Niners’ plan to contain Chiefs QB Mahomes fails in fourth quarter
MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. >> All it took was a stutter. The Chiefs’ Sammy Watkins got a step on the Niners’ Richard Sherman, and he was gone. Patrick Mahomes unleashed a pass over Sherman’s head and into Watkins’ hands. Four plays later came the decisive score of Super Bowl LIV.
Against any other offense, it wouldn’t have happened. It couldn’t have.
But no team in football was better against the zone than the Kansas City Chiefs this season. And no team in football relied on the zone more — and more successfully — than San Francisco in its cover three scheme.
But on this play — and many others in a 31-20 loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV — Sherman was matched up one-on-one against the speedy Watkins. “Uncle Sherm” as he’s become known in the twilight of his career with the 49ers couldn’t keep up.
“I just knew it was one on one,” Watkins said. “He was playing heavy outside the whole game. Those are things we worked on all week, and it helped us make one of the biggest plays of the game.”
Sherman was short on words following the game.
“He made a play,” Sherman said.
The 49ers spent the past two weeks implementing a largely man-to-man scheme to contain a Chiefs offense that had torn apart the zone this season. Measured by ESPN’s QBR stat, Mahomes was near-perfect — 99.3 out of 100 — against the zone.
Turns out, the prolific Chiefs offense can beat just about any defense.
As usual, Sherman patrolled the left side of the field and Emmanuel Mosely the right. But, for the most part, they matched up oneon-one with the receiver lined up opposite them, with safeties Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt dropped back in coverage.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the Chiefs offense began to heat up. Nick Bosa was in Mahomes’ face on the first play of the game. Mahomes tried to find running back Damien Williams in the flat, but Bosa got his hand on the pass. The next play? Another incomplete pass to Williams. The vaunted Chiefs offense didn’t look so mighty after all.
But the Chiefs simply used their opening drive as a test run. Then they started testing the run. And, more crucially, the run-pass option.
If Kansas City’s first drive was vanilla, then everything that followed was funfetti. Only to be followed by red-and-gold confetti when it was all over.
And yet, it took a pure act of Mahomes to crack Robert Saleh’s defense.
Sure, the first-half stat sheet looked good (Mahomes: 12-18, 104 yards; Williams: 47 yards on 10 rush attempts), but it had amounted to only 10 points.
The 49ers had even intercepted Mahomes twice — once by linebacker Fred Warner in zone and another by fifth-string cornerback Tarvarius Moore in man coverage.
But late in the fourth quarter, Mahomes — with DeForest Buckner in his face — unleashed a bomb that could have moonlighted as a punt. Only, it landed in the hands of a wide-open Tyreek Hill, who had gotten behind the San Francisco defense, for a gain of 44 yards. Four plays later the Chiefs got into the end zone and put their star quarterback within striking distance of a victory. And strike, he did. The 49ers proceeded to go three and out and put the ball right back in the hands of the one man they least wanted to have it. A weak punt gave Kansas City the ball just 15 yards from midfield, only needing a field goal to tie.
The 49ers, who held a 20-10 lead with less than half the fourth-quarter to go, could not hold on. They contained Mahomes for 50 minutes, but could not do it 10 minutes longer.