The San Francisco 49ers picked up a much-needed win last Thursday vs the Seattle Seahawks. That gave Fred Warner and company a long week to prepare for their upcoming Super Bowl rematch vs the Kansas City Chiefs. Eight months ago, the Chiefs ripped out the hearts of 49ers fans everywhere with an overtime victory in Super Bowl 58, and now, San Francisco is looking to defeat Patrick Mahomes for the first time.
Two people who know what a challenge Mahomes and the Chiefs present are 49ers star positional players Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, who recently broke down the matchup during an appearance on the Cleats & Convos podcast.
“I haven’t beaten him either but 15 is a heck of a player. At any moment he’s liable to do anything possible and I don’t like referring back to the Super Bowls but you know rookie year we were up and Pat Mahomes just did things Pat Mahomes does,” said Samuel. “The two-minute drill in this past Super Bowl it’s just Pat Mahomes doing Pat Mahomes things. You got to give him his flowers.”
Kittle broke down the specific strategy that the 49ers will try to use when taking on the Chiefs this weekend.
“The most important thing is control the clock, try to give their offense as limited amount of time with the ball as possible,” said Kittle. “Because like, yeah sure you can get them they could have a one yard run and complete a 3 & 9 but that’s like not hard for them at the same time. The amount of concepts they have, the amount of freedom that Kelce has.”
Can the 49ers get revenge?
Perhaps the more important question is, how much would it actually mean?
Would defeating the Chiefs in a regular season game at home really be an adequate way to exercise the demons that the last two Super Bowl appearances have bestowed on the 49ers?
Probably not.
But still, the team will have plenty of motivation to try to win on Sunday, if for no other reason than to climb back above the .500 mark on the season after stumbling out of the gates.
The 49ers are finally starting to get healthy again, and when they are, they remain one of the most formidable teams in the entire NFL landscape.
The 49ers and Chiefs are slated to kick off at 4:25 PM ET on Sunday afternoon.