A new decade begins in the NFL with a Super Bowl that promises to tell a new story. For the first time since 2016, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots are absent. After so many years of domination by one man and one team, Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers offers the tantalising prospect of fresh superstars emerging.
Patrick Mahomes is already well on his way. The Chiefs quarterback was named as the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2018, his first year as a starter. He was the second player – after Brady’s old rival Peyton Manning – to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in a season.
His hopes of repeating the feat were derailed when he dislocated a kneecap in October, though he missed only two games. In any case, his appeal runs far beyond the numbers. Mahomes is a must-watch proposition: a 24-year-old phenomenon who combines outlandish athleticism and beyond-his-years composure with the audacity to think outside rigid schemes.
This is the man who introduced the NFL to the no-look pass, who will throw with his weaker hand if he needs to. He has been irresistible in the play-offs, pulling off a comeback for the ages against Houston in the divisional round. A series of mishaps left the Chiefs in a seemingly doomed position – 24-0 down less than five minutes into the second quarter. They overturned the deficit before half-time.
In four career play-off appearances, Mahomes has thrown 11 touchdowns without an interception. A year ago, the Chiefs fell to the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Mahomes drove his team to 31 points that day, but a lost coin toss meant he never got his hands on the ball in overtime.
Jimmy Garoppolo is not on the same level, yet this is still another quarterback who threatened to bring Brady’s run at the top to a premature end. Garoppolo spent three and a half seasons as a backup for the Patriots before he was traded to San Francisco in 2017.
An explosive ESPN report in January 2018 suggested the head coach Bill Belichick had opposed the decision to let him go, viewing the matter of succession as something that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.
We are unlikely to see Garoppolo elude five defenders on one play on Sunday – as Mahomes did on one dazzling occasion during this year’s AFC title game against Tennessee. But this is a player who completed almost 70% of his passes in the regular season and who went blow-for-blow with one of the league’s greatest gunslingers, Drew Brees, in a 48-46 win over New Orleans in December.
If such performances are rare from Garoppolo, it is because his team does not often need them. The 49ers owned the league’s second-best rushing attack and its stingiest pass defence: a combination that permits them to crush many opponents’ spirits without the need to throw the ball.
Garoppolo attempted eight passes in the NFC Championship game – completing six of them – while the running back Raheem Mostert had 29 carries for 220 yards.
In theory, the Chiefs could be vulnerable to a similar approach. Kansas City gave up the second-most rushing yards in the regular season. Yet there is also evidence they have improved in this area. In the AFC Championship game they held Tennessee’s Derrick Henry to 69 rushing yards, after he had piled up 377 in his first two play-off games.
For all the inevitable focus on the players behind centre – Mahomes and Garoppolo share the highest combined winning percentage of any starting quarterback pair in Super Bowl history – the reality is that these teams boast plenty more game-changing talent besides.
The 49ers’ fearsome pass rush, led by first-round draft picks Nick Bosa and Arik Armstead, has generated nine sacks in two play-off games. Tyrann Mathieu is performing at an outrageous level in the Chiefs secondary. The two teams’ tight ends – George Kittle and Travis Kelce – could each make a case for being the best in the league at their position.
The most crucial duel may be the one that unfolds on the sidelines. Andy Reid is seeking a first Super Bowl win to cement his legacy in Kansas City – only five head coaches have won more games and all of them have at least two NFL titles to their name. His San Francisco counterpart, Kyle Shanahan, is two decades younger but has established himself as one of the sport’s most creative play-callers.
They lead teams with very different histories. The 49ers were a dominant force through the 1980s and 90s, winning five Super Bowls, and have played in one as recently as 2013. Kansas City’s last trip to the title game was in January 1970: representing the American Football League, before it merged with the NFL. One will get the chance to write a fresh chapter. A new decade will begin with new faces raising the Vince Lombardi trophy for the first time.
