49ers at Chiefs - Super Bowl LVIII - The Take

I have been peeking around at things people have been saying about this Super Bowl, and I could make remarks about a dozen of them. I may, I may not.

What I do want to do here is remark about a piece over at Arrowhead Pride from a guy who's essentially saying because he couldn't figure out how the Chiefs could be any good earlier in the season, and because they did end up winning the Super Bowl anyway, that anything related to analytics is worthless.

Sorry, what a misguided take. It isn't the analytics that are wrong, it is how they are interpreted and what people presume about them.

For instance the Chiefs receivers were doing poorly in the regular season because they dropped a lot of passes. What does this mean? It may just mean a difference of winning a couple more games or beating opponents by more if they did make those catches. But it may mean nothing about their overall ability to come through when they needed to such as in postseason action. Those earlier instances may have just been uncharacteristic of them and liabilities that could be easily overcome.

The key to winning is doing what you're good at for sustained periods of time. Sometimes the talent you have on your team doesn't get it done, we all have bad days. The worst teams sometimes beat the best teams because on a given gameday their skill sets come through more often and the better team's doesn't.

Patrick Mahomes isn't miles ahead of other quarterbacks, he's really only slightly ahead. This may be news to many people who believe him to be the GOAT. Oh I do agree he is the GOAT, even over Brady. But that helps make the case. Brady messed up way more than Mahomes ever did (and not because he had more years to mess up), yet Brady got so many lucky breaks to keep his teams in games that he had the advantage of executing his excellent play when he otherwise wouldn't've if, say, again, that Chargers defensive back hadn't foolishly fumbled when the Patriots were beaten in that one playoff game.

The best take advantage of those things. You can look at the most spectacular highlight reel plays from any quarterback, and Mahomes has more because he is indeed better, but it is mostly because he has the ability to make a play even one more time than the next guy. That one-more-time is the difference between a Super Bowl championship and your team dumped into the second-tier power rankings.

With all the punditry and analytics and all the rest of it, it does really come down to two things required for an NFL team to win. It has always been this way no matter what the numbers say or what people blap about.

Those two things:

One, your quarterback.

Two, your defense.

I could add things like "Thuh End," or "Period," or "Mic Drop," sure.

But these do need elaboration, mostly related to what I just shared.

In this Super Bowl the Chiefs made mistakes. Their fine running back fumbled, but so did theirs, really, and each time nothing happened as a result except both teams lost scoring opportunities. Mahomes threw a terrible interception, but again, the Niners could not capitalize. We even had a bad dropped pass... and yet, after all the bad things, our guys had the talent to just make that one-more-play.

I'd heard some say the Niners failure to convert those two critical 3rd downs (one just before the end of regulation and the other in overtime) was because they didn't get the ball to their players. They just wanted to run a particular play that worked. Again, terribly misguided.

Just getting the ball to Christian McCaffrey wasn't a guarantee only because the Chiefs defense had stepped up their game in the 2nd half and were regularly stuffing him. The point is, the Chiefs defense was generally very good, and playing even better in the 2nd half. I did hear people give them credit, justifiably so, but again we have to remember that it isn't that it was anything other than it was that one-more-play better. 

In the game our best defensive players did get pushed around, beaten for touchdowns, all of that. And yes, in some ways the game did turn on very critical single plays, such as the blocked PAT and the muffed punt. 

But that is largely the point. Just like the whole insanely-charmed Tom Brady factor, when those things happen for your team as they did for the Chiefs last night, does your team have the Got-It factor that enables them -- whether from their raw talent or their intense desire or their football intelligence or their fine preparation or any combination of those things -- to get that one-more-play that the other team cannot get.

And that is why you must do all the things the Chiefs organization has done so well in getting those kinds of players (and coaches and front office personnel) on board with their professional football efforts. As much as we admire the Mahomeses and Kelces and Reids and yes, sorry, again, my favorite Chief Brett Veach for having the genius ability to get those guys and assemble the team as it is now, they are really not that much better than any of the other excellent players and personnel on other NFL teams working hard to win.

It is funny, just how much all those other teams are now racking their brains trying to figure out how to replicate what the Chiefs are doing. That's great. The truth is there is just not any ethereal formula for how it works. Every team is doing their best to form their version of this organism we like to call The Chiefs Kingdom. Yeah we've got a Patrick Mahomes, but someday there'll be someone who will be just as good, or better. That's great. That's what makes the whole pro football thing fun.

But for right now?

The Chiefs are the ones who are simply one-more-play better.

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The photo of Patrick Mahomes is from David Gray at the official Chiefs website. Thank you. The photo of Brett Veach is from David Eulitt at Getty Images. Thank you.

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