The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Innovation, reinvention, and legacy: How the Chiefs and 49ers made it to Super Bowl LVIII, and what they're playing for on Sunday, with Nate Taylor and Matt Barrows

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

The Chiefs have become a Super Bowl mainstay, but this version of the Chiefs is different from any that we've previously seen. The 49ers, meanwhile, are back in the game as the league's greatest offensive juggernaut. How did these teams get here? What, beyond the obvious, is on the line on Sunday? Robert Mays is joined by Nate Taylor, The Athletic's Chiefs beat writer, and Matt Barrows, The Athletic's 49ers beat writer, to dive into those questions, and more, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @ByNateTaylorFollow Matt on Twitter: @mattbarrowsSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. We've been doing this. This is our fourth year doing it. One of the best things about the athletic, one of the things that sets the athletic apart from really any media outlet in the country right now

is the amount of writers we have covering these teams. It's a level of expertise just across the sport, across pretty much every sport. And it would be so silly to not have our writers on who cover these teams during Super Bowl week. So that's what we're doing today. Matt Barrow's, one of our Niners writers

at The Athletic is going to be joining us a little bit later on this show. But first, the man that has become a staple on this program every single year, this podcast has become

the Nate Taylor Invitational each and every year. And you know what? I'm happy about it. Yeah. One of the downstream effects of the Chiefs being really, really good

is that you and I get to do this every single year. I'm totally fine with that. Of course. And I didn't think I was going to be here. Let's be honest. So it was the first, question I was going to ask you, okay?

Yes. Is what moments during this year did you feel like all was kind of lost? And when I mean all was lost, I mean, this team just doesn't have it. This team just does not have it compared to last year's team, compared to the chief teams that we've seen over the last three or four years. What was that moment for you? There's a couple. It's losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in Monday Night Football.

It's not just the Marquez Valdez-Scanlin dropped potential touchdown to win the game. it's the fact that Travis Kelsey fumbled in the red zone, which he never does. Obviously, everybody remembers the Cadarius Tony play. The last time he was, I should say the last time he was on the field, but the last pivotal play he had. Yeah, the last time we talked about Cadarius Tony for football-related reasons. Yes, yes. Shout out to Nate Tice. But yeah, you know, obviously the mishap in Buffalo, Patrick losing his mind,

channeling his energy and his frustration to the referees. I forgot about that. That seems like 10 years ago now that he was like bitching at Josh Allen after the game was over. Yes, it really does. And then the last point where I thought,

oh, well, the schedule was designed for you all to win today. I don't want to work on Christmas, but at least I'm home. You guys are home. That's the one. You gave up back-to-back touchdowns? What? What?

That losing to a team led by Aidan O'Connell Who did not complete a pass after the first quarter Yeah, you should not be here That's what most information tells us is that Yeah, you guys are not real Super Bowl contenders You're good, you're going to win the division But like I can't expect you to be in the Super Bowl When you literally handed your arch rival 14 points

In a matter of what I think Tashon wrote it In a matter of seven seconds From the actual box score play by play. So those were the moments where it's like, okay, losing to the Eagles, not great. The guy who was supposed to be your number one receiver, he needs to line up correctly. And, yeah, you lost to the Raiders with an interim coach, who's now their head coach. Could not move the ball. But could not move the ball offensively against the Raiders for an entire game.

He was running for his life. The Raiders are a good defense. The Raiders played very well defensively, especially down the backout for this season. Patrick Graham, I think, did a very underrated job without a lot of talent on that side of the ball. that being admitted or said, it's still crazy to get blanked by that team and then be where we are right now. Correct.

Because the thought about this Chief's team was, okay, they'll get into the playoffs, they'll probably lose to a truly elite team somewhere along the way. I felt that Baltimore was significantly better than them for most of the season. Maybe that would be it. They lose to Baltimore in the AFC championship game.

The Ravens and the Niners would be playing against each other. That's where we would end up. And I would still consider that a successful season. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. championship game with this collection of like, yeah, okay skill position players. Like, okay is doing a lot of work. You have a good defense, but like, yeah, you need to score points.

So I thought, yes, losing to Buffalo on the road, totally normal. Like, that happens. Like losing to Baltimore in the SEC championship game, okay. Successful season, considering how up and down they were throughout the regular season. Now we're at a place where the line open for the Super Bowl against the Niners team. that was a juggernaut for a majority of the year. And it was essentially a pick-em. Uh-huh.

That's where we landed. This chief team that got blown out by the Raiders on Christmas is now a dead even matchup for this Niners team in the Super Bowl. And as an impartial observer, watching how all of this unfolded, that feels right. I wouldn't want to play against this team right now, and I wouldn't want to pick against this team right now. So what has changed from Christmas Day to February 4th, that it's about more than the results and about them winning these games?

fundamentally they feel different than they did six weeks ago. Why? A couple reasons, Mays. The quarterback had his worst game of his season against the Raiders. And then looked at himself on film, and I remember asking Patrick, what are you noticing? And he's missing receivers. He's doing all the things that, like, you know, the average NFL quarterback does on a down-to-down basis. And then he just stopped doing that.

He just said, okay, I'll make the right reads, I'll evade rush, I'll limit and somehow even eliminate negative plays so that the offense can be as efficient as humanly possible with this group. One of the more underrated factors is that, you know, Donovan Smith, who is a suitable left tackle? Capable NFL left tackle? Sure. He missed the last five games of regular season with the next stinger, right? Could he have played the final two? Maybe. but they had already sort of secured their playoff spot.

So he gets a break. He comes back, plays his best ball of the season. Like somehow becomes like above average level left tackle play with the most elusive quarterback who eliminates negative plays. Okay, didn't see that approaching. Isaiah Pacheco, as we all know, runs the ball extremely hard. Like you bite people. He somehow is held up, right?

even though he's running through two, three defenders at a time, whether it's in sub-zero temperatures. Obviously, we know the bills were compromised defensively based on the limited amount of bodies they had, but he still was effective at least keeping Baltimore honest for much of the ASE championship game. So that all happened on offense. And then defensively, I know you and Nate say this all the time,

and I enjoy it when I listen, but just like, okay, the playoffs occur, and then Steve Spagnolo says, okay, now I get to do the real fun stuff. got the dudes now. So you combine having the dudes with playoff spags and you get what you've seen over the last few weeks. That I could have predicted though. To some extent, yes. The defense being as good as it has been, the defense being able to do what it did to Lamar Jackson. Even if you had told me that in November, I would have been like, okay, the offense looking like this, that I could not have predicted at all. And so now you have the Patrick Mahomes playing better. You have the line playing

better beyond just Donovan Smith. The way that Tray Smith has played in the playoffs, the way that Travis Kelsey has played in the playoffs. So is this just a situation where we're so deep into this that this feels like the 2011 spurs where we're kind of just like sleepwalk into 55 wins and they can turn it on when they want to? Or is that oversimplifying it? It kind of feels like that.

It's a little bit different though because, of course, you know, Kauai Leonard sort of comes out of nowhere. I don't know who that character is. What do you mean? There's plenty of them. Look at the defense. Look at like what Lagerie Sneed is now, compared to what he was two years ago.

Or what McDuffie is now compared to what he was two years ago. Okay, so if you're saying defense of Kauai, then I agree. Yeah, so let's call the young core of defensive players. Let's call that Kauai Latter in this analogy. And like, you know. Who I actually like that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so now you're looking at Travis Kelsi like Mono Genoble or obviously Tim Duncan.

I mean, Patrick Mahomes, guys, I cannot stress this enough. It's playing his best version of football we have perhaps ever seen. that's crazy and last year he had the most flawless second half in Super Bowl history on essentially one and a half legs against the most fearsome pass rush

in the league in the Philadelphia Eagles and now he's playing better because mentally I just think he's at a very very high level of knowing what the defense is doing knowing his answers are okay if I have to scramble because Travis ran the wrong route I'll somehow make it work to where I can still give him a chance

in a one-on-one opportunity and you know whether you want to consider andy read to be popovitch i kind of understand that where you're sort of tinkering throughout the course of the year uh you know their idea robert was to be like oh we're just going to give four touches to mvs we're going to get four touches to tony kelsey's going to get his normal eight uh you know here's jerick mckinan here's you know sky more here's noah gray and it's like oh we cannot count on 12 guys to really move the offense. So we're going to really sort of get to what our baseline is.

How do we eliminate turnovers? They had to figure out how to stop penalizing themselves, which is more an offensive line issue than just about anything else. Shout out to Joanne Taylor. I guess the league has finally let him play the preferred style of football he wants to play. He's still doing the same things, guys. He's literally still doing the same things. You can't have 100 flags every playoff game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's to his benefit, I guess. And then lastly, all of a sudden, now the coaching staff realizes we have three legitimate guys. And we're just going to consolidate all the targets and touches to those three legitimate guys. And if you're deep, sure, MVS will give you an opportunity because the quarterback will literally put it right in your hands. So you could look at them as the spurs because they're not the most attractive contender when the tournament starts, but they've had the most experience and they've sort of relied on that to help them get through, you know, some tense plays. playoff moments. They could have lost to the Buffalo

Bills. Like I remind myself all the time, like if Tyler Bass makes the field goal, they could lose an overtime. If, you know, Stefan Dix catches a, the most impressive pass I've seen all year. If he just catches a 65-yard deep ball. Or Sherfield catches one of those two that were

thrown to him, the ones that MBS caught. Those are the margins in that game. Yes. And then Baltimore is just an exceptional to play, an exceptional two opening two drives to get touchdowns and then spags went spags and lamar didn't necessarily know where the blitz was coming for him or if he did as you and Nate talked about before like there's too many downfield routes

there's not enough of the running game we haven't been down by double digits all season they were out of sorts the entire game in the second half so now everything is sort of forced and we just we just don't feel comfortable um and that guy's just not making mistakes like the other guy who's the quarterback doesn't make mistakes so i don't give a break if I'm Lamar Jackson. Now I have to feel like I have to put so much of a burden on my shoulders. So yeah, maybe it's the Spurs against the Phoenix Sun, you know, the up and down group. Maybe it's the Lakers who are sort of, you know, the presumptive favorite, but all of a sudden the Spurs defense is what leads them past that series. It's a fair comparison. I haven't

thought about it. We're kind of doing this on the fly, but I appreciate the fact that the Chiefs have been so well coached in the second, you know, basically in the postseason, that it's given them a chance to win these close games. Among all, we've talked about this, we joked about it before we started recording. When you're with the team like this, that's consistently good, that's consistently in this game, and a lot of the core characters are the same.

Yes. It can be difficult to find new things to say about them. I mean, there were stretches of this year, and we've all joked about it. We didn't really talk about them, other than like, oh, man, the receivers are kind of rough, huh? There was very little commentary on Mahomes and about the main character is just because we've spilled so much ink on those guys over the last five, six years. I'm wondering from your perspective, who have you learned the most about among that core group of characters?

Who do you see the most differently now than maybe you did in August of Mahomes, Andy Reid, Spagnola? Who have you learned the most about this year, even if they're very familiar to most of us? Yeah, I think, and this is perhaps another basketball analogy that I can throw out there, but I do think we've learned the most about Steve Spacknolo. I really think we do, and to an extension, his players, right? It's hard to look at it statistically, right? Like, you look at Justin Reed's stat line, and you're like, good. That's a nice player.

He's had the best season of his career. Same with, like... All the D.Bs have. Yes. All of them. I mean, Trip McDuffie forced five, five. Fumbles, obviously had one of the more remarkable, or started one of the more remarkable, you know, fumbles into a touchdown against the Dolphins. The fact that he let Ligerius Sneed come to him and say, hey, coach, I want to, I want the job.

I want to be the guy that shadows the top receiver. Like, just think of what it could do for us if I can just be good, you know, and that frees up Trent McDuffie and Joshua Williams and Jalen Watson, all these second year corners who could be starters elsewhere. Okay, Spax says, sure. And now he changes his whole, Spax never liked, at least since I've been covering the team, Spax never liked a corner traveling. Because it felt like he was giving up something schematically in order to sort of tell the opposing offense.

Yeah, this guy's going to be on him all games. So now you might be able to dictate more to us than I love. But he's sort of shifted and morphed. You know, they signed Drew Tranquil for $3 million. And it's just like, yeah, man, you're going to be a rotational guy and you're going to work. And we're going to use your strengths and we're going to minimize your weaknesses. I think the fact that they solidified the Chris Jones saga, I mean, that is, you want to talk about some dark days in my life, Robert. It's being in St. Joseph, Missouri.

I love my hometown. I love Kansas City. I've been to St. Joseph, Missouri. I had an entire training camp without one of the more gregarious guys on the team in Chris Jodes, who was actively giving money away, didn't play the opener, sat in the suite. That feels like it happened 15 years ago. Yes. And like Steve Span, I was like, great, he's back, cool.

We'll just reconfigure things. Like, he's still the son to the Chief's Pass Rush. Everything sort of builds off him. And, you know, one of the more impressive things about the AFC championship game is we all knew this, Robert. Based on his incentives in his contract, hey, if you win, if you're a first team all pro and we get to the Super Bowl, you get a million dollars. and I thought, okay, he's already got the first team all pro. He's still one of the best defensive tackles in the league, perhaps the best. Okay, is he going to, and I remember Nate saying like he doesn't really play the run.

And in my head, I'm like, yeah, because that's not his job. His job is go get quarterback. And I thought, there wasn't a million dollar incentive for three TFLs in week nine. No, it wasn't kids. It was to get to the Super Bowl. So I was like, man, is he going to go chase? Like, is he going to stat chase? to try to get like that was one or two backbreaking plays to get them into the Super Bowl.

And he didn't do that. He just was like, cool. I'll just keep Lamar in the pocket. I'll continue to push the linemen into his face. I won't do anything out of structure. Okay, there's a blitz coming. Fine. I'll take on two linemen to open up somebody else.

I mean, it's a brilliant performance. Like, he should have had maybe a sack, maybe a tackle for loss. But Lamar's so elusive. He gets the ball out in time. Again, you read the stat line and you're like, well, Chris Jones only had like two tackles. He blew up an entire drive by himself. By himself.

Yeah, like there were several moments in that game where he made big plays in the biggest moments. He has a pass breakup and I'm like, that's one of the more impressive plays of the entire game. Because he knew it and he also knew, oh, based on the defense we're in, that might break for Jayflower. So let me get my six foot six long arms in the passing, in the passing lane instead of rushing the quarterback, instead of chasing the sack when the play is designed for you to do that as a defensive tackle. So a brilliant performance, but ultimately, Spacknello went from being a coach that I wrote, that I wrote a couple years ago. Doesn't like playing the young guys.

It's a veteran-laden defensive coordinator to Brett Beach and Andrewite. And how about we give you the youngest defense in the league and just see what happens. And here they are. They have been the best defense in the postseason. And again, a little surprising. even though they were really, really good in the regular season. Football dynasties are different than a basketball dynasty. And this is beyond even the Spurs comparison.

But if you just look at teams that were very good for a long time, there are just fewer component parts to being a really good basketball team for 10 years. You have five starters, you have 15 guys on the roster. Your coach is probably going to stay the same. Even the impact of the coach is less than it would be for an NFL coach. You're an offensive coordinator. In order to be really good, the way that the Chiefs happen over this stretch of time, you need different versions of yourself each and every seat.

And last year we saw them transition to the youth movement on defense. And the defense was good, but this was still an offense team. Patrick Mahomes won the MVP. They were the best offense in the league. In terms of every efficiency metric you want to look at, they were the best offensive football. That's why they won the Super Bowl. This year, they would not be here without the defense.

The defense has been the most important unit. I believe that's back and forth. I believe it's true. The offense was perfect against the bills. That's why they won. If the defense was not as. good as they were against Baltimore. I think they lose that game. They scored 17 points,

right? So in order to get there, in order to be this team that's really good for that long, you're going to have ebbs and flows on either side of the ball. You need the counterpoint on the other side to pick up the slack. And that's what's so cool. And I think that Spagnola deserves a lot of credit for that. The players

and them kind of rising in prominence, whether it's Sneed or McDuffey or the way that Carlophtos has played for stretches this year, but also the way that Brett Veach has built this thing. And even if you look at, you wrote a story, I think today or earlier this week, about some of the free agents that they signed on every level, right? So you have Charles and Menahue on the defensive line,

Drew Tranquan at linebacker, and Mike Edwards at safety, and how pivotal those guys have been to what this has looked like in the postseason. So that's why it's so fun to watch over this five, six-year stretch is because every year there's a different hero. And it feels like right now the defense that Brett Veach helped build for Steve Spagnolo, they are bigger heroes than they would have been last year, two years ago, at any other time in this trajectory of the Chiefs franchise. When he joined the team in 2019, all they asked East Panello was,

can we just be decent? Give me two stops a game. Yeah. Yes, get me two stops a game. That was it, truly. Can we just be competent? Can we not give up explosive plays all the time? And he was like, sure, sure.

Well, I'll figure it out. But now, you know, they have positions. positionless players to an extent, right? In a way that makes sense. Yes. Sneak can go inside. Now he's outside. McDuffie can cover any receiver you want.

He can be inside. He can be outside based on formation. Whatever the offense wants to do, fine. Nick Bolton went down in the middle of the year with a hamstring injury. Drew Tranquil, more, you know, you don't love him at Mike linebacker, but they put him in it. Mike linebacker, and guess what? Did a very suitable, admirable job. You know, Chris Jones, go.

from defensive tackle to, okay, it's a third down, okay, now I get to play, I get to be on the edge, I get to find my one-on-one, or at least I'm sliding the protection in my direction, which, again, can help Spagnolo. So George Karloftus can rush inside, so can Charles of Minnehue. They use a lot of dime personnel. They're one of the best teams that somehow using dime personnel but not getting beat in the run game because of the blitzes, I think, to some extent. So that's where Mike Edwards comes into play where it's like, okay, you'd be the

the deep safety. Now, you know, essentially, Justin Reed's like the second linebacker in a dime personnel look, but he's still the safety. And then you still have either Brian Cook or, I mean, Charmari Connor, a guy they just traded up in the fourth round to get. And now he's like a pivotal piece of the defense. Yeah, he's just good. Their nickel personnel, I mean, this is like a little bit in the weeds, but their nickel personnel in the back half of the season was mostly big nickel. It's mostly three safety looks that they were trotting out there, not three corners, even though your first thought about the strength that this defense personnel-wise is corner. Yes, it's corner.

And that just speaks to the flexibility. And we'll talk about this a lot with Nate later this week. But I think there are so many things that even the Lions did in the NFC championship game that worked. And they're the exact ideas the chiefs already use. And it's because of guys like Leo Chanel. It's because of guys like tranquil and the flexibility that they provide you. So that's what's so impressive just because this is an organizational win. Last year, there was some of that.

I think that what McDuffie gave them and the moves that they made in the Tyree Kill trade. Yeah. And in my mind, that was a lot of Patrick Mahomes making up the ground. Rising the entire tide in a way that we haven't seen in decades. Exactly. When you can rely on Juju and a couple younger past catchers because you have the best quarterback in the league. Yes. This season specifically, to me, feels more like an organizational victory because it's about the vision and the performance of guys outside of the quarterback in the biggest moments.

and using your quarterback's contract as best you can to your advantage. They used a large chunk of Mahomes' deal. All right, let's cut him another little bonus. This is even before the restructure. And then most fans were like, oh, okay, here we go, Alde L.Deckel. Like, here we go, DeAndre Hopkins. Who the hell is you tranquil? You know, who the hell is Mike Edwards?

What? But that they deserve so much credit for that, for adhering to the vision. and to the timeline and being patient with the ways that they were going to try to build the entire roster, not just one or two splashes that I think would have been impressive maybe from the outside, but not as useful at this stage of the calendar. And they got, I would say, lucky because, you know, they wanted Zayflowers. Didn't happen. Okay, what about, you know, Quentin Johnson?

Didn't happen. Okay. We're going to take Felix in the first round. Pass Rusher, we'll develop him. But in the second round, they got Rashie Rice. And he's become a legitimate player. So when most fans were like, why didn't they get a receiver in free agency

because we lost Juju Smith-Schuster? They're like, hold on, hold on. What if we draft another second round receiver in Rishi Rice? And I don't know, what if he's better than this guy more? What if he has similar traits to Juju where he can get a lot of yards after the catch? Their scouting has been really exquisite over the last two years. It's been really impressive.

When you look at just the raw numbers and how the rate of their success so far. And their coaching staff, which has started to get, you know, pillared a little bit with Eric B.N.ME, Joe Cullen appears to be on the move. He appears to be the defensive coordinator in Michigan. We'll try to lock that down tonight. But, you know, for the most part, their coaching staff has stayed intact, and that's also a key component to this.

Again, you get kind of, your eyes glaze over a little bit when these guys are so familiar to you. You watch Mahomes every day. You're very familiar with the way that his career is gone, what he has been, the stages of it. What have you learned about him this year? He's a fully formed leader now. Because most quarterbacks would have strangled. Cedarius Tony.

Most quarterbacks would have never looked. Well, to be honest, I remember asking Patrick this, A man, on the All-22, Marquez is open. and you just wouldn't throw him the ball against the Las Vegas Raiders. He says, okay, let me go back, let me recalibate things. Like, most quarterbacks have been like, I don't trust him. Yeah. Why should I trust him?

Like, I've given him multiple opportunities all season, but he somehow found a way to motivate guys to sort of push them at the right time. I mean, he, I mean, he has basically mother bleaked the offensive line, the last two postseason games. Before the game start, like, guys have told me like, oh, yeah, he's like, he's like, my nine. focused right now and so we're just trying to he's just we're just trying to you know trail off of his jet pack basically um he is literally carrying them but at the same time he's helping rishi rice

understand what he needs to do uh he still has Travis kelsey has a great wing man in the locker room but he's a fully formed leader now like what he says i mean it mattered before but he wasn't a two-time champion he wasn't a two-time MVP he wasn't the guy that shows you you how much you wanted to win. A father of two. I mean, like, 20s, well, how old was you know, 28? I mean, just, like, think about how different you are

28 than you were at 23. Yeah, yeah. Or, like, whenever the first year you were a start. I mean, it's, I think that that, there's a lot of real stuff in there. The best thing that they had in the all miced up of him in the AFC championship game is this the second half. You can clearly tell Baltimore's trying to make it, you know, an attempt.

There's obviously the unnecessary roughness going on, the brouhaz. And Patrick just screams at everybody composure. composure. I want you to dominate to the whistle, but I need you to be composure. You're saying that to the entire huddle, and they never, they never break character. And so if he gives this team a lead, just think of the mental boost it will do in the second quarter of the Super Bowl, right? So much of the issue last year was, man, we got so many young guys they never played in this game. Now the majority of them have. And again, if he comes out

in the first quarter like he did against Baltimore, I mean, it'll be such a, mental lift for everybody else because that guy is not only a great leader, but now he's playing his best ball. He's done this before and he's reaching, you know, even beyond the peak of his powers that we may be originally thought. Like, he's not, he doesn't care about stats he more, Robert. It's just, okay. Well, because why do they matter? There's only one number that matters now. Yes. And it is seven, right? Like, that's the only number that's going to matter. Because if you stack up what he is now, even his entire career, he's probably already in the top five all time just in terms of overall career accomplishments and he's only been in league for

six years. So we're at a place now where it really does remind me. And I know other people have made this comparison. We've made a lot of cross sports comparisons over the last half hour, but it reminds me of like the Tiger and Jack thing where it now just feels like all that matters is the final number. Like we already can probably concede that he's the second best quarterback who's ever played. His peak is better than anyone's ever has been. The first six years are better than anyone's ever has been. So now it's just a matter of what is the final number when we're at the end. So it doesn't matter if he throws for 5,200 yards instead of 4,500.

It matters if they win the Super Bowl at the end of the year. God bless Justin Watson, all right? Play with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. Now he's playing with the Chiefs. Hey, man, I need you to run a deep crosser. Ball's going to be right in your stomach. I don't care what anybody happens. I don't care whatever happens in the pocket.

You just run the route correctly. It will be in your stomach, okay? I will make sure you catch it. Hey, that guy, and I love Kyle Hamilton, that guy is a monster he removes people all right we're gonna run a little out and up i'm gonna put it right where it's supposed to be and the guy's just playing out of it's just again you struggle to find the words because you feel like you've said it so often but yet it's true he's getting better and i know that sounds odd but it's true like he doesn't he absolutely is he doesn't care about the

stats and also hey uh unlike earlier this year we're like i asked you you to sort of like go over the top if it's cover whatever cover zero cover one and like sort of flatten it out or like you know diagonal it across the sideline that way the sideline sort of helps you now no no i'm just going to put it right over arthur millet's head he has no chance game over the last thing i want to ask you because again you your knowledge of this team and just the way they operate is unlike anybody else is who are the guys that we don't talk enough about that have kind of defined this season that are drivers of why the chiefs are here that we have not already mentioned as part of this conversation?

That's a great question. I give a lot of credit to Isaiah Pacheco, because, I mean, Clydebra's O'Lear is fine, but he's not the number one pick that they thought he was going to be. He is their running game. Even if he's not the best running back, he's just so determined that he still gives you positive yards, right? He still gives you some level of balance.

I do think, man, I can't believe the Jerry Steen. wasn't an all pro. Like, I can't. But at the same time, he's not flashy. He does not talk a lot. I somehow have to, like, get him to say words in the locker room. I'm like, do you understand how good you are at this, you know? He doesn't give a lot of quotes. He doesn't intercept a lot of passes, so he doesn't have, like, these highlights. But every week, some receivers shaking their head, like, he's too physical. He's always in my hip. He's always making a play on the ball. He punches me before the play, after the play, during the play. I hate this man.

Like, like, Stefan Diggs is like, can I just go anywhere else? You just want to go home? Yeah, can I just, you not want to be a part of this anymore? To anybody else. They're like, sure, here's Strip McDuffey. You know? And that's the problem. That's why this defense is such a pain he has to go against.

Do you think they pay him? They have the franchise tag if they want to, if they, if it comes to that, I think they will actually choose him over Chris Jones because of the age and the positional value to some extent. Chris Jones is closer to 30. You cannot franchise tag him because it'll just, it's basically a quarterback contract at that point. But yes, I do think there's a way for them to keep him at least next season. And obviously he has said he wants to stay.

So maybe you can find a three-year deal that's really a two. That guarantees you for at least two years of his service where he can still obviously get to free agency at around 26, 27. So that might be an option as well. But I mean, you know, like it's so impressive that George Kahlavt is. should not be this good. Like, what's George Carloff? This is his best move, Robert? What's his best pass rushing move?

Because I don't know what it is. It's just, I get quarterback. It's just a lot of street brawling out there. That's exactly what it is. But that's just, I get quarterback. You need that, though. How's a spin move? It could be better.

How's this bull rush? Fine, but it's not great. That's why this defense is so cool, is because it's the perfect blend of intellectual ideas. Yes. And brutality. Yes. And when you watch them, that's exactly how it is.

the first play against Baltimore. Drew Trankel was lined up on the line of screen. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. And he sets the edge on the first play. Yes. And you just realize in that moment, it's like, this is just a different sort of team. They are built to play in this moment. And it is because the quarterback, the head coach, the tight end, the guys who have been there before,

they instill a level of confidence and a level of this is how it is here standards that permeate the entire roster when they get to this point in the calendar. And that's why we do this every single year. Yeah. And even for Rashid Rice, right? I think he's done a remarkable job getting better as the season goes on when it's so hard for rookies to do that, right? Instead of a little 10, 12 game schedule, it's 21. It's literally 21 games this year.

We need you all 21, and he's going to be available for all 21. The other thing, too, is that, like, it sort of proves, again, the maturation and the development of even Patrick Mahomes where it's like, hey, man, I really wasn't asking rookies to help me, you know, as a third-year quarterback. I didn't, you know, I still had Tyree Kill. I had to manage Tyree Kill and the fact that he wanted all the targets. I'm like, okay, I've had McCull Hardman, I've had Sky Moore, I've had Carrius Tony. Okay, I'm the perfect, I'm seasoned now to teach you what to do and what not to do and give credit to Rashid Rice for listening and adapting his playstyle to what Mahomes likes. That's why Andy Reese says Rashid Rice is probably the best rookie that has been Patrick friendly for the rest of the offense.

Because it's one thing for Matt Nagy to draw it up or for Andy Reid to say, well, this is what you want to do against man or versus zone. It's one thing for the quarterback to say, uh-uh, I want it exactly done this way. And Rishie Rice told me, yeah, I listen to Patrick and Travis. Okay. But that speaks to how you build culture in the NFL. When you have those guys at the top of it that they're one setting everything and setting the standard, that's when things shift. And again, just one of the other ebbs and flows that you see over a team with a team that's very good for a very long time. and I assume they're going to keep being very good

and I hope that we can continue to do this pretty much every single year. It will be, it'll still be surprising to me if they're here next year. Again, it probably shouldn't be anymore. It's starting you know. It probably shouldn't be. I know, but like, again, they gave up two straight touchdowns

to the Raiders. And now they're in the Super Bowl. And again, it gives me great pleasure because obviously we're close friends, but yeah, I should get used to this. But, you know, to your point, It's going to change every year, but that guy is probably still going to get better, better. And that is terrifying. Yep.

Nate Taylor, always great to see you, my friend. Really good to chat. We'll talk soon. Yes, sir. Joining us now is one of our wonderful 49ers riders here at the athletic. Matt Peros. Thank you for your having us. Appreciate it.

Thank you for inviting me to Radio Row, my first pit stop here on Radio Row. This is your second Super Bowl that you're covering? Oh, no. I covered the Harbaugh Super Bowl. Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, that's right. Back in 12.

And then that was still the time where if you were an NFL writer, no matter what you did, you went to the Super Bowl no matter if your teams were playing it or not. So I covered the Raiders Buck Super Bowl. So this is, I think, my fifth Super Bowl. God, the Raiders Buck Super Bowl. Dexter Jackson. What a moment for everyone involved. We talked to Nate yesterday.

And even after Media Night last night, I mean, this Chiefs team is on the upswing, right? They're playing the best football of their season right now. The Niners, that's not the case. One of the most recent pieces you wrote for the athletic was kind of about the panic that's being incited about the way the defense has played over the last couple weeks. So how would you just assess the vibe and the feeling around this team, especially when you contrast to where the Chiefs are right now? Yeah, well, you know, the Chiefs are doing what the Niners have done in previous years,

which is, you know, win at the end of the season and then go into the playoffs with great momentum. And you've got all this confidence because you're winning games that you wouldn't have midseason. playing your best ball. Forty-niners are, you know, in some metrics, are playing their worst ball of the season at crunch time here in the playoffs. And they've been able to win. They've been able to kind of eke out these victories. And it goes to their talent that they're able to not play and maybe play 85% of their potential and still beat a Green Bay Packers team, still beat a Detroit Lions team. But it is a, you know, something that they haven't figured out. they had gotten up for games this year.

The season opener in Pittsburgh blew the doors off a Steelers team that was, you know, thinking that they were going to have a special season. Yeah. Week 5 against Dallas blew the doors off of the Cowboys. They went into their slide, the 49ers did, right before the buy, they said, okay, we're going to rest up with the buy and we're going to come out and we're going to play like we can. They blew the doors off a Jaguars team that at that point was really good and was coming off Vitzby. and was playing at home. And that was like the best game they played all season. And then, of course, they went to Philadelphia,

and this was their regular season Super Bowl. And they just annihilated the Eagles, embarrassed them in their own house. But after that, it's been, you know, kind of sleepy here, disjointed there. They haven't really put together a complete game since Philadelphia, and that was on December 3rd. So we're talking two and a half months here, where they haven't been playing their best ball,

and they're having trouble kind of locating the it, you know, trying to find that mojo that they had in spades when they went to Philadelphia. You look at the teams that they beat in that list, though, and where they were, I think that where those teams were in the trajectory of their season is notable. The Cowboys were right before the buy. It's right before they tweaked their offense

and started doing some new stuff. The Eagles, that was right before their slides started. So even those blowouts were at interesting moments for those teams. The Jaguars game, I think, is a really good thing to bring up because I was talking to a chief's coach yesterday who brought that game up to me where they were kind of floundering a little bit before the buy. They come out against Jacksonville and they do some things defensively that they hadn't done that season, some five-man fronts, some pressure looks. They felt like they got kind of a shot in the

arm schematically when they were trying some new stuff to give them some energy. Do you think that's what they're going to do on Sunday? Do you think we'll see a couple tweaks here and there to maybe give them a little bit of a boost when things become a little bit stagnant recently? Yeah, that game was the, we need to change something up game. And they had Chase Young for the first time. They weren't getting any, you know, pass rush from the past rush opposite, Bosa to that point. So Young comes in, he offers something. And I realize he hasn't been anywhere near Nick Bosa.

But he's been better than what they had at defensive end going in. Yeah. Productive. Big guy. You have to account for him. As you said, they switched up their coverages. they did a lot more disguising. They were so confident in their defense that they would just line up.

This is what we do. Try to get past us. And teams were starting to figure that out. Kirk Cousins, Joe Burrow, in particular, really just diced them up. They had their highest completion percentages of the season against the 49ers. I think those are good quarterbacks to mention. Just sound quarterbacks, sound offensive coaches where it's like, okay, if you present these weaknesses to us, will be able to take advantage of them.

And they're about to play another one. Right. They did play one in Jared Gough, and they did a good job against him. But even golf had a nice completion percentage against them. When he wasn't pressured, he really did what he wanted to. Once they started pressuring him, once they moved him five inches, he was not a very good quarterback.

This guy that they're going to play on Sunday, he does move well. Stylistically a little bit different to Jared Gough. Anti-Goff. So, yeah, it's. It's a great question about how they're going to disguise those coverages, what they're going to do differently against the Chiefs. But to me, they were talking about effort issues. I mean, hustle.

I mean, things that are bizarre for an NFL team, much less an NFL team that's playing its biggest games of the season. But also an NFL team that's been defined by playing like that. Like for this team specifically, that seems so out of character that it's almost hard to wrap your medal. your head around. Yeah, that defensive line is built on hustle. I mean, it's a very aggressive defensive line. It's a deep defensive line. So

with the instruction being, we want you going all out on every play. And if you get tired, just tap your helmet. We got another guy, you got another four guys waiting to come in. So you don't have to sort of govern yourself. You can go, you know what to the wall, the full game, and we'll take care of you. But they just didn't have that. And either the Packers game or the Lions game. You wrote last week in the piece that you wrote about the defense,

they're 22nd an EPA per play on defensive since week 11. And that number is even shocking to me, anecdotally watching them struggle a little bit. But I think if you want to have, if you build a case for why this can change, that Jacksonville game is a good place to start. When we have a chance to kind of sit back, take a deep breath, press pause,

they have shown an ability to bounce back from bad stretches. Yes. And that was what, you know, getting the number one seed was all about. We are a really good team when we're well-rested, when we can kind of take a pause. They did that coming out of their buy. They've done that at other points in the season. They had a Thursday game and a little bit of extra rest for the next game. They've been good after rest.

And we should mention that they did beat the Packers and they did beat the Lions. So it's not like they've been terrible, but they haven't been the juggernaut coming out of a long rest period that they were at other points during the season. Like you mentioned, it felt in the second half, especially. against the Lions, and some in the first half, they were overwhelming with talent. There was one or two plays from every single guy. McCaffrey has that ball he catches in the left flat that he takes 25 yards on the touchdown drive, a couple touches for Debo that are underneath plays where he makes two guys miss.

Kittle had that one chunk reception. Iuke had the deflected pass. Every single guy had their moment, but those are more our players are better than you, not we're operating on all cylinders right now. Right. And there was one incredibly lucky play in that, and that's the one that. really sort of uncorked the bottle for them. That was the IU 51-yard ladybug play where the Lions defender absolutely should have caught

the ball. He didn't. And that happens. I mean, you have to be lucky at points to win a Super Bowl. Every team has been. But they needed that in a big way to kind of get going in that game. There's been a lot of discourse about Brock Purdy this year, to say the least. As someone who covers his team every day, who's talking to the coaches on the

the staff who's talking to players in that locker room. What do you think people from the outside don't understand or appreciate enough about Brock Purdy's place within this offense and within this infrastructure? I think there's a perception that he's just checking down all the time to Christian McCaffrey and to Debo Samuel. And he really has a lot of aggressive throws. The joke in San Francisco over the last few years is that they've gone from quarterback to quarterback, Kyle Shanahan's never quite content with a guy who's under center. The joke is that Kyle Shanahan has been looking for Kyle Shanahan to walk through those doors. And he's going to fall in love with Kyle Shanahan when he sees Kyle Shanahan out there.

He wants somebody who is thinking like him, who's operating like him, who's channeling Shanahan. And Brock Purdy does that. And Shanahan is an extremely aggressive guy. And Brock Purdy has been that. They've been aggressive throws all season long. I think where he runs into problems is when it's a very soft coverage and that middle is really clogged up. You know, the linebackers are dropping down. You see that when they fall behind.

And, you know, the running game isn't quite as scary to defenses as it is in the beginning of the game. Those linebackers are now 12 yards off the ball. And it's hard for him to kind of find those windows. I mean, I don't even know if there are windows. But that's where the interceptions come. That's why the Ravens did such a good job against them, two really good inside linebackers who can move around a lot. So, you know, I always look at the linebackers of the teams that the 49ers are playing.

And in this league, they're not a lot of good linebackers. It's like where has the linebacker gone on a lot of squads? Dallas didn't have good ones. Eagles absolutely didn't have good ones. Eagles didn't have any linebackers. I think that goes a long way toward why the 49ers blew those teams. out, the Chiefs linebackers are interesting because I don't think that they're elite, but they've been playing really well. They're on a role. That's going to be a really interesting matchup in this

game. When you're talking to Shanahan or other members of the offensive staff just about the things that Purdy does that maybe we can't see, what are the ideas of the terms that come up a lot? It's about anticipation, the work he's doing at the line of scrimmage again. So are those unseen elements that maybe outside forces don't really understand. Yeah, I mean, the number one, his number one strength is processing speed. he comes in, you know, he starts the 22 season as the third string guy. Trey Lance gets hurt, Jimmy Garoppolo gets hurt in Week 13, and Brock Purdy comes in, and the thing that struck everybody is that offense did not skip a beat.

It was going at the same, and this was like peak Garoppolo at that point. Garoppolo was doing a good job running that offense, and it didn't skip a beat in that game, and the dolphins threw the house at him. I mean, seventh-th-round rookie quarterback come in. You're going to zero-blitz the, you know what out of the guy, and they did. And that game, to this day, is the one that Shanahan raises as, that's the one I've been most impressed about with Brock Pretty.

And he played a couple weeks later with, like, broken ribs in Seattle and won. He's like, nah, that may be second or third. It's the Miami game. So that's what he does best. All the timing is exactly where he won it. He reads it the way Shanahan reads it. And, you know, like I said, he's got very good processing speed. So everything is linked up.

The feet, the eyes, the decision-making. It's all quick. And it sort of compensates for a lack of a cannon arm. I wrote about this today is that he and he started to emulate Drew Breeze back in high school. And, you know, now Breeze is the guy that, you know, you hear the announcers, Tony Romo's of the world. that's the name that usually comes up when they say this is this is the guy who Brock Purdy reminds me of and I think ideally the combination of factors would be you have that processing speed he's playing on time is making the right decisions consistently but his athleticism

and his ability to kind of create a little bit off schedule has been a selling point and a real key thing for this 49ers office for the last season and a half sure you look at the NFC championship game other moments his ability to kind of operate a little bit outside of the Kyle Shanahan's structure I think is one of the reasons that this has been taken to a different level than it was with Garoppola or some of those other guys. Right. You can't always do what your dad tells you to do in life. You sometimes have to, what's that, the water boy thing where the mother tells him not to get the tattoo and he does?

Well, Mama don't know. It won't hurt her. Exactly. So Purdy does have that element in him where he'll kind of break the mold and he'll improvise it. And you're right. I mean, we've got two guys in this Super Bowl who do a great job of that. I mean, they break your back when they get out of the pocket and pick up that crucial first down. So, I mean, I think it's something that Shanahan appreciates when it works. But, you know, his whole thing is that my offense has answers. If A's not there and B's not there, then C's going to be there, and

all sorts of permutations of that. It's about getting to C and about how quickly you get from A to B to C, and that is something that Brock Purdy has shown to do. Absolutely. Very quick, quicker than anybody I've ever covered, and that's what separates him from. That's what, that's the main difference between him, and Trey Lance. It's why he beat out Trey Lance. Trey Lance, number two overall pick, gave up Scads of first round picks to get. They realized that just the processing part of it was going to come

slowly for Lance. It came very quickly for Brock Purdy. I was looking at their cap for next year, and it is so fascinating because you have all these guys making $28, $30 million against the cap. Trent Williams, George Kittle, Eric Armstead. Pertie's making a million bucks. The long snapper's making more than him. You've got backup defensive backs making more than him. I'm going to ask you a worthless hypothetical about next offseason. When we get to it, do you think they would be willing to pay him market money to be the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers? If it gets to like a $50 million number, where do you have the organization? So we're talking about 2025 all season?

Yes. I mean, it's going to depend on what he does in 24. But if it's like this, I don't see any way around it. I mean, how can you not at that point? And then they have to, I mean, it's been, this is the reason. he's the reason why they can have this all-star team like squad, because his cap number is so low, it allows you to have two or three other guys or salaries

that another team just couldn't fit. Quarterback adjacent salaries because your quarterback is making long-snapper money. I mean, it's just such a cool way to build a team. And if this hadn't happened, you couldn't build a roster like this and you couldn't overcome the Trey Lance mistake the way that they did. Well, I mean, that was the idea of Lance was, okay, we're going to, okay, we're going to have all these guys making all this money. We need to bring in a rookie quarterback.

Let's bring in, you know, one. It was going to, Lance obviously costs more because he was a first round pick. But that was the whole idea. And so that idea got even better when Brock Purdy took off because he's making so much less than everybody else. If you look at the other pieces on the offense, it's an all-star team. It's the monsters. It's ridiculous. Which of those guys in your mind shapes the offense the most is the biggest driver of how the 49-

play among those four or five-star players that we're talking about. I mean, the whole Shanahan offense is predicated on we can run and pass out of the same personnel groups. And you've got a tight end in George Kittal. And I know there's going to be a lot of George Kittle versus Travis Kelsey. They really don't play the same position. No. Kelsey is a big slot receiver.

George Kittle is a small offensive line. That's the best way to put it. Who happens to be like one of the most explosive players of the position? It's insane. Exactly. You get the ball on his hands and he can give you an 80-yard touchdown. So, I mean, I don't know what they're going to do when he decides to hang up the cleats because he's been so essential to that team and what they do, that outside zone run that is the bread and butter. He's the spear point of that. And, yeah.

So he jumps out. Debo and McCaffrey all put sort of in the same bucket because they're both, one's a wide receiver slash running back. the other is a running back slash wide receiver. So again, it's this idea that it doesn't matter what defensive personnel you have out there. We can do a lot of different things with these groups. And then I got to mention IUC because he and Purdy just seemed to have a real chemistry out there. One I haven't seen in a long time. He's his go-to guy.

And that's why, you know, I think he started out in that Lions game, one of six on throws to IEUk. So, I mean, it's sort of a signal to the defense. If you can stop IUC, then you're really doing a good job in stopping this passing game. And it took that the ladybug play to really sort of break out of that funk that those two guys were in the game. What I love about it is that every guy presents an answer to a different problem, right? If you're going to play a bunch of kind of soft shell coverage, we're going to get the ball in Debo's hands and let him go to work. And I think that's why they struggled so much in the Packer game is that he was going to be a huge part of that game plan. for IUC, it's okay, if you want to play a man, or if you want to bump the coverage one way

and leave us a one-on-one matchup, that's our answer to this. With McCaffrey, it's, okay, we can have eight guys in the box consistently because you have to worry about him, so now we can run it with him or throw it. So every guy presents an answer to a different problem that a defense can present, and when you put it all in totality, that's what you get with the Niners offense. Yeah. It's incredible. The Niners have done a good job this season.

You can look it up. I mean, they scored a touchdown or a fuel goal. goal on something like on their initial drive in their first like 13 games. It was ridiculous. And so they got this formula going where, you know, they got early leads on teams. And so they could run the ball. And so like I was saying earlier, the linebackers still had to respect the run throughout the entire game. And then Purdy could throw over the top.

And he's really good at those little pocket throws to IUCO over the middle, to Debo Samuel as well, but mostly. to Ayyuk. It's games where the other team gets a lead that's really kind of giving them fits. I mean, that's why the Lions comeback was so sort of counter to what their formula has been. It's like the first big comeback that Brock Purdy's ever had, all those things. That's why all of that is unique because it's been going entirely against the formula that they'd set up during the season. Those are the star players and how they drive what the Niners are. Who are the guys that we don't think or talk enough about that kind of define the fabric of what this Niners team is?

Well, on defense, you know, Drake Greenlaw, I think he's starting to get more and more recognition. I hope Charverius Ward is. I know he has in the Bay Area. I don't know if it's sort of broken out to sort of national. He's their top cover a cornerback. I mean, he's gone in and played D.K. Samuel. D.K. McCaff a couple of times one-on-one. just shut him down. He's that good. So, you know, those two guys leap to mind on defense. On offense,

you know, it's sort of an anonymous offensive line aside from the left tackle. But Jake Brendel, the center, I think, has been good. Kyle Shanahan very picky about wide receivers. It's also very picky about centers. He needs a very good center, a very mobile center. And Brendel has really kind of taken that role in. So he'd be somebody I'd, I pick out as underrated. It's such a good point because you look at Shanahan. The comparison in my mind I immediately made was like Bill Belichick with coaches. Like he only is going to trust guys that he knows. And the fact that Alex Mack followed Kyle to like three different stops.

And then he had to figure out life after Alex Mack. The fact that he landed on Drake Bendel, it feels like a big deal. Well, I mean, it's a big deal that his number two guy in the room is Chris Furster, an offensive line coach. and it's first her who worked with Brendel in Miami, who kind of saw him as sort of a young guy I can groom and then brought him to San Francisco. Late, late bloomer, right? Oh, yeah, he's in his 30s, yeah.

And he was probably 28, 29 with his first year as a starter. Right, he's one of those guys that took the COVID exemption too, so that sort of kind of pushed back a little bit. So he's sort of reaching a point in his career that most players do maybe in their mid-20s, and here he is in his early 30s. So I don't know what that means for longevity, but a certain maturity and knowledge that comes with being that age that I think has probably helped him as well. For you, it seems like every single training camp, or maybe OTAs when you have access to the

coaches or whenever that starts, it's like the first day of school. You're introduced to an entire new class of coaching staff every single year with how much turnover that there's been. What do you think has allowed them to kind of sustain and work through that brain drain when other franchises haven't been able to do it. Well, I think this is something that Bill Walsh dealt with as well. I mean, you look at the Bill Walsh coaching tree. Mike Shanahan, one of those guys.

Mike Shanahan. Yeah, I mean, this all stems from Mike Shanahan, which all stems from Walsh. But it's the idea that if you see your colleagues getting promoted and going to high-profile OC jobs or head coaching jobs, you want to be part of that train. So he's getting the young minds in. He's losing them, but he's also getting a steady supply of them as well.

I mean, they're going to lose Clint Kubiak to the Saints. There's another Kubiak right behind them. And don't ask me to tell them apart. They look very similar. At Media Night last night, I was going to start to talk to one. I don't know if that's Clint or that's Clay. I just know it's a Kubi. And all K's too.

Clay's K-L-A-Y-2. So we could see Clay move into Clint's former role. We could see Brian Greasy, who's the quarterback. coach now, I wonder if Greasy if he doesn't get a job after the Super Bowl, I wonder if Greasy moves into that passing specialist role that Clint Kubiak was in,

and then Clay Kubiak, who right now is the assistant quarterback's coach, he becomes the full-time quarterbacks coach. I mean, you just shift one up and then, you know, hopefully you're getting a young mind in there to start at the bottom. I think it speaks to how central

Kyle is to the whole thing, you know, compared to some of these other guys that are not propped up, significantly helped by the quality of their staff top to bottom. This is entirely different. If you look at the coaching staff on this team compared to the coaching staff in 2019, I'm pretty sure Bobby Turner is the only offensive assistant that was on both staffs. Yeah, that could be true. Which is crazy.

That amount of turnover and this level of sustained success, you just don't see that very often. So you mentioned Drake Greenlaw, Jake Brennell, the guys, maybe we're not talking about in a positive way. Who do you think the Niners are most concerned about this week? Like the Niners coaching staff were the guys they're worried about trotting out into the field on Sunday. Who are those in your mind? They've been searching all season long for a third cornerback. They tried the – in Batch's name – Anthony Brown was an ex-cowboy player. You know, never has been spectacular, but played a lot.

And so they thought that he could be that guy who'd come in on nickel-downs on the outside. He didn't work out and he got cut. They brought Jason Verrett back. in. This is something they do every season. They bring Jason Verrett back in. Jason Verrett looks sensational in practice. All sorts of plans for Jason Barrett.

Jason Barrett suffers a season ending injury in practice, which creates a gut punch because he's so popular in the locker room. So there's a big psychological blow that they have to deal with. But my point being is that all their best laid plans went awry,

and so they sort of had to continue to go with the same group of guys. And one of those guys is Ambrie Thomas, and Ambrie Thomas will come in as an outside cornerback in nickel situations. Diomador Lenore and the Charbarious Ward, the guy I mentioned earlier, are the normal outside cornerbacks. In nickel situations, Lenore goes inside to nickel, Ambrie Thomas comes back out, and teams target Thomas. They pick on Thomas as much as they can. They did that in the Green Bay game. It was better against the Lions. But I guarantee you that's what Andy Reid is.

This is what these guys do. They look for the weakling on the field. That's the weakling on the field. The other issue has been stopping outside run. Week 17 or I'm sorry, week 18, last game of the season, 49ers didn't take it very seriously. But they played a lot of their starters and they lost Cleveland Farrell, a defensive end to a knee injury in that game. And nobody really paid attention to it because Cleveland Farrell, and I got four and a half sacks this year. some very modest number, not a sack eye.

If you're not a sack guy, you're not sort of in the public eye. But he was very good against the run and setting the edge and kind of handling those outside runs. With him gone, it's been Chase Young, who hasn't been as good, who, you know, in his defense came in mid-season, so he didn't really have the background in this defense. But it's been something that both the Packers and the Lions have exploited in a big way these first two games of the playoffs.

Clun Farrell's a great name to bring up because he's got a ton of length. And that's the difference between him and maybe some of the other guys that you can try it out there. He's not a sack artist anymore, but he's got a lot of length to set the edge where they're missing that right now. And he's a hustle guy. I mean, that's the word that infariably is brought up. Oh, he's our hustle guy. They have the GPS on their shoulder pads that record how much everybody runs. He was their leader for the defensive linemen.

So he's like running down the field. He's chasing plays. He's always moving his feet. That's been a big complaint. You know, something that John Lynch cited, Kyle Shanahan cited, Steve Wilkes cited as something that was missing in that Lions game. Just hustle. Your gut feeling, what version of the Niners do we see on Sunday?

I mean, if you can't summon it for this game, it's just gone. But I would have thought that they could have done it for the Packers and the Lions as well. Yeah, I liken it to the Avengers, where they got to get all the Avengers together for this one, you know? It's a big challenge. You got to bring McCaffrey in from this netherworld. You got to bring Iyukin.

You've got to get Chase Young to step up. And if they do, like I said, it's an All-Star team. It's a formidable, it's as talented as a team as we've seen in the Super Bowl. And I don't know, since the mid-90s, San Francisco 49ers. So, I mean, if they play, if they come in and play with a purpose, like they did against the Eagles, they showed up wearing all black to that game because they wanted

to be a funeral for the Eagles, the team that they, and really most of America loathes the most, if they can kind of somehow get that together for this game, I think they can win it. If not, then it's just going to be Patrick Mahomes picking them apart. And it's going to be a lot of hard conversations after the season because this team is set up and was supposed to do this. Right. How do you top this team? Yep. Matt Barrow's, thank you very much the time, sir. Always great to chat with you. We'll do it again soon. Thank you so much for having me on. All right, guys, that's all we got today. Thank you so much to Nate.

Thank you so much to Matt Barrows. Always great to chat with our writers. They do a fantastic job of covering these teams and giving you everything you need to know. Please go check out all of their work during Super Bowl week. I mean, the amount of content that's coming your guys is way from all of our writers. It's phenomenal. I think we got like six to eight people on the ground and great stuff coming your way every single day. We will be back with Chase Daniel and Mitchell Schwartz. doing a little Mitchell Schwartz with our In the Pocket. So great to chat with Mitch about all things. Chiefs, some fantastic insights on that show. And some really fun stuff from Chase about his personal Super Bowl memories from back in 2009. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.

This was The Athletic Football Show.