The 49ers are 2-Point Favorites to Beat the Chiefs in Week 7

The last time these teams faced each other in Santa Clara, the Chiefs won 44-23.

Grant Cohn | May 16, 2024

Oct 23, 2022; Santa Clara, California, USA; Kansas City Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire / Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

This is surprising.

Even though the 49ers lost to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl yet again a few months ago and never have beaten Patrick Mahomes in his career, they are 2-point favorites to beat Kansas City in Week 7 next season. Go figure.

To be fair, the game will be played in Santa Clara, so the 49ers get three points for homefield advantage. But the last time these teams faced each other in Santa Clara, the Chiefs won 44-23. Of course, Brock Purdy wasn't the 49ers quarterback in that game -- Jimmy Garoppolo was. But Purdy just faced the Chiefs in the Super Bowl and scored only 22 points in five quarters. So it's unclear if Purdy can beat them.

Plus the Chiefs look much better on paper now than they did a few months ago. In the Super Bowl, their wide receivers were Rashee Rice, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman. Now, they've replaced Valdes-Scantling and Hardman with Marquise "Hollywood" Brown and Xavier Worthy, who should be upgrades. Granted, Rice could face a suspension for this game, but their offense just got faster and more explosive.

Meanwhile, the 49ers defense got older as they signed Leonard Floyd to replace Chase Young and De'Vondre Campbell to replace Dre Greenlaw until he returns from a torn Achilles tendon he suffered in the Super Bowl. It's unclear if he will be back for this game. Once he went down against the Chiefs, the 49ers defense got shredded.

I wouldn't bet on the 49ers to win this game.

Published May 16, 2024

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.