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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CHIEFS SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS YET AGAIN!

Well, we are officially now a dynasty. They all said if the Chiefs won tonight, they'd be a dynasty. Well, we won. As usual there are a million things that can be said about this game, and so far I'm sure all the pundits in every corner of the broadcasting world and across the cybersphere have already touched on most of it.

I'm not going to say anything right now because it is late, but I do want to make one remark about the two most critical plays of the game in my view. I think many others share this.

With two minutes left the Niners had the ball in field goal range and faced a 3rd down. If they made that 1st down, the game would've been over. The Niners could have just let the clock run down and kick the game-winning field goal with no time left for the Chiefs to do anything in response.

But the Chiefs D held. On 4th down the Niners had to kick that field goal and lament having to leave enough time for Mahomes and company to march down the field and kick their own game-tying FG to send the contest into overtime. This is precisely what happened.

That was major defensive stop No. 1.

In OT the Niners got the ball first and did their own methodical march down the field, and with the new postseason overtime rules in effect whereupon both teams get a possession no matter what happens with the score, the Niners could have scored a touchdown to make it difficult for the Chiefs to have to match it or fail altogether handing the win to the Niners. 

So, with a 3rd down again in the red zone Niners QB Brock Purdy went back to pass and could have thrown an easy touchdown pass to the open receiver in the right flat, but the pass rush was so ferocious -- I'm pretty sure it was Chris Jones yet again -- that he had to ditch his pass.

4th down. Niners FG. This meant the Chiefs could go down and at worst kick a game-tying FG. But at the very best they could score the game-winning touchdown. 

This is precisely what happened.

Those two defensive plays were the ones. Just like it happened for much of the year, when the Chiefs were successful they had an adjusted, adapted, and just plain more robust defensive effort as the game wore on, and sure enough, that precise thing happened in this one.

Those two defensive stops on plays that could have led to certain game-winners for the Niners were stuffed by our D, enabling the Chiefs to become, yes, in the voice the late great John Facenda...

WORLD CHAMPIONS OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL!

I'm certainly thinking about blogging more at some later time, but for tonight...

Chiefs Kingdom rocks!

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The photo is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Super Bowl Chiefs Sunday!

It blows my mind that we do indeed get to do this whole thing again. To put on our Chiefs jerseys and jackets, load up all the Chiefs pennants and chips bowls, and head out to our watch parties and enjoy our beloved team vying yet again for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL. 

In fact, when I wrote those words did you hear John Facenda's voice saying them? I did.

Most excellently fun.

Anyway, we're off to the wife's cousin's place where, as I shared in my last post, as Rams and Cowboys fans they'll be rooting against the Niners as intensely as we'll be rooting for the Chiefs. I don't know when I'll pound out a post-Super-Bowl post here, but in the meantime, just one note I thought about.

Everyone knows about our inadequate wide receiver play over the regular season, something that did pick up a bit during the playoffs, fortunately. The one receiver who you really couldn't say anything against over that time was our fine rookie, Rashee Rice. While everyone has been raving about Travis (for good reason) as well as his stratospherically electric relationship with Taylor (also understandable reason), I just haven't seen much about Rashee. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that'll keep him focused on the game as such a young player in the biggest spotlight.

Just this one note, however. Remember what school he came from.

Southern Methodist. 

Remember too, this was the very beloved alma mater of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, as well his son and current Chiefs owner Clark!

Just sayin.'

GO CHIEFS!

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The photo is from Rob Carr at Getty Images. Thank you.

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Super Bowl Preview - 49ers at Chiefs

Not going to spend a lot of time analyzing all of this to death. It always comes back around to this simple truth.

If the Chiefs don't have some crazy-ass stupid thing happen to them at the most inopportune time, they will win.

Period.

The main reason is shown in the posted image, one I clipped from a fine video a guy did about the worst drafting NFL team since 2012. The video was mostly about that particular team (the Jets) and its epic drafting failures, but right at the beginning he showed the graphic related to what it takes to have a championship team.

Thus, the Chiefs.

That we have Patrick Mahomes who simply refuses to lose and a defense that is not overwhelmingly muscular but is very skilled and extraordinarily strategic. Really, if you have a quarterback like we do and a defense like we do, as long as proper business is carried out, we have nothing to worry about.

(And I love how one of the featured key players in the graphic is our fine punter. Definitely though, Tommy Townsend is fantastic, he should get the credit he deserves!)

The game is played in Las Vegas, and the only thing that is splendid about that is it is the new Raiders home. How sweet is that, the Chiefs are playing in the Super Bowl on the Raiders home turf. Ahhh... Nice...

The thing that is very bad is this, yet another article describing the wretched problems with gambling into which the NFL has embroiled itself. Yeah it makes sense. So many get interested in the thing when they can bet on it, and the NFL tried to get a piece of that action by making quite specious relationships with the Draft Kings and Fan Duels and the Bet MGMs and all the things that makes Vegas just the most splandacularly spliniferous place anywhere.

Excccept... there's their part in destroying the lives of all those they've encouraged to hand over rent money because they just have to bet the over. There are all the questionable relationships among players and other NFL personnel with the nefarious elements who can easily give them a call, text, poke, anything that compromises the integrity of the game.

Yeah, I so want my Chiefs to win, be a dynasty, be "America's Team," engender the fandom of every person on the planet, be the greatest anything of all athletic endeavors in all time, space, and dimension -- all the rest of it. 

But wow.

The gambling associations, the alcohol promotions, the racialist browbeating, the unchecked promiscuity of many of the athletes, the ugly vulgarity spewed everywhere -- so many facets of the game just make it so difficult to fully champion.

I'll be watching with family, it'll be fun. I'll be proudly sporting my Mahomes jersey with some of my favorite people, several of whom are Rams fans or Cowboys fans who'd like nothing other than to see Patrick take apart the 49ers defense. That'll make it extra fun, for sure. So yeah...

Just got to keep it in perspective, and no matter what be proud of what Clark, Brett, Andy, and the rest of the major players in the Chiefs Kingdom have done to work as hard and as well as they have, simply be an inspiration. Maybe that's just the best thing of all in this, and hopefully those good things will be the best Chiefs thing there could be.

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