The non-Mahomes, Purdy players to watch in Super Bowl LVIII

You know the big names of this Super Bowl matchup already. There’s no need to talk about Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purdy anymore, treating a 53-on-53-man matchup like it’s a one-on-one boxing match. We’ve gotten enough coverage of the Travis Kelces and the Christian McCaffreys of this game.

For those who really want to know how Super Bowl LVIII will get decided, we need to dig deeper. These 12 names, big and small, will help decide the outcome of the Super Bowl; despite not getting the same publicity as the big stars, they have a chance to become household names after Sunday.

The Kansas City Chiefs do not have the same receiving corps that teams of the Reid-Mahomes era. The lone exception: Rashee Rice. The second-round rookie has blossomed into the only reliable receiver not named Travis Kelce that Mahomes has consistently thrown to since the second half of the regular season.

Since the playoffs began, Rice’s 25 targets are second to only Kelce’s 27. No other player has more than 8 (Marquez Valdes-Scantling).

The 49ers secondary isn’t remarkable and have linebackers well-equipped to cover Kelce, fourth in the NFL in defensive DVOA against tight ends. It will be up to Rice to set the tone for Kansas City’s passing attack.

Deebo Samuel is the receiver everyone knows on the 49ers, but 2023 has been all about Brandon Aiyuk. The 2020 first-round receiver is having a career year, finishing seventh in the league with 1,342 receiving yards on a career-high 12.8 yards per target.

He’s solidified himself as a borderline top-10 receiver in the league with his elite speed, route-running, and ability at the point of catch.

Aiyuk has also had one of the biggest plays of the 49ers postseason run, hauling in a tipped pass against the Lions for a 51-yard, game-changing reception. He will likely end up drawing the Chiefs’ top coverage assignment in L’Jarius Sneed, who is sixth among cornerbacks (min. 12 games played) in completion percentage allowed (38.6%) while setting a career-high in pass breakups (14), per Sports Info Solutions.

Chris Jones is an absolute game-wrecker. Including the playoffs, Jones’s 85 quarterback pressures are one shy of the league lead for interior defensive linemen, per PFF.

He leads the Chiefs in sacks and sits behind only Justin Madubuike as the leading defensive tackle in sacks.

As a defensive presence, he can line up anywhere along the defensive line and can exploit a 49ers offensive line that, frankly, isn’t all that great.

He is a presence good enough that the 49ers will have to completely orchestrate their pass protection scheme around identifying Jones.

The San Francisco 49ers have one of the best offensive linemen in Trent Williams. Also, the 49ers don’t have a great offensive line.

These two statements are not mutually exclusive.

According to PFF, Brock Purdy has been under pressure on 39% of dropbacks this season. Not awful, but well above league average.

Purdy and the 49ers are still excellent against the blitz, leading the league wth a 0.42 EPA/play against the blitz per Sumer Sports. However, PFF notes that Purdy’s turnover-worthy play rate spikes when under pressure.

McKivitz and the rest of the line will be crucial to keeping San Francisco in this game, because Kansas City will be at the second-year quarterback’s throat. The Chiefs defense is one of the best in the league at getting to the quarterback.

Their 29.2% pressure rate and 31.7% blitz rate ranked second and sixth in the league, respectively, per Sumer Sports.

Starting guard Joe Thuney is unlikely to play due to a torn pec he suffered during the Divisional Round win over Buffalo.

His substitute, a 2019 seventh-rounder who has played just over 1,000 snaps over his first five seasons, allowed four pressures and a sack in the AFC Championship, per PFF.

The 49ers elite talent along the defensive line – especially in the interior – will define how much time Mahomes has to work downfield. If Allegretti can hold his own and not be a liability, it will be a massive win for the Chiefs in the trenches.

Everyone knows about Christian McCaffrey, and after Taylor Swift rocked a custom Kelce jacket, Kristin Juszczyk is probably more well-known than her fullback husband. But Kyle Juszczyk is going to be crucial to manipulating the Chiefs defense. The 49ers run 21 personnel – looks with two running backs and a tight end – at the highest rate in the league, per Sumer Sports.

Kansas City is not adept at covering running backs at all and certainly not good at covering two-running back looks. But Juszczyk adds much more than a second body in the backfield. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, no NFL team runs more condensed formations than the 49ers. These big-body, hyper-compact looks force a defensive-back-heavy Chiefs team to run heavy boxes and get away from their preferred personnel looks.

That same compact group of McCaffrey, Juszczyk, Samuel, Aiyuk, and Kittle can split out into an empty look and stretch a defense across all 53-and-one-third yards across the field. That kind of schematic versatility can be a massive counter-punch to a defensive mastermind like Steve Spagnuolo.

The Chiefs second-year cornerback has had his highs and lows this season, but McDuffie will face one of his biggest challenges of the season in his matchup against Samuel.

Samuel ran 231 of his 359 routes out of the slot this season according to 33rd Team’s The Edge, averaging 15.4 yards per reception in that alignment. For a 49ers team heavily reliant on yards after the catch, no one is better than Samuel at creating after the catch.

Samuel leads the NFL in YAC per reception at 9.0 among receivers and tight ends with at least 20 targets, while 12 broken and missed tackles are tied for the most in the league among wide receivers and tight ends, according to Sports Info Solutions.

McDuffie thrives in the slot, posting PFF’s highest coverage grade (89.5) when lined up inside. If he can lock up Samuel where he performs best, the Chiefs can take away one of the 49ers’ most dynamic weapons.

Warner should be a household name. He is one of if not the best linebackers in football and has led the 49ers defense for the past few years.

One of the biggest advantages Warner offers is his elite coverage skills. Warner is seventh among all linebackers in PFF pass coverage grades, co-leads all linebackers with four interceptions, and is tied for sixth-most passes defensed (6) among linebackers per Sports Info Solutions. That elite coverage ability helps San Francisco finish fourth in the NFL in defensive DVOA against tight ends.

Travis Kelce is obviously the Chiefs’ biggest offensive weapon, and he’s dominated in the playoffs. Kelce, though, has had a down 2023 overall, posting career lows in yards per target and average depth of target with the fewest touchdowns since 2016. Warner is going to be crucial in the 49ers ability to shut down the Chiefs passing attack, forcing Mahomes to work with his other options.

Everybody talks about the Chiefs defense’s weakness in the run game, but the 49ers’ shortcomings on the ground are much less discussed. San Francisco is a pedestrian 15th in defensive rushing DVOA, rank 26th in defensive rushing EPA, and give up a worse rushing success rate (41.3%) than the Chiefs (39.9%).

The four-down looks from San Francisco and pass-rush-focused lineup makes the San Francisco front seven easy to take advantage of if Kansas City designs their run game well. Combo blocks, double-teams, and misdirection can completely neutralize the 49ers defense.

That would just leave it up to Isiah Pacheco to do the rest. The second-year seventh-rounder has added a dynamic the Chiefs offense has never had. How big a threat Pacheco is early can also help to define how the 49ers treat play action plays or prioritize their RPOs. With how thin the Chiefs are at legitimately-contributing skill position players, Pacheco will have a big responsibility in creating opportunities for Kansas City.

This could have gone to either Hargrave or Arik Armstead, but the 49ers’ ability to pressure from the interior is a massive piece of the 49ers’ game plan against the Cheifs. Nick Bosa is in his own lane; he will be able to rotate wherever he pleases on the defensive line to attack Jawaan Taylor and Donovan Smith.

The real gameplan difference comes from getting pressure with the rest of the defensive line without sacrificing in the passing game. One of the biggest hypothetical ways to stop Mahomes is to get pressure while still dropping seven or eight defenders into coverage. The data bears that out, according to Sumer Sports.

Kansas City ranks 16th in pressure rate against 3 or fewer rushers (19.4%) as well as four rushers (24.3%). However, against heavy blitzing fronts, the Chiefs up those ranks to eighth against 5-man rushes (27.6%) and 5th against 6-plus-man rushes (27.9%). Hargrave and Armstead combined for 12 sacks and 69 pressures during the regular season, according to Sports Info Solutions. With Thuney potentially out for Kansas City, the two interior defensive linemen have the chance to take over the game.

This could have been any of the Chiefs’ linebackers. The one Achilles heel every single pundit has tagged as a weakness for the Chiefs is their run defense. It’s bad no matter how you slice it. They rank 27th in defensive rushing DVOA, 28th in defensive rushing EPA, 15th in rushing success rate allowed, and 16th in PFF’s rush defense grade.

The Dolphins and Ravens failed to take advantage of the weakness because of their depleted running back rooms. The Buffalo Bills did, and according to TruMedia, they ran at 99th percentile rushing efficiency.

Expect San Francisco to err more on the Bills’ side than the Ravens’ and Dolphins’ in this department. The 49ers run the ball at the third-highest rate in the NFL and were tied for the league lead in explosive runs (10+ yards) at 74.

There’s a reason Christian McCaffrey is currently third in Super Bowl MVP odds. It will be up to Gay, Leo Chenal, Nick Bolton, and Drue Tranquill to stop the 49ers on the ground. The onus especially falls on them because of Steve Spagnuolo’s proclivity to run nickel and dime packages on defenses, putting even more responsibility on the second level.

With the season-ending injury to Talanoa Hufanga, the 49ers secondary is pretty much just Charvarius Ward and some projects.

That shouldn’t be that big a problem with the lack of true receiver depth on the Chiefs roster.

Lenoir will be holding down the fort against the rest of the Chiefs receivers.

While the 49ers are great against WR2s — third best in the league by DVOA — they can’t take the Chiefs receivers not named Rashee Rice for granted.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling generates explosives in the passing game. Justin Watson has his moments. The Chiefs are activating Skyy Moore off of IR. If San Francisco handles business against Kelce and Rice, the onus will fall on Lenoir to prevent any leakage from the rest of the Kansas City offense.