My Super Bowl LIV Preview
The 54th Super Bowl takes place tonight in Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, with two teams that will surely give us a better game than last year.
The number 2 AFC seed, the Kansas City Chiefs take on the NFC’s number 1 seed, the San Francisco 49ers in a battle heavyweight offence vs heavyweight defence.
The Kansas City Chiefs come into the big game after two steam rolling victory’s in the Divisional and Conference rounds, after starting behind in both, they came through and won by a combined 41 points. Last year’s MVP, Patrick Mahomes’s has fully regained his form during the playoffs and combined with the fastest WR quartet in the league, has dominated the last couple of defences the Chiefs have faced. Truly an offensive juggernaut, this team can beat you deep, on the ground and in the short passing game. Realistically, there’s nothing they can’t do on offence. Defence was the reason they didn’t reach this stage last year, this year they’ve upgraded, bringing in Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu, look out for one of these two to make a play, it will be key for Kansas City in this one. This is the Chiefs first Super Bowl for 50 years, win this one and Mahomes is getting a statue.
The 5-time Super Bowl Champions, the San Francisco 49ers made their way to Miami by walking over the rest of the NFC, with a combination of blistering defence and a run game made up of three backs that have been on fire, all year. The team from the bay went from 4-12 to 13-3, picking up guys such as Tevin Coleman, Dee Ford in free agency and Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel in the draft have really helped to complete this team, combine that with a host of guys being injury free and this team has been balanced and dominant from week one. The 49ers are a side that are the best at the fundamentals of football and most definitely the team you throw the phrase ‘Defence wins Championships’ at. Look for their defensive trickery and play from the most rock n’ roll TE George Kittle to be huge in this one.
A good fact to remember is that Dee Ford played for the Chiefs last year, but stepped offside in the AFC conference game on a play which eventually cost them the game, revenge time perhaps?
According to the bookies, this game should be tight as ever, with the Chiefs being the slight favourites due to their offensive power. I believe this one, like most Super Bowls, won’t be settled on offence but it will lie with defence. This could really come down to a defensive player making their mark early on, I’m looking at players like Mathieu and Richard Sherman to really make that impact, control that and you can make serious ground on the big stage. But, the real, main key to this one, is stop the run, if the Chiefs can stop that 49ers ground game and make Jimmy Garoppolo throw (for context, he threw just six times in the NFC conference game) into a secondary that’s playing as well as theirs is, the championships there for the taking and this realistically applies for the 49er’s, don’t give Mahomes anyone to lean on, and get that pass rush going, then that defence can stop last years MVP. And finally, a big thing for the 49ers will be to not fall behind early on, we’ve seen the Chief’s comeback TWICE in the playoffs to over 20 points deficits, they can do it on any stage, can the 49ers? I don’t think so.
This Super Bowl is really filled with some great stories and is as unpredictable as ever before, truly worthy of the NFL’s 100th season. I’ll be honest, I really don’t know who to call in this one, but I said Kansas City would win on the podcast, so I’ll stick with it and have them winning 28-21.
Link to the NFL’s preview and picks video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYjl-xm3k3A
The game starts at 11:30 GMT, 18:30 ET and is on BBC ONE, Sky Sports and on NFL GamePass if you fancy watching those famed US adverts.
