Four years after their championship showdown in February 2020, the Chiefs and 49ers are set for a rematch Sunday in Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.
While the franchises and coaches are the same, the teams look very different. The Chiefs were one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses in the 2019 season, but this year they rode an elite defense — and just enough brilliance from Patrick Mahomes — to title contention.
The 49ers still boast one of the league’s most potent offenses, but it’s 2022 “Mr. Irrelevant” Brock Purdy, the last pick in the draft, quarterbacking the team to a shot at its first Super Bowl triumph since the franchise won a then-record fifth in 1994. With even more weapons at his disposal (namely All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey), coach Kyle Shanahan is in charge of a well-oiled offensive machine.
It’s a strange thing to say about the Chiefs after years atop the league scoring chart, but this Super Bowl is a matchup of their elite defense against the 49ers’ elite offense. Here’s everything you need to know.
When, where, and other facts
Date: Sunday, Feb. 11
Kickoff: 6:30 p.m. EST
TV: CBS, Nickelodeon
Location: Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas
Home team: Kansas City Chiefs
Away team: San Francisco 49ers
Halftime entertainment: Usher
Pregame music: Reba McEntire will sing the national anthem, Post Malone will perform “America the Beautiful,” and Andra Day will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
How do I watch?
Cable subscribers can watch the game on CBS or CBS.com, or on CBS Sports apps. The game also will be streamed on Paramount+.
Sunday also will feature the first alternate telecast of a Super Bowl, with Nickelodeon providing a kid-centric broadcast of the game.
How they got here
Kansas City: For the first time in his career, Mahomes had to go on the road in the playoffs. Turns out, he can win big games away from Arrowhead Stadium, too.
After dispatching the Dolphins in sub-zero temperatures in Kansas City in the wild-card round, the Chiefs had to go to Buffalo for another matchup with the Bills — a staple showdown of recent postseasons — and broke hearts again, escaping with a 27-24 win after Bills kicker Tyler Bass missed a late field goal attempt. That set up an AFC Championship showdown with the Ravens. The Chiefs were 4.5-point underdogs, one of the biggest spreads against Mahomes in his career.
Betting against Mahomes again proved to be a bad idea, as the Chiefs shut down the Ravens offense in Baltimore, 17-10, to reach their fourth Super Bowl in the last five years.
San Francisco: The 49ers needed only two wins to reach the big game after earning a bye with the No. 1 NFC seed, but their path to Las Vegas was anything but straightforward.
San Francisco has spent the postseason on upset alert, starting with a divisional-round matchup against Green Bay that saw Jordan Love and the Packers take a 7-point lead into the fourth quarter. Green Bay kicker Anders Carlson missed a crucial field goal attempt with 3:19 to play that could’ve restored the Packers’ touchdown lead, and the 49ers marched down the field to punch in the winning score on McCaffrey’s second rushing touchdown of the game.
Things looked even more dire in the NFC Championship game, when the Lions took a stunning 24-7 lead into halftime. The San Francisco offense came roaring to life, putting up 27 points in the second half — and capitalizing on some key mistakes and unsuccessful gambles by Detroit — to set up a Super Bowl rematch with the Chiefs.
Notables
▪ Mahomes put up the worst statistical season of his career, recording lows in passer rating (92.6) and yards per attempt (7.0), while his marks in passing yards (4,183) and touchdowns (27) are each second-lowest only to his 2019 season when he missed multiple games with injury. He’s certainly not the only one to blame: Chiefs receivers dropped a league-high 22 passes this season, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
▪ Chiefs coach Andy Reid can become the fifth coach in history to win three Super Bowls, joining legends Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs. He would trail only Chuck Noll’s four and, of course, Bill Belichick’s six. Mahomes would become the fifth quarterback to do the same, joining Tom Brady (seven), Joe Montana (four), Terry Bradshaw (four), and Troy Aikman (three) with at least three.
▪ Purdy can become the first quarterback drafted in the seventh round (and the first Mr. Irrelevant QB) to start and win a Super Bowl. He is also the eighth signal-caller to start the Super Bowl in his second season. The first seven went 4-3.
▪ The four years and nine days between this Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl matchup and the last one in 2020 is the soonest two teams have rematched in the title game since the Giants and Patriots met in 2012, four years and two days after Super Bowl XLII in 2008. The less said about those two games, the better.
▪ A win would make the Chiefs the first back-to-back champions since the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX at the end of the 2004 season.
▪ The Chiefs undoubtedly have their best defensive unit since Mahomes became the starting quarterback in 2018, ranking second in the NFL in both points and total yards allowed. Kansas City had never cracked the top five in either metric in the Mahomes era, and only rarely reached the top 10.
▪ The weakness of the Chiefs defense is in the run game, where Kansas City ranked 18th in rushing defense this season. Meanwhile, behind All-Pro McCaffrey, the 49ers were third in rushing yards and first in rushing touchdowns.
The officials
If you’re bringing back the teams from Super Bowl LIV, you may as well bring back the refereeing crew. Bill Vinovich was the referee when the 49ers and Chiefs squared off in 2020, and he’ll take charge of his third Super Bowl on Sunday. Patriots fans may remember him from his other Super Bowl appearance, as the referee of Super Bowl XLIX when the Patriots beat the Seahawks at the end of the 2014 season.
Vinovich has been a referee since 2004. He took a hiatus from on-field officiating in 2007 because of a heart condition but returned in 2012. He infamously was the referee at the center of the controversial 2018 NFC Championship game, when his crew did not flag a clear pass interference that likely cost the Saints a chance at a Super Bowl berth in an eventual loss to the Rams.
Vinovich’s team called penalties at a middle-of-the-pack rate this season, according to NFLpenalties.com. But rather than his own crew, Vinovich will lead an “All-Star team” of officials, as the NFL has often opted for in the Super Bowl.
The rest of the crew includes umpire Terry Killens, line judge Mark Perlman, down judge Patrick Holt, field judge Tom Hill, side judge Allen Baynes, back judge Brad Freeman, replay official Mike Chase, and replay assistant Jack Persampire.
Players on the winning team will receive $164,000 each. Players on the losing team receive $89,000. Both figures are a $7,000 bump from last year’s Super Bowl.
Wagering
The betting line for Sunday’s game has settled at most sportsbooks with the 49ers as 2-point favorites, the same underdog spread the Chiefs faced last year against the Eagles. According to ESPN, the action thus far has been lopsided, with several sportsbooks reporting around three-quarters of spread bets being laid on Kansas City.
The money line is set around -130 for the 49ers and +110 for the Chiefs. The over/under has landed at 47.5 points, the lowest in nearly a decade, since Super Bowl 50 between the Panthers and Broncos in 2016.
Taking the 49ers to cover? Mahomes is 10-1-1 against the spread as an underdog in his career. So, you know, good luck with that.
Much of the fun wagering on the Super Bowl comes through the prop bets. Here are some to keep an eye on, via Odds Shark:
▪ MVP: No surprise that the favorite is Mahomes (+125), who took home the award after both of the Chiefs’ recent Super Bowl wins. Behind him comes Purdy (+225) and McCaffrey (+475), before a very steep dropoff to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (+1200), 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel (+2000), and Kansas City running back Isiah Pacheco (+2800).
Not enough juice for you? The Chiefs’ Tommy Townsend and the 49ers’ Mitch Wishnowsky are both at +100000, a nice 1000-to-1 line on the punters. Come on, live a little
▪ Gatorade color: Always a popular one that has you waiting until the very end. Purple (+225) is a slight favorite over the classic yellow/green and orange (both +300), followed closely by blue and red (+350). Or you could bet on the players giving their coaches a break this year and forgoing the sticky shower altogether (+1600).
▪ How long will it take Reba McEntire to sing the national anthem? One of the truly ridiculous props that folks love every year actually has a very unusual line: After Chris Stapleton took 121 seconds to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” last year, hitting the under on the 125-second line, the prognosticators expect McEntire to be much more prompt. Odds Shark has the line set at 86.5 seconds, nearly 40 seconds faster than Stapleton’s expected pace, and the lowest national anthem line in nearly two decades.
There are even more ridiculous props associated with this one, from whether any scoring drive will take less time than the national anthem (-230 for no, +170 for yes) to whether Reid (-130) or Shanahan (even odds) will be shown first.
▪ Coin toss: This one is, obviously, a coin flip. Heads and tails are both priced at -104, but tails has come up seven times in the last 10 years. You could argue — if you just ignore how conditional probability works — that heads is due. (It’s not.)
Last Super Bowl appearances and records
Kansas City: The Chiefs are 3-2 in Super Bowls, with victories over the Eagles last season in Super Bowl LVII (38-35), the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV (31-20), and the Vikings in Super Bowl IV (23-7). Kansas City came up short in Super Bowl LV (a 31-9 loss to the Buccaneers) and Super Bowl I (a 35-10 loss to the Packers).
San Francisco: The 49ers are 5-2 in Super Bowls, last reaching the big game in that 2020 matchup with the Chiefs. All five wins came in a 13-year span from 1981-94: Super Bowl XVI over the Bengals (26-21), Super Bowl XIX against the Dolphins (38-16), Super Bowl XXIII also against the Bengals (20-16), Super Bowl XXIV against the Broncos (55-10), and Super Bowl XXIX against the Chargers (49-26). After going 5 for 5 in the Super Bowl, the franchise has struggled to win the big one since, with losses in Super Bowl XLVII to the Ravens (34-31) and the defeat to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV (31-20).
The trophy
The sterling silver Vince Lombardi Trophy was created by Tiffany & Co. It was named (before Super Bowl V) for the winning coach in the first two Super Bowls.
The trophy is a regulation-size silver football mounted in a kicking position on a pyramid-like stand of three concave sides. It stands 20.75 inches tall, weighs 107.3 ounces, and is valued in excess of $25,000.
Future Super Bowls
Super Bowl LIX: Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, Feb. 9, 2025
Super Bowl LX: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 8, 2026
Super Bowl LXI: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, Calif., Feb. 14, 2027
Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.