One of the best 2024 might give us for Tremendous Bowl LVIII is a rerun. The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs marching right into a showdown towards a defensive juggernaut helmed by a lowly-regarded quarterback is one other reminder that point is a flat circle. We even acquired a Shanahan-McCaffrey revival 25 years after Ed McCaffrey and Mike Shanahan gained their last of three Tremendous Bowls collectively, starting with their first when Shanahan was a coordinator in San Francisco. Christian McCaffrey is the Eminem of operating backs, one way or the other incomes MVP nods at a time when the remainder of his place group is being devalued and paving a path ahead for the place. However these aren’t even the headliners.
Should you’re a netizen who’s been looking Cam Newton’s podcast catalogs and located your self nodding at his assessments of game managers and game changers, this Tremendous Bowl presents you with an immaculate narrative to chug for the following week. For professional-Cam parts of the hate-watching neighborhood, Purdy is solely doing a slick imitation of 2019 Jimmy Garoppolo. In actuality, Purdy is the one quarterback on this Tremendous Bowl who tapped right into a franchise savior mode in San Fran’s heroic comeback efficiency towards the Lions, whereas Mahomes only threw one pass within the last 10 minutes of Kansas Metropolis’s AFC Championship victory final week.
Whither classic Patrick Mahomes?
Watching Mahomes is miserable as of late. He was an adrenaline rush to look at. The youthful, extra dynamic Mahomes would pirouette out of the pocket, launch the pigskin into sizzling air balloon altitudes, and pray for one of the best. He can nonetheless do all that stuff, simply with a more pronounced dad bod, however Andy Reid has parked the ostentatious Ferrari offense that Mahomes gained MVPs helming, and he’s been compelled to place his luxurious quarterback behind a minivan offense.
The one stalwart from these glory days is Travis Kelce, whose examine engine gentle has been blinking for months. Travis Kelce is making financial institution within the consideration economic system, however the overexposure is starting to put on everybody down. Should you watch sufficient Kelce content material, you possibly can nonetheless hear him beginning each thought with “bro” in your desires or nightmares. Should you assume you’ve been inundated together with your fill of Kelce storylines up to now yr, you haven’t seen something but, bro. You thought Mama Kelce was consuming up display screen time a yr in the past? Simply wait till Jason reveals as much as Allegiant Stadium hammered and shirtless after a day Vegas pool celebration, then climbs out of a personal suite to display the efficacy of the Tush Push to equally drunken followers.
If Kansas Metropolis wins its third Tremendous Bowl in 5 years, Kelce-mania might unfold. It’s exhausting to inform what’s been extra grating about Chiefs broadcasts this season, between the awkward allusions to Taylor Swift or the incessant griping concerning the 45 seconds she’s proven on the display screen per sport. To make issues worse, lengthy after we’re all mud and bone particles, half-assed historians will attribute Travis as the daddy of the excitement minimize with tapered sides that’s been a staple of black barbershops for many years, due to the New York Times.
If anybody has been KC’s anchor this season, it’s Chris Jones. Kansas Metropolis’s roving defensive lineman rushes the sting and stitches up the center higher than virtually anybody in soccer. But Kansas Metropolis acquired stingy together with his cheddar and performed brinkmanship with Jones till he signed a one-year extension on the verge of their common season kickoff. Kansas Metropolis gained’t admire what it’s acquired in Jones till he’s lining up reverse them in a brand new uniform subsequent season.
Perhaps a lightly-used Nick Bosa is extra your factor?
It’s additionally an election yr, which suggests the unhinged nature of nationwide politics has permeated into the Kelce-Swift maelstrom. Should you’re underneath the impression that Swift is a Biden 2024 psyops marketing campaign although, Nick Bosa is the participant for you. President Rumpelthinskin’s favourite NFL participant may need erased his oldest tweets, however the Web by no means forgets. If the Niners weren’t prepping for a playoff sport in January of 2021, January sixth might have ended radically otherwise. However that’s the Bosa of 4 years in the past.
It can’t be confused how common Bosa has been since he earned an extension. Bosa, the backfield infiltrator, has performed like he’s operating on fumes. His stress fee, sack totals and total affect has by no means been worse. Paired with former No. 2 decide Chase Younger, the Niners have the widest disparity between manufacturing and identify recognition within the league. George Kittle is one of the best tight finish on this sport if you’re assessing matchups primarily based on every crew’s most up-to-date 19, 20-game pattern dimension. If he’d performed the final decade in an offense catered to him, we could be speaking about his Corridor of Fame resume. Sadly, Kittle has endured an meeting line of caretaker quarterbacks.
Quarterback Karma?
One can be inclined to consider the Niners earned all of the quarterback uncertainty they confronted up to now 20 years by passing up Tom Brady six occasions. In that point, they’ve run by means of an assortment of cease gaps starting from Alex Smith to Colin Kaepernick, Trey Lance, and Jimmy G. Additionally they handed on Peyton Manning after he underwent neck surgical procedure, however determined they’d relatively have Kaepernick and Smith tag crew in a Greg Roman offense. In 2017, they chose Solomon Thomas over Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, though they could have dodged a bullet with the latter. Kyle Shanahan additionally thought he was smarter than everybody else in 2020 once they elected to experience with Jimmy G over Brady again. Nothing would convey the collective NFL universe extra pleasure than watching Shanahan rue the implications of his errors in judgment as soon as extra.
Watching Purdy shrink on the large stage would flood his detractors’ nervous methods with ranges of satisfaction they’ve hardly ever felt all through their unhappy lives. Purdy is an inspirational determine. His ascension from Mr. Irrelevant to shock starter and Tremendous Bowl quarterback has been a singular journey.
In contrast to Jimmy GQ, Purdy doesn’t make it any simpler to keep away from being underestimated by naturally resembling a doppelganger for Prime Pete Buttigieg. However when he’s underneath heart he’s stored the Niners buzzing alongside like an Acela prepare. Okay, that’s the one Division of Transportation quip I’ve in my repertoire. Mahomes can’t afford to be outdueled right here. It’s one factor to lose to a graying Tom Brady, however his GOAT marketing campaign might by no means recuperate if Purdy bests him.
If there’s any justice although, Kyle Shanahan loses one other Tremendous Bowl squeaker when Patrick Mahomes Supermans Kansas Metropolis to a different come-from-behind victory, Kelce pops the query on the sector and in the end all of us purge this postseason from our recollections.
Observe DJ Dunson on X: @cerebralsportex
