TOP OF D LINE
Ex-Giant Tuck: Defense can ‘sway’ game in 49ers’ favor
MIAMI — Justin Tuck is in town for Super Bowl week. Not as a player. He’s been there and done that. Twice. Won both times. Could have been MVP in both of them. Should have been the MVP in one of them. Tuck, the former Giants defensive end of 11 years who retired in 2015, is on to different — but no less impressive — things with his life now as a vice president of the private wealth division of Goldman Sachs after earning his graduate degree from the Wharton School of Business. Tuck was one of the smart athletes in that he began to plant the seeds for his post-NFL career while he was still in the prime of it. On Friday, Tuck was settled into a leather chair on a small elevated stage on the 60th floor of a shiny new skyscraper in the center of Miami doing in his NFL afterlife what he did during his playing career: Excelling. He and former Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire spoke to an intimate audience at a Dow Jones event called “Playmakers,’’ answering moderated questions in a session titled, “The Next Big Play: From Sports to Business.’’ After the event, Tuck told The Post that this Super Bowl has a déjà vu element to it in that the matchup looks familiar to the two he and the Giants played in against the Patriots. “There are similarities,’’ Tuck said.
“We caught Tom Brady in the height of his career, at the peak. He’d just set all those records. Now you’re talking about [Chiefs quarterback Patrick] Mahomes, who seems to lead the next wave of multiple-MVP, record-setting type of quarterbacks. And, that offense is as prolific as any offense in league history, so I definitely see a lot of similarities to our matchup with the Patriots.’’
Brady threw 50 touchdowns in 2007, 23 of them to Randy Moss, before facing Tuck’s Giants in the Super Bowl. Mahomes, despite missing two games because of injury, threw 26 touchdowns and just five interceptions. As with Brady’s Patriots, few believe Mahomes’ Kansas City offense can be stopped. Tuck begs to differ. “The 49ers have a somewhat comparable D-line,’’ he said of his Giants’ fronts. “They definitely controlled the line of scrimmage in just about every game they’ve played this year. It’s going to come down to those two heads of the team, I think. If that 49ers D-line continues to do what they’ve done all year, it’s going to make it very difficult on Mahomes. ... That’s how we did it with Tom. We took the running game away and hit him. If the 49ers are able to hit Mahomes it definitely can sway in the 49ers’ favor.’’
Tuck had two sacks and a forced fumble in the Giants 2008 Super Bowl win over the Patriots, famously ending their undefeated season. He had another two sacks in the Giants 2012 Super Bowl win over New England.
The strategy in both games was the same: Get to Brady. Same as the 49ers’ strategy will be Sunday: Get to Mahomes.
“Take the head off the snake,’’ Tuck said.
Defensive end Arik Armstead led the 49ers with 10 sacks this season. Rookie defensive end Nick Bosa, the young stud of the group, had nine. Defensive end DeForest Buckner had 7 ½ sacks and Dee Ford, the former Chiefs defensive end who might be the most explosive of them all, had 6 ½ in 11 games.
The 49ers front, like the Giants front did back in the day, comes at you in waves.
“I like them a lot,’’ Tuck said. “They don’t necessarily have the household names that we had, but they got a lot of talent — young talent. ... I definitely think that matchup favors [the 49ers] tremendously in this game.’’
Yet the Chiefs are the favorites. Why? Because people dig offense more than they gravitate toward defense. And the majority believe no one can stop Mahomes.
Tuck recognizes the pre-Super Bowl vibe, because he felt it as a player in his two as an underdog.
“I think it allowed us to play loose,’’ Tuck recalled. “We were like, ‘Hey listen, no one expected us to be in this game, let’s go out and have fun, not worry about what other people think,’ because we already knew what they thought. They thought that as soon as the Patriots stepped on the field the game was over.’ ’’
The answer figured to be an obvious one, but we asked Tuck the question anyway.
“You are a believer that great defense beats a great offense?’’
Before the question had been completed, Tuck answered: “Yes.’’