1-Man’s Opinion on Sports-Tuesday “SUPER BOWL–THE DAY AFTER”
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“SUPER BOWL-LAST THOUGHTS”
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The Chiefs are back home preparing for their Super Bowl Parade. The 49ers are home , their season shattered by the overtime loss. Some last second thoughts:
ANDY REID..The mad scientist in him was activated at halftime with his team trailing and struggling against a very physical Niner front. They went double tight ends, put them in motion, had them wham block. They kept them in to help blitz block And the motion packages opened running lanes for Patrick Mahomes. Coaching genius at its best.
PATRICK MAHOMES faced enormous heat but never wilted. He broke the back of the Niners ripping off 66-yards rushing including critical 18-and-21 runs, and conversions on 3rd and 4th downs in the second half. Those scoring drives won the game, and were a direct product of the different formations Reid went to in the second half.
TRAVIS KELCE was not targeted in the opening half, facing all types of coverages the Niners designed. So the Chiefs went the other side of the field, throwing to the other tight ends (Watson-Gray) and getting passes to Scantling and the game winning TD to Hardman. The Niners had to go back to zone coverage in the second half, and voila, Kelce caught 7-passes in the second half and made things happened.
STEVE SPAGNUOLA saw his defense get pushed all over the field, the power run game with Christian McCaffrey and chunk play passes. They came out in the second half, jamming the line of scrimmage, blitzing gaps and moving Chris Jones all over the defensive line. The aggressiveness paid off as Brock Purdy time and again had people in his face and had to move off his spot. When would you ever think this diverse Niners offense would go 3-straight possessions 3-and out. They slowed San Francisco down alot.
KID DBs …The play was spectacular. Left to go man on man because of the pressure the Chiefs presented upfront, Trent McDuffie and company broke up big plays down the field all night long. Then Purdy became inaccurate as the game wore on.
KYLE SHANAHAN is being second guessed everywhere about everything, and he now has 4-losses in post season where his teams fell apart, losing double digit leads.
RUN GAME GONE is a big issue. Christian McCaffrey carried a heavy workload in the first quarter and the Niners had a lead. Then Shanahan took the run game away, threw the ball alot, and did not get back to McCaffrey till late in the 3rd quarter or early in the 4th stanza. They had both CMC and Elijah Mitchell and yet went away from the power game. It was productive early and if they had stayed with it, it would mean Mahomes would have been on the sidelines standing next to Reid. This is on Shanahan.
GIMMICK PLAYS were part of the Niners success during the season. They hardly ran any jet sweeps, challenging the Chiefs on the edge They never targeted George Kittle till very late. And there were not alot of big plays to Deebo Samuel or Brandon Ayiuk. All those weapons and yet they did not use them.
GASSED..that’s all I can say about the SF defense, which gave up (455Y) in the game to the Chiefs. It became a war of attrition and there were alot of casualties on the Niners side. Losing Dre Greenlaw to the torn achilles was devastating. Nick Bosa remained a standout rusher the entire night, but the rest of defensive front wore down and did not make a difference.
KICKERS…Harrison Butker went 4-for-4 and finished the season (44-for-46) including the Super Bowl record 57-yarder. But another missed kick haunts Jake Moody, despite his 55-yard field goal. He missed a point after chip shot that changed the scope of the game. He finished the season with 8-missed kicks, and that’s a big name number.
COIN TOSS…Huge debate whether San Francisco should have taken the OT first possession or put the defense on the field. Most coaches want their defense to make a statement in overtime, get the ball back and the offense knows what it has to do to win.
THE BLOWUP…It was a bad look on the Chiefs sideline, the Travis Kelce shouting match with Reid in the first half. Yes it may be a flashpoint heat of the moment issue, but it was a disturbing sight, a tight end body banging and screaming at a future Hall of Fame coach. Kelce owes Reid a public apology.
DYNASTY…Yes you can register that word and send it to Kansas City. Back to back Super Bowl rings. 3-titles in a 5-year window. Reid now (27-16) in postseason play. Mahomes (15-3) in playoff games with (39TD-8Int) in that span. Sound like a dynasty to me.
THE COMMERCIALS…Just didn’t seem there were that many ‘grab your attention’ commercials. Maybe the ones that stood out included Tom Brady-Dunkin Donuts, and the ‘Kennedy’ political ad. The most unique one might have been the ‘Jesus’ religious based ads. The Phizer ads carried a key message. The downside? An awful lot of movie promo ads, all sci-fi types.
TV VIEWERSHIP..The final TV ratings are due out by Wednesday, and projections say (115.1) and that the halftime show with Usher peaked at (120M). We’ll see what the overtime period peak numbers are, they should be thru the roof.
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