Well, the Kansas City Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl for the fourth time in the last five years, which is pretty insane. And in Super Bowl LVIII, they’ll face the San Francisco 49ers franchise they beat 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV, overcoming a 20-10 third-quarter deficit to do it.
These two teams are decidedly different than they were four seasons ago. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan had quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in a 1973 Bon Griese hair shirt for most of that postseason, because Shanahan knew full well that when you put the game in Jimmy G’s hands… well, you didn’t generally want to do that. Raheem Mostert and Deebo Samuel were San Francisco’s primary rushers in that game, because the 49ers hadn’t yet made their team-defining trade with the Carolina Panthers for Christian McCaffrey. Add in a second-year quarterback in Brock Purdy who can actually hit his weight in the NFL, and this offense is far more to Shanahan’s preferences than that one was.
As for the Chiefs, there’s no more point-per-minute stuff. Tyreek Hill is out of the picture, and most of Andy Reid’s most explosive passing plays with him. The Chiefs got back to the big dance with a highly uneven receiver group, Travis Kelce finding the fountain of youth at the right time, and a Steve Spagnuolo defense that now sets the tone. There’s also the efforts of second-year running back Isiah Pacheco, who generally runs at your defense as if your defense owes him money.
So, a point of discussion now, as it really wasn’t in that last Super Bowl between these two teams, is how the two run defenses will fare. Based on the tape and the tendencies, I would argue that the team winning that battle may well come away with the Lombardi Trophy.
Let’s dive into it.
The 49ers' run defense can be bent and broken.
The 49ers do not lead with a stacked-box defense. In the 2023 season, including the NFC Championship game, they stacked the box on just 14% of their snaps, which ranked 26th in the league. Their defensive Success Rate of 38%, which ranked 10th in the NFL, speaks to the talent on that front and in the linebacker group, but it also allowed the Lions to absolutely handle San Francisco in the run game.
This 15-yard David Montgomery run right off the bat with 14:31 left in the first quarter was a prime example. The Lions were in 11 personnel, with tight end Sam LaPorta motioning across the formation. But this was a power run concept — Duo — in which right guard Graham Glasgow and right tackle Penei Sewell doubled Arik Armstead, while center Frank Ragnow and left guard Kayode Awosika took Javon Hargrave. That gave Montgomery a perfect gap right up the middle, and with linebacker Fred Warner forced to pay attention to LaPorta across, he wasn’t there as an optimal run defender.
Because the Lions use run-action so well, the 49ers had to split their focus between run and pass post-snap, and Detroit got San Francisco’s defense more than once with that idea.
It didn’t take long for Johnson to exploit that defense for another big run — this time with a different concept with 13:27 left in the first quarter. Here, it was a fake handoff to Montgomery which caused the 49ers to focus on that with their six-man box, but the real play was an end-around to receiver Jameson Williams, who scooted for a 42-yard touchdown. Another 11 personnel set from Detroit, and another instance in which San Francisco’s defense was out of sorts. The tackling was also less than optimal. This time, Ragnow pulled to his right, while Glasgow pulled to his left — another way to get the defenders’ eyes off the real stuff.
“Yeah, we haven’t done very well, it’s been the common theme, on them,” Shanahan said last Monday. “But people are going to get the edge when they block down on a defensive end. I thought there was a couple ones. I thought we did better with the crack tosses. There was a reverse yesterday on the fourth play of the game, one that we do a lot. The one that we call dope. That’s a really tough reverse to stop. They pull a guard, they block two people down, which will get the edge, you will pin the defensive end, which they got with [DL Nick] Bosa. They’ll block down on the next guy. Then they have a guy kick out.
“Then you need pursuit on the field, and that play was disappointing to me because I thought our pursuit was as bad as it’s been all year on both the two long runs. We did get the edge, not with the defensive end because they blocked down on him, but we get it with the next guy to turn it back. When he turned it back, our pursuit wasn’t there. That was the biggest disappointing thing about both those touchdown runs.”
Then, there was Jahmyr Gibbs’ 15-yard touchdown with 6:01 left in the first half, which Shanahan wasn’t happy about at all.
“I know it looked bad on the clip that you guys have and stuff,” the 49ers’ head coach said Thursday. “No, it’s not our culture. We don’t want to have one play like that. I think we had about two to three in that game, which is too much for us. We don’t want to ever have one. But it wasn’t just the D-line. There were a few backside people who weren’t going and they were expecting someone else to make the tackle.
“Whenever you’re expecting someone else to make the tackle, bad things happen.“
The Chiefs have a sneaky-good rushing attack.
The 49ers allowed 182 yards and three touchdowns against the Lions on the ground. They also gave up 11 first downs and 110 yards after contact, so if the Chiefs are going to be somewhat confident in their ability to run the ball, that would be understandable. With Isiah Pacheco as the main man in their run game, Kansas City can put together some pretty frustrating stuff for a defense that’s on point, as opposed to what the 49ers were last Sunday.
Certainly, the Chiefs are expert at devising plays that will test the eyes of a defense, as this little pop fake to Jerick McKinnon for 27 yards against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 7. As Shanahan said, that’s a problem for his defense right now. The 49ers will have to be very disciplined in their rushing assignments and keys throughout the game.
The Chiefs are also expert at blowing your defense off the ball with heavy personnel. This season, Pacheco led the league in runs out of 13 personnel with 53, for 226 yards, 140 yards after contact, and a touchdown. This 29-yard outside run against the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round was a pin/pull concept with tight ends Blake Bell and Noah Gray leaving the formation to block outside, and left tackle Donovan Smith as well. Left guard Nick Allegretti pinned defensive tackle Ed Oliver. Pacheco had a clean gap upfield in outside zone, and Pacheco made safety Micah Hyde miss in space with a nasty outside move.
And Pacheco’s 12-yard run against the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship game showed that the Chiefs are perfectly adept at blowing out the interior defensive line so that Pacheco can blast through the middle, even if it’s a skinny gap. Here, Allegretti and Smith pinched inside to deal with DI Justin Madubuike, because Madubuike is an alien, and that’s the guy you want to address.
The Chiefs may need new plans against San Francisco's zone run concepts.
Steve Spagnuolo’s run defense was fortunate in the AFC Championship game that Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken went with one of the more curious overall game plans in recent postseason memory. The Ravens handed the ball to their running backs just six times in that game — three handoffs to Gus Edwards, and three to Justice Hill — and that cost Baltimore a Super Bowl berth as much as anything.
Because when the Ravens did run at the Chiefs… it really worked. The Chiefs stacked the box on just 16% of their defensive plays, and had a light box 56% of the time. And even when the Chiefs had a seven- or eight-man box with more base personnel, the Ravens were able to play bully-ball with impunity. This Edwards 15-yard run with 5:46 left in the first quarter showed that against an eight-man box out of nickel, Edwards could knife right through it, and should have been allowed to more often. The Ravens were in 12 or 22 personnel, depending on whether you classify Patrick Ricard as a fullback or a tight end (I lean towards the TE side), and as the Ravens pull their blockers in the run game as well as any NFL team, they won the physical battle.
The 49ers with Christian McCaffrey lead with inside and outside zone, and out of either zone or split zone this season, McCaffrey has led the NFL in carries (234), yards (1,265), yards after contact (755), and touchdowns (15). The Chiefs have faced the NFL’s seventh-most zone runs (316), and they’ve allowed 1,256 yards, 774 yards after contact, and five touchdowns.
Because the Chiefs are generally in lighter personnel (Spags loves his dime defense, especially on third down), and their fronts are aligned for pressure more than anything else, their run defense will expose lanes that can be used against them. You don’t need to ask Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs about that after this 63-yard touchdown scamper in Week 14.
The Miami Dolphins, whose head coach Mike McDaniel is an acolyte from the Shanahan tree, singed the Chiefs for a couple of big runs in Week 9. Like the 49ers, the Dolphins use a ton of motion to create shiny things for a defense, and this 25-yard Raheem Mostert run was of specific interest. This was 21 personnel with running back Salvon Ahmed motioning across to run a wheel route look. As that happened, you could see cornerback Jaylen Watson backing off from press coverage in Cover-3 to address the threat of Ahmed possibly getting the pass. Mostert just ran right through the Chiefs’ six-man box.
“Christian is as dynamic of a back that there is in the National Football League,” Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill said this week. “People would say that he’s not the biggest, but he runs with incredible power, it’s very evident if you throw on the tape. He’s running guys over, his stiff arm is vicious, he’s a weapon in the passing game, he can run the route tree, he’s elusive in space, powerful at the point of contact. He’s going to be a big challenge for us to stop.”
Well, let’s get into that.
The 49ers won't do what the Ravens did.
Unless the Chiefs go up by four touchdowns in the Super Bowl, Shanahan will not abandon his run game, and even a 28-point deficit is no assurance of that. After all, the Lions had a 24-7 halftime lead in the NFC Championship game, and McCaffrey had 10 of his 20 carries in the second half for 61 yards and one of his two touchdowns.
The Lions had one of the NFL’s better run defenses, but McCaffrey is going to do what McCaffrey is going to do. This 25-yard run against Detroit with 3:52 left in the game pretty much cemented things, and this was outside zone out of 22 personnel. This is how the 49ers live in their run game, because they can also create explosive passing plays out of heavy personnel, and that sets their run game up nicely. The 49ers and Chiefs have this in common.
Even when you array your defense in ways that should work against the run game, there’s no guarantee of success. This 18-yard McCaffrey run against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 15 had Jonathan Gannon’s defense in a five-man front, with safety Budda Baker clamping down with McCaffrey as his key. San Francisco aced its one-on-ones, and receiver Jauan Jennings was a hair late to block Baker. but it didn’t matter, because McCaffrey took Baker straight to the Shadow Realm with a preposterous jump cut.
And with the gaps the Chiefs will leave open in their aggressive mindset, McCaffrey will shoot through those openings with terrifying quickness.
“Kyle is one of the most creative guys in the league, you knew he was going to find ways to maximize him, the different tools that he has,” Andy Reid said this week about why the Shanahan/McCaffrey combination works. “McCaffrey’s got phenomenal tools; can catch, block, run… I mean, [he] does it all and Kyle’s exploited it even more than what it has been before.”
