Mistakes: A word that perfectly encapsulates the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs (or as Trump would have you believe: the “Kansas” Chiefs) and the San Francisco 49ers. It became the most viewed Super Bowl in history with 123.4 million viewers, a farcical repeat of the 2019 Super Bowl, leading Jeff Bezos to break down into tears,⸺into his 1 billion dollar handkerchief⸺screaming about how he should have bought it along with his most recent purchase of Thursday nights. 

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This Super Bowl, however, wasn't just special because of its viewership; it was special because it was the second Super Bowl in history to go into overtime, it was the one that made the Chiefs an official dynasty, and as Swifties would say, the first Super Bowl had Taylor Swift as well as Ice Spice somehow believed to be worshippers of Satan. But even more importantly, it was the stupidest upset I have ever seen in my time watching professional sports (obviously not including Super Bowl LI which, funnily enough, also involved Kyle Shanahan).

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First of all, if you were to tell me in the middle of the regular season or even the start of the postseason, that the Chiefs would be the ones to hoist the Lombardi trophy, I would call you a complete and utter moron, but for good reason. Throughout the regular season they always lost to bad teams and when they did win games it was by a handful or less. Take their win against the LA Chargers (who finished the season with a 5-12 record) for instance, where they would have faced a pitiful loss without a field goal made by Harrison Butker (the GOAT).

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Another horrible inadequacy of the Chiefs was their offence, which was consistently middle of the pack: their players on offence sucked, landing them a -0.6 offensive SRS. Not to mention, that their wide receiver core had the most drops across the entire NFL. In the regular season, not once did I see Kadarius Toney or MV-S even make a single catch. If it wasn’t for their defence being top 3 in the NFL, because of their Elite Secondary, the Chiefs would have probably finished last in their own division… which is saying a lot because they were in the same division as the Denver Broncos.

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Their defence, however, no matter how elite, shouldn't have been able to save them in the Super Bowl… need I remind you of Christian McCaffery, the offensive player of the year playing for the opposite team? Although, with how many times they cut to Taylor Swift, it would be fair if you had forgotten. Disregarding the illustrious CMC, unlike the Chiefs, the 49ers also consistently held a top 5 offence and defence, as well as their ridiculous 9 Pro Bowl and 4 All-Pro players. 

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In theory, this is THE team, one of the greatest offensive coaches to ever live with the insane D line of Chase Young and Nick Bosa, the great receiving core of Deebo, Aiyuk, and Kittle, the incredible game manager abilities of Brock Purdy, along with an insane secondary and running back. So what happened? Mistakes and Injuries. I don't know if you know this but having 5 key players injured in the Super Bowl may not be a great formula for success. These players included Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Dre Greenlaw, Arik Amstead, and Javon Hargrave. 

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The 49ers also had mistakes that shifted the momentum of the game, such as McCaffery’s fumble during the first drive, or the turnover on the punt return late in the 3rd quarter. The latter gave the Chiefs a huge boost in momentum and allowed them to take their first lead of the game. 

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If the 49ers hadn’t made those mistakes then the game would have had a completely different outcome. But what also had a huge impact on the game was how little the 49ers were capitalising on Chief miscues, of which there were many. For example, Patrick Mahomes gave the ball right to Ji'Ayir Brown after doing a little floaty pass over the head of Travis Kelce. How did the 49ers use this opportunity? By going 3 and out on the subsequent drive.

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On the biggest stage in America, the 49ers played like garbage and let a less than overwhelming Chiefs team (by Chiefs’ standards) walk all over them. Why, you might ask? Well, I blame the referees and the Swifties. Or perhaps Shanahan just loves blowing leads in the Super Bowl. We may never know. But all we can do is just hope that they don’t win again next year.

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