Another superbowl has come and gone, it’s easy to say that this one didn’t disappoint. Four years ago at superbowl fifty-four we saw this exact same matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. In that game we saw a more gun slinging match where the 49ers lead the game 20-10 going into the last 6 minutes of the game, but with two touchdown passes from Patrick Mahomes, along with a Kendall Fuller interception and Damien Williams touchdown run the Chiefs roared back and claimed a 31-20 win over the 49ers to win Patrick Mahomes’ first superbowl.
Since then the teams have taken drastically different paths. The Chiefs have been to two super bowls, one ended in a loss to Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Superbowl fifty-five and one ended with a win over the Philadelphia Eagles in Superbowl fifty-seven.
The 49ers, the following season after Superbowl fifty-four, had an overall record of 6-10 and missed the playoffs. A lot of blame was starting to be pointed at the team’s quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who was viewed as the team’s limiter. In order to try and upgrade at quarterback in 2021 the 49ers traded up from pick twelve to three with the Miami Dolphins in order to draft quarterback Trey Lance. Lance played back up behind Garoppolo for the 49ers in 2021 and was named the team’s starting quarterback for 2022. However tragedy struck in a week two matchup against the Seattle Seahawks when Lance broke his fibula but also tore his deltoid and syndesmotic ligaments. This thrusted Garoppolo back into the starting job.
Once given back the starting role Garoppolo started playing the best he had in his whole career, throwing for 2,347 yards, 16 touchdowns, and only 4 interceptions throughout 11 games played. That all came to a screeching halt in a week 13 matchup against the Miami Dolphins in which Garoppolo broke his foot, ending the season for him. In came rookie quarterback out of Iowa State, Brock Purdy, the offense didn’t seem to miss a beat.San Francisco destroyed the Dolphins in a 33-17 victory with Mr. Irrelevant himself. The 49ers would end up making it all the way to the NFC championship game, where they lost a heartbreaking game against the Philadelphia Eagles after Purdy sustained an injury during the game.
The two teams both came into the season with high hopes. The 49ers had found the franchise quarterback they had been looking for in Purdy, and the Chiefs were high off of a Superbowl win over the Philadelphia Eagles. This season the Chiefs battled some offensive adversity, with the teams receiving core outside of Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce being heavily criticized due to the amount of dropped passes they had, the receiver core as a whole led the league in dropped passes with 44 and a drop rate of 6.9%. The Chiefs ended the season with a 11-6 record, which was the worst record they’ve had since Mahomes became the starter, and the third seed in the AFC. The 49ers fought all season, finishing with number one ranked offense, and a top 5 defense. The team finished with a 12-5 record and clinched the number one seed in the NFC. Both teams had difficult games in the playoffs including a divisional match up vs the Bills for the Chiefs, and a championship match up vs. the Lions for the 49ers. Both teams fought hard and won their respective conferences.
Finally, the two teams had reached the coveted game. The game started out slow, neither team scored a single point in the first quarter. This was mostly due to a fumble from Christian McCaffrey in the red zone on the 49ers opening drive. The first points came from a superbowl record breaking fifty-five yard field goal from 49ers kicker Jake Moody. The 49ers followed this up with a receiving touchdown from Christian McCaffrey that was thrown by 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings, making the score 10 to 0. Right before halftime the Chiefs drove down the field and Harrison Butker made a twenty-eight yard field goal making the score 10, San Francisco 10 to Kansas City 3 going into the half.
Coming out from the half both teams went back to playing nearly perfect defense, the first points of the half came with five minutes left in the third quarter when Harrison Butker broke Jake Moody’s new super bowl field goal record by making a fifty-seven yard field goal. The field goal was followed by both teams going three and out, but during a punt by Kansas City the ball bounced off the foot of a 49ers player, making it an alive ball, 49er Ray-Ray McClould III tried to recover it but slipped allowing for the Chiefs to recover the ball on the 16 yard line. The Chiefs wasted no time, on the first play after the punt Patrick Mahomes threw a 16 yard touchdown pass to Marquez Valdes-Scantling making the score Kansas City 13 to San Francisco 10.
Going into the fourth quarter both teams defenses were exhausted, these were two great offensive teams that they were having to constantly hold off and it was obvious that both defenses were exhausted. This was made more obvious by the San Francisco Offense who started the fourth quarter by driving down the field to start the fourth quarter. Capping it off with a ten yard touchdown pass from Brock Purdy to Jauan Jennings. However, when attempting the extra point Jake Moody’s kick was blocked by the Chiefs special teams, this kept the score within three which allowed for the Chiefs to tie the game with a field goal from Butker. This tied the score at 16 with a little over five minutes left in the game. The two teams didn’t score again until after the two minute warning. With a field goal from Moody and Butker the two teams were once again tied as time expired making this the second Superbowl ever to go into overtime.
Once in overtime the two teams once again met in the middle for a coin toss, with San Francisco winning the toss and choosing to receive the ball. The San Francisco drive started out quick but started to slow down and eventually stalled out, causing them to settle for a field goal. This would turn out to be a mistake, Kansas City used this opportunity to drive down the field and with three seconds left in the first overtime period Patrick Mahomes threw to a wide open Mecole Hardman Jr. to win the Superbowl.
This years Superbowl had a lot of hype going into it, rather if it was from all of the Taylor Swift fans rooting for Travis Kelce and the Chiefs, or the hype over this being a rematch of Superbowl 54, it’s hard to say, however you can’t say that it didn’t live up to the hype.
