for one. And this doesn’t even include the cuspy ones.
Across two Super Bowls, Bill Vinovich has called zero offensive holds on a Chiefs team that is known for holding and that quite literally led the league in the category this season. In the one Super Bowl where their Chiefs OL did get called for holding, the Bucs swarmed Mahomes and blew them out with ease. The word ineptitude for this officiating is far too kind. This is quite simply game-swinging bias.
Sloppy Joes. The many self-inflicted wounds were maddening and quite often drive-killers. Few elite offenses rebound as poorly to holding penalties as ours and we had two of them in this game, but at least they were understandable. One was on Trent Williams as Purdy left the pocket (when you’re not the Chiefs, that’s a hold). The other was on seventh-round rookie Brayden Willis while filling in for a temporarily injured Kittle.
But the four false starts are inexcusable, and given three of them occurred on 2nd-and-10 or worse, they clearly contributed to us getting out of our run game. By many metrics, running on 2nd-and-10 isn’t usually the right move (even if it sometimes was in this matchup) but running on 2nd-and-15+, when the most likely outcome you’re setting yourself up for is third-and-long, is almost never the right move.
Fumbles, drops, and other simple execution issues plagued us throughout the game, and–as is abundantly clear at this point–we weren’t going to be bailed out by luck. Of the seven fumbles in this game (five by the Chiefs), the Chiefs recovered six of them. Considering fumble recovery statistics have shown to be equivalent to a coin flip, that’s a telling stat for the day as a whole.
Even if we don’t talk about reffing bias, the Chiefs were undeniably lucky this post-season. To the point of statistical relevance.
New OT, Same Talking Points. People love to critique Shanahan’s game management (sometimes rightfully so) so I’m not surprised that there have been so many hot takes about his decision to receive the ball to start OT. But I am surprised at how confident people are in their opinions. This was the first-ever game under the new OT rules so there is quite literally no direct data to support either decision, but there are a few things that can at least explain the thought process.
The most common initial reaction is that the new system resembles college football, where there is basically unanimous agreement that you should go second so that you know exactly how much you need to score once you get the ball. But the advantage gained from going second is wildly overstated. Since college overtime’s movement to its most recent OT format(s) in 1996, multiple studies have shown that starting on offense or defense has almost no bearing on who wins the game. The most recent study, which looked at games from 2013 through 2021, had teams who started on defense winning 51% of the time. There’s an edge there, but not enough for that decision to be deemed “automatic.” The comparison between college and NFL overtime also neglects a few big differences to the NFL’s new rules.
First off, in the NFL you don’t start with the ball on the opposing 25. You start with a kickoff. And in this game that meant you started on your own 25. This difference cannot be overstated. When you start at the plus 25, the expectation is that you score in some way. Starting OT from a kickoff greatly changes the receiving teams’ chances of scoring and the eventual starting field position of the defending team. If anything, I would think this benefits the idea of defending first in case you force an early punt and can gain a starting field position advantage, but that’s just my initial instinct.
The second major change is that in college, all teams are guaranteed an equal number of possessions. Teams are always given a rebuttal. In NFL OT, that guarantee only lasts two possessions. If the game is still tied once the third possession begins then it becomes sudden death and you’re not guaranteed anything. This is also a massive difference between the two formats and was the primary reason Shanahan and his analytics team decided it would make sense to receive the ball first. Yes, there is a second-mover advantage for the defending team in that they can go for two after scoring a touchdown to win it (which the Chiefs said they would have done), but there are a lot of variables (and assumptions) inherent in that advantage. If the game goes to a third possession, having that possession on offense is undeniably a humongous advantage.
I also think the fact that the Niners’ defense had just come off the field on an 11-play scoring drive to end the fourth quarter plays into this decision. By starting on the minus-25 in college, your defensive starters could be gassed, but they only have to suck it up for a few plays before–one way or another–they get a break and get off the field. In the NFL, that’s not the case. In all likelihood, a Niners team that was battling some defensive injuries and fatigue and had a single play’s rest after that 11-play scoring drive would have had to force a three and out (or at worst a punt on the second set of downs) before subbing their defensive line, at which point the Chiefs would have almost certainly went tempo to keep them on the field. There’s little argument to be made that our defense and its ability to stop the Chiefs benefited from the extra rest, regardless of whether or not taking the ball to start overtime was the right decision or not.
Finally, if we want to look at the college comparison again, teams in OT who received the ball first and scored a touchdown won a whopping 70% of the time. That number would surely be much higher in the NFL due to the increased distance needed to score, even if obtaining that initial touchdown is much harder in the pros. Perhaps this should have led Shanahan to go for it on fourth down rather than settle for a field goal? While I don’t think that was an easy decision either, I certainly buy that critique more so than our choice to receive first, even if it’s steeped in 20/20 hindsight.
The differ or receive decision of the NFL’s new playoff format is considerably more complicated than any other overtime format before it, and–like most things–the decision to defend or receive should likely be based on the specific circumstances of each particular game. All this to say, I don’t know what the right choice was. But I’m glad every other asshole apparently does.
DEFENSE
Farewell, Wilks. While the Wilks firing was unfortunate, it was not without reason. Anyone considering this a “scapegoat firing” and a testament to Shanahan’s big game issues obviously didn’t watch the Niners until the Super Bowl—a game in which we allowed 455 yards of offense, btw.
While I thought our defense played much better than that stat—which was inflated due to poor officiating—Wilks never meshed with our top players nor the type of scheme we have to run for our roster-building strategy to make sense. Based on how we alot our salary cap and draft capital, we need to play from the front to the back, and while Wilks made major strides with our secondary, he never seemed to fully get on board with that fundamental idea. Far too often, the schemes in the front and the back weren’t tied together tight enough.
On its face, our defense was strong this year, and—at times—it was the same elite unit we’ve seen in past seasons. But we benefited greatly from having the league’s best offense, and a closer look showed a defense that had serious flaws. Our EPA/play dropped off from 1st to 12th. Our run defense DVOA fell from 2nd to 15th. And our third down percentage fell from 13th to a woeful 27th. This despite retaining the entirety of our core, staying healthier than in past years, and adding Javon Hargrave in the off-season.
Wilks was never comfortable stepping in and running “our defense,” and it showed up most on soft, vanilla third down coverages, slower-than-ideal adjustments, and a consistently frustrating lack of disguising and mixing up our looks. This was as much our fault for hiring him into a scheme he clearly didn’t totally understand as it was his for his inability to connect with it, but that doesn’t change the fact that a move had to be made, and–even if we’d won the Super Bowl–that move was likely coming.
The Heat-Seeking Missile. Referred to as a “one-of-one human” by his teammates after he went down to a ruptured Achilles, Dre Greenlaw’s loss was felt both emotionally and on the field, as the Chiefs targeted replacement linebacker Oren Burks and Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles relentlessly in pass coverage after Greenlaw went down.
The Chiefs basically spammed quick flats, screens, outs, and option routes to the non-Warner linebacker to get their offense going post-injury, and it’s hard to imagine them having anywhere near the same kind of success with Dre on the field. Before he got hurt, those very same plays were going for–at best–1-yard gains.
Too Soft for Too Long. I get that Mahomes has a rocket and completed one deep pass when Gipson lost the ball in the stadium lights, but this was still a bad deep ball passing team that was susceptible to aggressive play outside.
Charvarius Ward was targeted zero times in this game. Deommodore Lenoir allowed five grabs but for only 36 yards. Our corners were as sticky and shutdown as could be, yet we used that as a deep ball deterrent rather than as a greenlight to be more aggressive disrupting the short plays that ended up becoming the majority of the Chiefs’ offense. I understand the bend-don’t-break philosophy, but when facing an offense that has–for the entirety of the season–shown an inability to do anything other than manufacture long drives off of short passes, playing soft plays into what they can do well. To be fair, if the holds were being called, this strategy would have worked, and it did for a while, but sometimes it seemed like we played this Chiefs offense like it was a Chiefs offense of old. It was not.
Show and Tell. Our defense was the third-most likely unit in the league to run the exact coverage that we showed pre-snap, and while there’s value in keeping things simple so that players can play fast, I can’t imagine that the marginal gains of slightly better positioning and more reps outweigh the massive benefits of confusing opposing quarterbacks and play callers. To make matters worse, our defense became so static and predictable that teams started deploying gameplans stuffed with designer plays to combat it. We saw this versus the Packers and a ton against the Lions. While the Chiefs’ offensive gameplan wasn’t able to start racking up real rock-paper-scissors wins until late in the game, our penchant for showing exactly what we were doing pre-snap bit us in the ass a few times at critical junctures.
The most frustrating example of this was on this long completion to Travis Kelce late in the game.
Warner bumps out of the box to line up on Kelce, as clear an indicator as possible that we’re in man coverage with outside leverage. This is an incredibly difficult assignment for a linebacker given how much the Chiefs love to attack man coverage with crossers, which is exactly what the Chiefs have dialed up.
Expecting man coverage, the Chiefs have set up a shallow crosser with a pick from Noah Gray to free up Kelce. Given Warner was clearly on an island pre-snap and that this would have been a difficult assignment for a cornerback, much less a linebacker, I assumed there would be inside help in the form of a high-and-inside safety bracket or a defender meant to wall Kelce on any crossers going to the opposite side of the field. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The high safety took the high zone. The low safety roamed the intermediate middle and Warner was left with a largely impossible task.
While Warner is the best coverage linebacker in the game, you cannot guard this route from this alignment—especially against the pick the Chiefs run here—and that frees Kelce for an easy gain that both he and Mahomes likely diagnosed pre-snap. Even a simple flip of responsibilities from the safeties, with Ji’Ayir creeping down and looking to take away in-breakers while Gipson plays over the top, could have baited Mahomes into an incompletion or worse. But we showed early what we were in and they punished us for it by hitting the only real option on the play.
When it came to crunch time, there was simply too much of this and too many easy underneath completions against soft coverage when they didn’t have the talent outside to warrant it.
Pressure Performers. To their credit, our defensive line showed up in a big way in the pass rushing category, totaling 32 QB pressures, 7 QB hits, and 3 sacks. Bosa in particular is insane in Super Bowls. He racked up 12 pressures all on his own. While those stats will likely only add fuel to the fire that is “Mahomes Magic,” they’re more a testament to how greatly we would have snuffed out this offense entirely if not for the blatant holding.
OFFENSE
Almost the Super Bowl’s most unlikely of MVPs
Manholes. We absolutely eviscerated the Chiefs when they played zone, picking them apart in the intermediate zones to the point where they went with much more man coverage and blitzes in the second half. That’s where we ran into some issues.
Deebo in particular struggled to get open, hauling in only three of his eleven targets and rarely getting separation against press man. There were times when it felt like we were forcing him the ball, but oftentimes the throws his way were a product of reads and progressions, not matchup hunting. Deebo just couldn’t beat his man. It’s hard to say how much of this was a product of the handful of injuries Deebo was carrying at the time, but he’s had his issues against man coverage before, and we really needed him to win more matchups.
Aiyuk, our man-beater all season, had a quiet game as well. He had a couple of wins where we just couldn’t get him the ball, but the Chiefs’ corners were generally sticky. When we put Aiyuk (or really whoever) on a safety and ran vertical stems to isolate them in coverage, we routinely got separation, but far too frequently the protection wasn’t there as the Chiefs became more and more blitz-happy as the game went on. What we needed were more underneath options and more people to get early open.
Our man killers in this game were CMC on everyone, anyone who could run a vertical stem against one of their safeties, and Jauan Jennings—who scored just the second touchdown all year against L’Jarius Sneed but did most of his work against their lesser DBs. Unfortunately, the protection fell apart quite a bit and it wasn’t always possible to take advantage when these guys were open.
Shots in the dark. We had a couple of big-time shot plays that sprung open in this game, but—in what will become a theme—we weren’t able to protect them. Deebo got big-time open on this fake hot screen, but Burford got beat immediately by Chris Jones so Purdy didn’t have time to make the throw.
The game could have looked a lot different if we’d even connected with one of these—which I’m sure was the reason why we kept trying—but the combination of guys getting open and us not hitting them also helped contribute to our offensive spiral in the middle of the game.
Burying the lede. Sometimes I think Shanahan gets too obsessed with calling the perfect play when he should just settle for a very good one. This—in conjunction with some ill-timed penalties and pass pro issues—felt like what happened during the stretch of three straight three-and-outs to start the third quarter. But, after looking at the coaches’ film, it seems more complicated than that.
To start the second half we called a deep play action shot play, which I was 100% in support of. Take off the top to keep the run game open all day. At least that was the thought.
Unfortunately, the Chiefs had already committed to cranking up their blitzing, and Deebo’s motion across formation likely sealed the deal.
The strongside linebacker shoots through immediately, and our offensive line—who, to their credit, are trying to perform a play fake—are clearly a bit confused. Brendel loops right looking for work, Banks and Feliciano end up taking the same guy, and the linebacker whizzes right behind them toward the quarterback. This is a shame because both of the guys who went out on routes were open down the field.
After it fell incomplete, Shanahan dialed up a run play, but Aaron Banks false-started. Now facing 2nd-and-15, running was largely out of the question and we were an incomplete and a short scramble from a punt. This was unfortunate but at least understandable.
To start the second drive, we ran what I initially thought was another play action shot play, resulting in a frantic scramble and a negative 8-yard completion to Jauan Jennings. This once again put us behind the sticks and took us out of running territory. Live, I thought this was a massive mistake, but after watching the All-22, it looked more like yet another giant missed opportunity.
While the blocking is a bit weird, this looks a lot like a called throwback screen. And if it was, holy shit was it open.
None of the DL have read screen. One is on the ground. Juice is ten yards in front of CMC and ready to block the one cornerback in the area (who also hasn’t seen the screen yet) and the closest inside linebacker (underlined) has fully turned his head and started running the wrong direction. If this is a screen (and not just a conveniently effective stretch play action fake), I have no idea why Purdy didn’t throw it. Even if it wasn’t a called screen, he should have thrown it. I would assume some combination of the pressure from Chris Jones coming earlier than he expected and the area around CMC being blocked by bodies made him reluctant to toss it out there without a clear picture. But mother of god, that’s a house call if he does.
Instead, Purdy evades Jones and dumps the ball off to Jennings, who was only supposed to block on the play. The massive loss puts us in another hole that we can’t run out of and we punt two plays later. If that was meant to be another deep play action pass, it was a bad call. We just can’t risk that kind of lost yardage to start back-to-back drives—especially against this defense. But if it was a called screen that Purdy just didn’t throw, then… you can’t really complain about a dialed-up touchdown that was open.
For the third three and out, we started with a gap run, which was the right call, even if the play didn’t work. The Chiefs were so dialed against our zone running that the gap schemes started opening up much better, but this was the rare play where both Trent Williams and George Kittle missed their blocks. We could have run again on second down—I probably would have—but instead, we ran a dropback pass concept where Purdy bypassed a wide-open Deebo to attempt a deeper shot for Aiyuk.
This was one of the rare blown coverages from the Chiefs on the day, and—of course—they somehow benefited from it. Whereas Purdy could have hit Deebo for some sweet slant and YAC action, he holds to throw to Aiyuk, who also opens up on a deep out. However, Purdy winds up late on the throw because one of the DBs doubling CMC incidentally clogs the passing lane while trying to recover and guard Deebo.
Just one of those days.
Upon further review, I (think I) understand more about what Shanahan was trying to do in those three ugly three-and-outs. But, as a whole, I do think we got too far away from the running game (or at least the threat of it) and made things harder than they needed to be. Our YPC may not have been stellar, but we showed throughout that we could get a push on even the most loaded of boxes.
On this play, for instance, we ran stretch right against this ten-man (!) box.
And it gained 4 yards.
The Chiefs ran a lot of late shifts and weird slants and fronts in order to confuse our linemen and their zone rules, and it worked a number of times to stop runs for no gain. But there’s only so much of that you can do. Eventually, your soft underbelly gets exposed. When we could put a hat on a hat, we consistently got push on the inside and the more we leaned on it the better we ran and the fewer third-and-longs we faced.
At times, it seemed like Shanaahan and Purdy wanted too badly to go for the jugular. We didn’t need to get the score or the first down all at once. We needed to stay ahead of the sticks. We needed efficiency–in whatever form that could be found in–and—as we rediscovered as we neared the fourth quarter—that efficiency was found in balance, a recommitment to the run game, and more short-to-intermediate completions to beat the blitzes.
Joe Exotic. Spags dialed up some killer blitzes and disguises in this game—quite often on third down—and Purdy—as should be expected with any young QB—didn’t diagnose them all correctly. But our third down struggles were far from his issue alone.
Here is our last third down of regulation, just under the two-minute warning, with a chance to ice the game if we convert it.
CMC has motioned into a stack to the short-side of the field. Ray-Ray is running an inside release clear out to make sure CMC gets a clean release on an option route, while we have a simple double slant concept to the field side.
The Chiefs are lining up like they’re either in Cover 2 man, one of their favorite third-down coverages, or double bracket coverage over Aiyuk and CMC, but they’re really sending the house and playing man 0 all over. If diagnosed correctly, this is actually a great play call to beat this blitz because the safety on Aiyuk has far too soft a cushion to play the inside slant.
I can’t say for certain because the All-22 is from the back of his helmet, but when Purdy opens up to his left—knowing he wants to hit one of the slants—it seems like he looks out wide to Jennings first. Perhaps he assumed that bracket coverage on Aiyuk would lead to single-coverage outside. But if Purdy had stuck to his inside-out progression, he would have seen Aiyuk open up immediately.
Instead, the blitzing DB comes unblocked, gets directly in Purdy’s throwing lane, and bats down the pass. If the blitzing DB had been picked up, perhaps Purdy would have diagnosed and hit Aiyuk after the initial look towards Jennings, but he didn’t have time because of a protection mishap. We’ve talked about the benefits of having so many guys play so many positions, but there are definitely drawbacks, and we often see those when non-RBs are lined up in the backfield. Given Jake Brendel steps right on the snap, I assume he diagnosed the Mike linebacker to his right and set the protection that way, meaning Kittle (most likely) had an inside-out scan protection to the left—meaning, he is responsible for the blitzing DB. Instead, he stays on the right and looks to help out on an extra man that never shows. If he’d come over and simply picked up McDuffie as he was supposed to—or even just knocked him out of the lane—Purdy likely finds Aiyuk or has enough time to hit CMC, who breaks open later on the option route. Then, we run out the clock and kick a game-winner as time expires.
We were 3-of-12 on converting third downs. The Chiefs were 9-of-19. That’s as telling a stat as any.
As Purdy sees these schemes more he’ll get used to what they’re doing and be able to tell when something is disguised, when something isn’t, when to check in and out of different protections, and how to go through his progressions so that just because he’s tricked pre-snap doesn’t mean he has to be post-snap. It’s great that he’s seeing things pre-snap and preparing for what he thinks will be open, but–as he gets more reps–he’ll learn when he can and can’t trust those mental shortcuts. Sometimes, you just have to go through the progression and let the defense show you their coverage.
Overall, I was impressed by Purdy. He navigated the pocket as well as he ever had against a lot of pressure, largely fought the urge to flush out too early, and–as he usually does–seized the moment and played good football down the stretch. This is a guy, who–in his second year in the NFL and first as a full-time starter–performed much better against this defense than two-time MVP Lamar Jackson, NFL completion % leader Tua Tagovailoa, and countless other veteran quarterbacks who faced the Chiefs this season. He got tricked by Spags on a couple of occasions, but we didn’t lose because of him. Far from it.
Don’t Play It Again, Sam. This is now the third year in four deep postseason runs where pass pro issues—particularly on the right side of our line—have played a major part in dooming our Super Bowl aspirations. Some of it is d-coordinators scheming up well against our pass protection rules, but a whole lot of it is just our guys getting beat.
On our final offensive play of the Super Bowl, we split out into empty and called a fly sweep play action fake with man beaters all over the formation.
Jauan is running a whip route to the short side of the field. The two slants to the left are functionally one slant, as Deebo in the slot is meant more to pick the trailing linebacker on CMC—who is running a swing route after the fly sweep fake. Finally, Kittle is chipping and then opening up into space as a fallback option underneath. If no one else opens up then at least the Chiefs will have to tackle Kittle in space from a deep safety position.
This is an excellent play call in every way except for the protection up front.
The OL is attempting to sell the play fake, so Jake Brendel is pulling to the left side and taking the edge. This isn’t inherently flawed, but—as Justin Reid creeps up to blitz on CMC’s motion across—things start to get messy. Tony Romo—who was meh or worse for much of the Super Bowl—did make a good point in the broadcast that this was a protection that a more elder Purdy might have checked out of given the front. But even with this protection, we we would have been fine if we’d simply executed it correctly.
Unfortunately, despite being taught to step out and block the B gap, Burford tries to help inside on the A gap pressure—a mistake he copped to after the game and blamed on relying on “instinct” rather than teaching. This leaves Chris Jones, the Chiefs’ best defensive player, totally unblocked and screaming towards Purdy. While Reid, and both edge players, are coming after the quarterback, they’re not full blitzers. There’s a read and a check involved and Reid even stops in the hole before being contacted. So even if Reid wasn’t picked up, he wasn’t getting to Purdy before he hit one of the many open receivers.
And boy were there open receivers.
That’s right, with Deebo acting more as a pick player, every single receiver going out on a real route was open on this play. All four of them. Aiyuk shook all-pro L’Jarius Sneed to the literal ground en route to the endzone. Jauan was breaking open towards the sideline. CMC had a clear pitch and catch angle to a walk-in touchdown. Even Kittle, the only player who might not have scored on this play, would have easily gotten the first down with this much room to run.
Yes, we could have run a different protection or Purdy could have checked into another one at the line, but the protection was ultimately sound. We just had to execute up front.
Trent Williams and Jon Feliciano allowed one combined pressure all day. Our other four linemen allowed a combined 14. This is a stacked draft at OT and one that has starter-level depth and high-end potential well into the bottom of the first and even the second round. I know that our lack of spending on the OL is in part a result of our salary cap structure and something we actively scheme around, but I fully expect us to select an offensive tackle with our first pick in this draft. Enough is enough. No matter how much we’d like to scheme around it, we just need to be better along the OL to prevent these kinds of issues from popping up at the worst times in our dropback passing game.
It is somehow both comforting and wildly depressing that we were so close and so deserving of winning this Super Bowl, only for it to be tanked by a couple of mistakes and consistently biased refereeing. Worries about our Super Bowl window closing are legitimate, if for no other reason than because opportunities such as these are so hard to come by. But great franchises stay in contention, and I have faith in the core we have in place. As always, growth is needed across the board for us to continue to play at this level and to finally take that next step, but every season we’ve gotten better and there’s no reason to think that next year should be any different. Of all the scars the Niners speak of from their recent post-season heartbreaks, this one will certainly run the deepest. While it may not feel like much at the moment, take solace in knowing that this latest setback will make the next Super Bowl victory—which I believe is coming soon—all the sweeter.
Until then, if someone says the Chiefs won because “you just can’t beat Mahomes” feel free to slap them across their whore face.
Go Niners 🏈👍