Colton McKivitz Receiving Unjustified Blame for Super Bowl Loss
The Super Bowl is rigged, right? According to all of the brainiacs out there on social media that is, of course.
The same people are the ones blasting former West Virginia offensive tackle Colton McKivitz for blowing the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Fortunately, a former teammate of his, Jonathan Feliciano, shut that narrative down. However, during his explanation of it he sort of unintentionally threw right guard Spencer Burford under the bus for being the culprit on the play that lead to the pressure on Brock Purdy.
This play shown above is the one McKivitz is being blamed for.
Sure, if you just watch it for what it is and aren't understanding of blocking assignments, it's easy to point to the guy that had Chris Jones lined up directly across from him at pre-snap. But if you closely look at the design of the play, you can easily tell that McKivitz is protecting the wide rush even with help from the chipping tight end, George Kittle. This is a missed assignment by Burford (No. 74), who slides to the left rather than picking up the free rusher Jones.
All that being said, the blame shouldn't be placed completely on Burford either. Quarterback Brock Purdy has some responsibility in this as well. He had Brandon Aiyuk at the top who beat his man pretty quickly off the ball on an in-breaking route and would have easily walked into the end zone for the touchdown.
As always, these things are deeply layered. It's not just one guy and on this play in particular, it sure as heck wasn't McKivitz's fault.
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