USA TODAY International Edition

Super 49ers- Chiefs features league’s amazing future

- Nancy Armour Columnist USA TODAY

There’s no better way for the NFL to wrap up its celebratio­n of its first 100 years than by showcasing its future.

The Chiefs and the 49ers might not have been the Super Bowl matchup anyone expected when the playoffs began. Certainly not when the season began. But it’s fitting in this, the 100th season of the NFL, the Super Bowl will feature the game’s best young quarterbac­k in Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and its best young defensive player in San Francisco’s Nick Bosa.

“I knew I wanted to be in this moment,” Mahomes said of what he learned from falling short in last year’s AFC title game, “being able to play for this game to get to the Super Bowl.”

The NFL is driven as much by its star players as its marquee teams. And for much of the last 20 years, it has been in the very capable hands of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. But eras inevitably end, and the looming void has been hanging over the NFL’s head the last few seasons.

If this season has shown anything, however, it’s that the NFL will be fine.

Mahomes is the reigning MVP and now has the chance to become the first player to win the MVP and a Super Bowl title before he’s 25. Every Chiefs game

features at least one, “Did he really just do that?” moment, be it his four touchdown passes in the second quarter of the divisional round or his 27- yard twisting, tightrope- walking TD run in the AFC championsh­ip game.

“The best quarterbac­k in the National Football League right there, baby,” Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. “And he shows it every time.”

Bosa, meanwhile, has energized a 49ers franchise that won all of four games just last year. The No. 2 pick in the draft, he had quarterbac­ks across the league looking over their shoulders with nine sacks, an intercepti­on and two recovered fumbles. He was the only rookie starter for the Pro Bowl.

In the NFC championsh­ip game, the Packers still had a chance to make a game of it, trailing by a TD late in the first quarter, when Bosa snagged Rodgers by the ankle on 3rd- and- 7 and spun him to the ground for a 13- yard sack. Although there was still plenty of game left, it felt as if it was already over, and by halftime it was.

“Bosa has definitely been a difference maker,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said recently. “I’m very glad we have him. I don’t wish 4- 12 on anybody, but after going through it, it’s nice what it brought us.”

It is not hard to imagine Mahomes and Bosa, along with Ravens quarterbac­k Lamar Jackson, as the poster boys of the NFL for the next decade. Just as Brady’s and Manning’s recurring rivalry bolstered their star power, so, too, will Mahomes and Bosa facing each other, the best being tested by the best. But unlike Brady and Manning, who played each other almost every season from 2001 to 2015 and four times for AFC titles, Mahomes and Bosa are only assured of playing once every four seasons. The only way they’ll see each other in the postseason is in the Super Bowl, heightenin­g the stakes for Feb. 2 in Miami.

It isn’t just on the field where the NFL could be – should be – getting a glimpse of its future. While much will be made about Shanahan reaching the Super Bowl at 40 and the young wave of coaches, two coordinato­rs deserve notice. Robert Saleh, San Francisco’s defensive coordinato­r, and Eric Bieniemy, Kansas City’s offensive coordinato­r, are not only the architects of the best units in the NFL but also as responsibl­e as anyone for the developmen­t of their team’s young stars.

Yet, because both are minorities, they have repeatedly been passed over for head coaching jobs in favor of white candidates with thinner resumes.

This whole season has been focused on the NFL’s glorious past. If this Super Bowl is a preview, its future can be even better.

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