Why I adore the Chiefs over the 49ers in the Super Bowl despite their underdog status
The Super Bowl point spread pretty much lays where it has been stuck ever since we knew who was going to be in what used to be billed as the “ultimate” game until Dallas Cowboys running back Duane Thomas put it in its rightful place: “If this is the ultimate game,” he asked back in the ‘70s, “then why are we playing next season?”
Since nobody answered, Thomas shrugged and said something akin to “They have ears, but they don’t listen. I will no longer speak to any of them.”
And he didn’t — not the media, not the coaches, not even the team doctor. When Thomas was hurt late in the year, the team physician raced to his side to triage the damage. Then he returned to the sidelines where head coach Tom Landry, asked, “How is he?”
“How the hell should I know?” came the response. “The SOB wouldn’t talk to me.”
The lesson in that on the eve of the 58th Super Bowl can be easily summed up: Thomas is long out of football, but his spirit marches on.
On Wednesday, nobody said anything because nobody knew. Wednesday before a big weekend sports event reveals nothing. Today is Saturday, and on Saturday, the odds in such moments begin to move. That’s because the smart money and the dumb money started arriving Friday at Harry Reid International Airport, If you don’t like what you see, relax. The numbers will move up, down and sideways like an angry man’s blood pressure until they settle.
That’s what gambling money does.
This morning, they favor the San Francisco 49ers by the same two points. There is no mystery in that. From the standpoint of overall talent, the Niners, on the surface, seem to have more. The operative word here is “seem.”
The Niners’ coaching staff knows that it was out-coached by Chiefs puppet master Andy Reid when they met in this game in 2019. Reid is the only head coach in NFL history to win 100 games with two franchises and the only head coach to win 10 playoff games with two franchises. He has taken the Eagles and Chiefs to four consecutive conference championship games — the only coach to accomplish that for two team.
The Chiefs have won two Super Bowls in the past four seasons.
For Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan and his staff, the Super Bowl defeat in 2019 must be serious unfinished business. The contrasting coaching styles between Shanahan and Reid left a trail of coulda-shoulda-woulda that stretched all the way back to the city by the bay.
In that game, Reid was the aggressor. Shanahan was overly conservative.
The feeling is that Shanahan might be favored but he can’t win by waiting. Knowing the history, Reid will still be Reid. On fourth down and two, he will go for it. If it’s a long field goal, he has the kicker who can make it and he will go for the three. If he gets the ball back with a minute left, he will not play for a tie. All those characteristics are what beat Shanahan the last time.
And then there is fellow named Steve Spagnuolo. He is in his fifth year as the Chiefs defensive coordinator, and he owns three Super Bowl rings (XLII, LIV, LVII) — two with the Chiefs and one with the Giants — as a defensive coordinator making him the sole coordinator in NFL history to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises.
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