Sometimes, in order to win a Super Bowl championship, you have to do something a little bit unexpected. And it seems like that’s exactly what the Kansas City Chiefs did to beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII last week.
The Chiefs have not exactly been known for playing a lot of man-to-man defense under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. But as Robert Mayes of The Athletic points out, they played man-to-man defense on the majority of their defensive plays against the Niners on Sunday.
“Per @TruMediaSports’ numbers, the Chiefs played man on 60.6% of dropbacks in the Super Bowl. That’s the highest rate by a Chiefs team in any game of the Spags era. Previous high was 52.5% against the Broncos in 2020. They’ve only had 4 games over 50%. [Heck] of a changeup,” Mays said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
Obviously, this is a pretty shocking change of strategy from the Chiefs and one that the Niners were unlikely to expect given the previous film on the Chiefs. But it’s pretty clear that it worked as they held San Francisco to just one touchdown on the game, coming on a trick play.
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