Broncos Hoping Niners can Provide a Blueprint for Slowing Down the Super Bowl-Bound Chiefs

This coming Sunday, the NFL season will come to a close with Super Bowl LIV taking place in Miami. With the hopes of offensive fireworks, stars making big plays, and a close game coming down to the wire, the biggest question those in Broncos Country (or Broncoland, depending on who you talk to) in regards to the Super Bowl will be; can the San Francisco 49ers slow down Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and that explosive Kansas City Chiefs offense?

There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ roster in the NFL. Due to structures put in place by the NFL to try to create more competitive balance throughout the league, every single depth chart will have at least one area of ‘weakness’.

It is up to the rest of the talent on the roster as well as the coaching staff and scheme to help overcome these areas of vulnerabilities. After all, football is a game about synergy.

Aerial Mavens

The Chiefs, for example, are a team whose lifeblood relies on the passing offense. When one has a quarterback as talented as Mahomes, an incredible coaching savant in the passing game such as Reid, and perhaps the best one-two punch in the pass game in wide receiver Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce (on top of the other semblance of track stars the Chiefs have accumulated at the skills positions over the years), the offensive line and defense need only to be ‘good enough’ to win a majority of games.

It really feels like this could be a perfect storm for the Chiefs to win their first championship since 1969 this Sunday. Rostering arguably the best quarterback in the NFL currently on a rookie contract, a team that has remained relatively healthy, and a defense appearing to get hot at the right time, there is a reason the oddsmakers have the Chiefs as a -1.5 point favorite against the Niners.

There will be many matchups within the game that will determine the outcome on Sunday, but the one that should perhaps provide the most context to the Denver Broncos’ plans going forward is how the Niners defense holds up against the Chiefs.

According to Football Outsiders’ DVOA, the Chiefs had the third-best overall offense in 2019. While the rushing offense was ranked just the 14th-best in the NFL, the passing offense finished as the second-best unit in the NFL only behind the Baltimore Ravens.

While the Ravens may have finished higher due to efficiency and explosiveness of their pass game in their unique scheme, no team was as reliant while maintaining effectiveness as were the Chiefs were through the air.

In 2019 season, both regular and postseason, the Chiefs chose to pass on 61.4% of their offensive play calls. It is true that a majority of analytics point towards the pass game being the most effective way to play offense in today’s game, the high rate of passing has been a harbinger of bad things for Super Bowl teams.

Per Elias Sports and ESPN’s Stats and Info, only two other teams have passed at a rate higher than the 2019 Chiefs; the 2008 Cardinals (63.1%) and the 2009 Colts (62.8%). Both of these teams would wind up losing in the Super Bowl.

That stat by no means rules the Chiefs out from winning on Sunday, but is an interesting factoid nonetheless. Furthermore, while great offenses can help a team get into the playoffs, the old cliche of ‘defenses win championships’ will be thoroughly tested in the Super Bowl.

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Balance

Kansas City may have the most dominant singular side of the ball in the matchup this Sunday, but San Francisco has the best overall ‘team’. With an offense ranking No. 7 in DVOA (No. 8 in the pass and 13th in the run, again likely due to efficiency).

Yes, Kyle Shanahan and the Niners have an exceptional run game, but it’s the overall explosiveness in their pass game that makes them unique. Producing explosive pass plays on 13% of their dropbacks according to Warren Sharp, it’s a well-balanced attack that can really control the pace of the game — if the defense holds.

That has been the case for the Niners most of the season as San Francisco also had one of the better defenses in the NFL with the second-best unit according to DVOA (second-best against the pass and 11th against the run). Complementary football in tandem from a great balanced offense and a great defense, but on paper, the Niners do have a weakness on their defense.

Despite rostering future Hall-of-Famer cornerback Richard Sherman (90.2 defensive Grade according to PFF) and former first-round pick (under Vic Fangio for what it’s worth) safety Jimmie Ward (85.1) having great seasons, the rest of the Niners' secondary just doesn’t move the needle much on paper. Starting cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon has been threatened with being benched after up and down play, safety Jaquiski Tartt and his overall coverage limitations, and lack of standout depth at corner, the Niners and their heavy reliance on Cover 3 might be exposed by the Chiefs’ passing attack. That is, unless other areas of the roster can help cover some deficiencies on the backend.

Elite Front Seven

Fortunately for the Niners, no team in football boasts the front seven talent like that of the bay area team. While San Francisco has been in the pit of misery for nearly half a decade, their continual usage of top of the first-round draft picks has finally delivered them one of the best defensive lines in all of football.

With such talents as Arik Armstead (2015, 17th overall), DeForest Buckner (2016, 7th overall), Solomon Thomas (2018, 3rd overall), and likely 2019 Defensive Rookie of the Year Nick Bosa (2019, 2nd overall), no team has invested in the defensive front in the draft quite like the Niners. San Francisco even went out this past season and acquired former Chief Dee Ford for an early 2020 second-round pick.

Boasting so much defensive front talent will allow the Niners to do something hardly any other team has been able to do against the Chiefs this season — create consistent pressure on Mahomes without needing to send blitzers. The ability to rush Mahomes with only four rushers, dropping the rest into coverage, will be something the Kansas City offense has hardly had to face this season.

As the Broncos showed against the Carolina Panthers in 2015 (and the Seahawks showed against the Broncos in 2013) a deep treasure trove of pass rush talent that can win one-on-ones consistently has the ability to muck up any offense, no matter how high flying they appear coming into the Super Bowl.

It isn’t just the defensive line that harbors excellent talent for the Niners, though, but the linebacker corps could be one of the more athletic ones in the NFL. With a stroke of luck as well as good scouting, the Niners landed Fred Warner in the 2018 draft in the third round.

Warner was not as highly touted as many of the linebackers in the 2018 class, but has turned into an emerging stud at linebacker in the NFL that is equally proficient in stopping the run as well as covering the pass.

On top of the talented Warner, the Niners also went out and signed the talented speed linebacker Kwon Alexander, despite him coming off of an ACL injury. The duo give the Niners one of the more versatile and athletic linebacking groupings in the NFL that will certainly be a huge part in whether the team can slow down Kelce and the Chiefs’ RPO attack.

All-in-all, this appears to be one of the more balanced Super Bowl matchups the league has seen heading into the big game in quite some time. With new blood, two interesting yet dichotomized versions of the West Coast Offense, and plenty of interesting young talent, the game surely has a chance to be a memorable one.

However, for the Broncos the biggest takeaway will be how the Niners' defense is able to measure up against the high octane passing attack of the Chiefs.

Hoping for a Blueprint

If the Niners' defensive front is able to dominate the Chiefs’ offensive line and fluster Mahomes, the Broncos will have a blueprint on the defensive side of the ball on how to attack him going forward. Continue adding to the defensive trenches and get players that can consistently win their matchups and create pressure without the need to allocate additional rushers to the pas rush.

This has been the general ‘sentiment’ in how to build a defense for quite some time, but recently it has come under question as some analytics, such as PFF, point towards pouring resources into the secondary as opposed to the defensive front.

In this scenario, with Von Miller and Bradley Chubb already on the roster on the edge, the Broncos will need to use their ample cap space and draft capital to address the interior defensive line and not simply get ‘solid’ players, but difference-makers that can not only stop the run but also get after the passer.

Such talents like Armstead and Chris Jones (both playing in this game) set to hit free agency, as well as rumors that Calais Campbell and/or Akiem Hicks could be cap casualties. Interior defensive line talent could be there at pick 15 in the draft such as South Carolina’s Javon Kinlaw or Iowa’s A.J. Epenesa (who played edge at Iowa but would project as a 3-4 DE in Denver’s scheme), so the Broncos will have a chance to bolster the defensive line.

However, there is a strong chance that despite the talent the Niners have on the defensive front seven, the lack of talent and depth (as well as man coverage ability) in the secondary will spell doom against the Chiefs’ aerial assault. In such case, while the Broncos already have talent at safety in Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson, resources will need to be poured into cornerback to reinforce the secondary and give Denver a chance to match up against the Chiefs' numerous weapons on the boundary.

The Takeaway

In the end, it’s going to take a team effort for the Broncos’ to be able to overcome the Chiefs in the AFC West. The offense needs to score more points, the defense needs to give up less, and for the love of everything, the special teams can’t continue to play as poorly as they have over the past few seasons.

There is hope though as eventually the Chiefs will have to pay Mahomes, which will completely alter how they can build their roster as there is no better bargain in all of sports currently than Mahomes on a rookie contract. However, Mahomes and the Chiefs are not going anywhere.

Denver will need to improve in all three phases to close the gap, but looking at how the Niners' defense holds up against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl should provide a blueprint for what may (or may not) work in regards to building a defense in Denver that can give the Broncos a chance against the Chiefs going forward.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKendellMHH and @MileHighHuddle.

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