Kansas City Chiefs or San Francisco 49ers? Who will win the Super Bowl, and why
Super Bowls are unpredictable by nature, but we can agree on one thing about this Kansas City-San Francisco tilt-a-whirl ride we’re about to get on: it has to be better than last year’s game.
If you’ve forgotten what happened in the Super Bowl before this one, congratulations. You have managed to block out the fact that your party ran out of chicken wings long before anyone scored a touchdown. New England and the L.A. Rams were tied at 3-all — one lousy field goal apiece — at the end of the third quarter. If you stuck around until the end of the game, you saw 14 punts and only one touchdown.
New England finally won, 13-3. But the Patriots — the team America loves to hate — is long gone from this year’s playoffs. Instead, we’ve got Kansas City (sympathetic coach Andy Reid, rocket-launching quarterback Patrick Mahomes, scandal-and-speed wide receiver Tyreek Hill) and San Francisco (sackmeister Nick Bosa, braggadocious cornerback Richard Sherman, threw-it-eight-times-in-NFC-title-game Jimmy Garoppolo).
Kansas City is favored by a point or two in this 54th Super Bowl, depending on which oddsmakers you are looking at — with almost everyone agreeing the game should be close.
The Chiefs have the more spectacular offense. The 49ers boast the better defense. Who you expect to win depends in large part on how well you think Mahomes will perform under the pressure that the 49ers’ pass rush will invariably put him under.
You know what the pregame build-up reminds me of? Carolina and Denver, playing in Super Bowl 50.
The Panthers were favored, in large part because they had the NFL’s best offense that season and an incredible quarterback in reigning Most Valuable Player Cam Newton. But the Broncos won, mainly because Newton and the offense couldn’t find an answer for Von Miller and the rest of his Denver teammates storming the gates of the offensive line.
I feel like this game will take the same path and that ultimately the 49ers’ D will trump the Chiefs’ O. San Francisco can score, too, and Jimmy G can throw the ball just fine when he has to. Remember, in a 48-46 shootout with New Orleans that was the most entertaining game of this past regular season, Garoppolo threw the ball 35 times and had 349 yards and four touchdown passes.
So the 49ers can win a number of ways, and I think all in all are the more complete team. My pick: Jimmy G will be the game’s MVP, and San Francisco will win the Super Bowl, 23-20.
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
