If you look at some of the San Francisco 49ers' statistics versus the Kansas City Chiefs' numbers in Super Bowl LIV, you might have thought the former had won the game, says Colin Cowherd of FS1. Below is the sample that The Herd host used as an example.
| Super Bowl LIV | ||
| 49ers | Chiefs | |
| Yds per pass | 6.6 | 5.8 |
| Yds per rush | 6.4 | 4.4 |
| Rushing yds | 141 | 129 |
| QB hits | 9 | 6 |
| Red zone | 2-2 | 3-4 |
Obviously, the numbers he provides don't tell the whole story from the game, but it is enough to make his point.
What is his point? That the 49ers outplayed the Chiefs in the game, and Kansas City still found a way to win. That makes them a dangerous team for years to come.
Cowherd notes that the 49ers pass rush got more pressure on quarterback Patrick Mahomes than the Chiefs got on Jimmy Garoppolo.
"That almost always means you win the Super Bowl," Cowherd said.
The 49ers scored first in the game.
"That, 75 percent of the time, means you win the Super Bowl," Cowherd explained.
The 49ers owned a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter.
"That almost always means you win the Super Bowl," Cowherd added.
The FS1 host feels that Mahomes and the Chiefs, for a long stretch of the game, did not play well. Still, they managed to rally and score 21 unanswered points when it mattered and against what many believed to be the better overall squad.
"Kansas City won by 11 over a football team in San Francisco that bludgeoned, humiliated seven teams, including Aaron Rodgers twice," Cowherd said.
How Kansas City continuously won in the playoffs, coming back from deficits in each of their games, is remarkable and uncommon.
"Kansas City made all sorts of mistakes yesterday, and won by 11 over a great team," Cowherd said. "They were down by 10 [or more] in every playoff game and won all of them by double digits. That's frightening."
Cowherd goes on to say that things went the way the 49ers wanted. They got pressure on Mahomes, they picked him off multiple times, it wasn't a shootout, and Nick Bosa was unblock-able. Yet, none of that mattered.
The rules of how to win a football game against an opponent apparently don't apply to the Chiefs.