(Photo by Peter G. Aiken/Getty Images)

Five reasons the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat as Super Bowl champs.

The kickoff of the NFL season is fast approaching and its important to remember that the Kansas City Chiefs are the reigning Super Bowl champs. Led by an epic MVP performance from Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs snapped a 50-year title drought and are favored to take home the Lombardi Trophy again. Let’s take a look at five reasons why the Chiefs will become the first team since the 2004 New England Patriots to repeat as Super Bowl champs.

5. The competition in the AFC really isn’t that good.

You have to get to the Super Bowl in order to win it and the Chiefs had a very favorable path to Miami last January. Kansas City dispatched AFC South foes Houston and Tennessee at home to get to the big game, where they took care of business against San Francisco.

The NFC remains rugged but the AFC has gotten significantly weaker this season. Tom Brady’s move from New England to Tampa Bay has diminished the Patriots’ threat level while Bill O’Brien actively made moves that were not in the best short-term interests of the Texans.

The Baltimore Ravens are still a force to be reckoned with, but outside of them finding a team capable of pushing the Chiefs in the AFC is a tall order. Simply being in the weaker conference automatically boosts the Chiefs’ odds of winning another Super Bowl.

The post 5 reasons the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat as Super Bowl champions appeared first on Bet Sunday.

T.J. Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)

FanSided ranks 10 NFL teams with a realistic shot to win the Super Bowl.

We’ve hit June, which means we’re one month closer to the start of the NFL season. The Kansas City Chiefs are the reigning Super Bowl champions and the other 31 teams will be gunning for them in September.

Let’s take a look at the 10 likeliest teams to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in February, beginning with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Top 10 Super Bowl contenders for 2020

10. Pittsburgh Steelers

After narrowly missing the playoffs a year ago it looks like the Steelers will be back in the mix. The healthy return of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who missed 14 games with an elbow injury, will provide a massive boost to Pittsburgh’s hopes.

Roethlisberger should re-ignite the Steelers’ offense, which looked lost at times with Mason Rudolph and Delvin “Duck” Hodges under center. Add in a dominant defense with a full season of Minkah Fitzpatrick and all the ingredients are there for the Steelers to claim their seventh Super Bowl title.

The post 10 NFL teams who can realistically win the Super Bowl appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Not every team that ends up winning its conference is a great NFL team. Here are the five worst teams to ever play in a Super Bowl.

Championship banners mean different things to different teams. For some, they only hang league championships, as they’ve won too much over the years to another lesser accomplishments like conference championships or division titles. And there are those who have very little team success historically, so they’ll honor things as trivial as first-round exits after forgettable Wild Card berths.

But even if a team doesn’t end up winning it all, its run to the finals can have a massive impact on the generation who grew up watching it. To put it simply, they have a fan for life because of that. I am one of those people who saw my hometown team in the 1998 Atlanta Falcons make it to Super Bowl XXXIII when I was in third grade. I’ve been chasing a championship ever since.

Though this team struggled in Miami vs. the Denver Broncos in what was John Elway‘s final game, the original Dirty Birds went 14-2 and beat the 15-1 Minnesota Vikings in overtime to even get to a Super Bowl. The 1998 Falcons unfairly get knocked as one of the worst teams to ever play in a Super Bowl. People are so wrong about that teams, it’s quite comical really. You wanna see bad?

Here are the five worst teams to ever play in a Super Bowl.

5

1994 San Diego Chargers

(11-5) Super Bowl XXIX

When we look back at the 60 teams to make it to a Super Bowl in the last 30 years, you’ll often find a squad that perplexes you on how they even got there. Of all the teams to make it to a Super Bowl in the 1990s, the strangest has to be the 1994 San Diego Chargers. How were they the team to end the Buffalo Bills’ streak of four straight AFC Championships? Let’s find out now.

From a construct standpoint, they had a few things going for them. It was Bobby Beathard’s second team he built from the ground up. He did great work with the 1980s Washington Redskins. Their head coach was college football standout Bobby Ross, who dominated the ACC with the Maryland Terrapins, winning a national championship with the 1990 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

Of course, the Chargers had several great players, most notably linebacker Junior Seau. They had four Pro Bowlers that year in Seau, running back Natrone Means, defensive end Leslie O’Neal and kicker John Carney. The Bolts went 11-5 in 1994, winning the AFC West and earning the No. 2 seed in the conference. Beating the top-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers twice proved they belonged.

But when the Chargers got to Super Bowl XXIX in Miami, they had no shot against the San Francisco 49ers. Chargers quarterback Stan Humphries was outclassed by 49ers quarterback Steve Young, who put together the greatest performance out of a signal-caller in Super Bowl history. The Bolts were blown out 49-26 in Miami and haven’t been back to Super Bowl since.

The post The 5 worst NFL teams to ever play in a Super Bowl appeared first on Bet Sunday.

When you’re a champion, you can do pretty much whatever you want, just like Patrick Mahomes in the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl LIV team photo.

It’s good to be Patrick Mahomes.

You’re the best player in football, you’re only 24 years old and you’re already a champion. Mahomes just put together the greatest first two years as an NFL starting quarterback for the Super Bowl-champion Kansas City Chiefs.

So how cool is Mahomes? Cooler than anyone you’ll ever meet.

In the Chiefs’ Super Bowl photo, all the other players and coaches are standing with various degrees of ridiculous looks on their faces. There’s Mike Pennel (#64) who looks concerned, and Tyrann Mathieu (#32) who looks serious.

Then there’s Mahomes, basking in the glory of what it means to be a champion in this epic Kodak moment.

This is the greatest photo in Chiefs history since Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson was ripping a dart and sipping on a Fresca at halftime of Super Bowl I. Any self-respecting member of Chiefs Kingdom would find a way to get a Fathead of this signal-caller sprawled out seductively.

This photo is better than posting up in front of a convertible shirtless next to a tiger. Your talents quite literally took you to South Beach because you’re a champion. You won the trophy with your founder’s name on it and then captured your franchise’s second Lombardi Trophy.

Outrageous.

We have no idea where the hell Andy Reid and Travis Kelce are, but they’re around somewhere we suppose. Doesn’t matter. We have Mahomes laying across the front of the photo like he owns the joint. It’s all we need.

This photo comes only a few days before Mahomes was crushing Coors Lights with Kelce, fighting for their right to Lombardi. Maybe the San Francisco 49ers did a funny photo at the Super Bowl too. Who knows? That’ll never see the light of day.

As for the photo that saw the light, it’s a Kansas City masterpiece and further proof why Mahomes is the greatest thing going.

The post Patrick Mahomes looks hilarious in Chiefs’ Super Bowl photo appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Kyle Shanahan attempted to escape the ghost of Super Bowl LI and leave the memory of 28-3 in the dust, but his past caught up with him again in Miami.

I’m sure in the coming days, weeks, even months following San Francisco’s mini-meltdown in Super Bowl LIV, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan will study his PR guide and do the damage control routine when likely pummelled about his 4th quarter play-calling.

We’ll probably hear a lot of “I’m not second-guessing myself” or “I wouldn’t change how I approached things” or even “Those are the plays that had been working for us in the game”.

But there is an inescapable and inconvenient truth that everyone will point to and that will be zipping through Shanahan’s head and keeping him up many a night for the foreseeable future.

He played a big part in blowing a 4th quarter, double-digit lead in the Super Bowl for the second time in four years by panicking and outthinking himself.

In 2017, the Falcons defense — which had contained Tom Brady and his weapons most of the night in Super Bowl LI — ran out of gas and allowed the New England quarterback to magically get his team back in it during the 4th quarter, thanks to an assist from the Kyle Shanahan guide to poor clock management and play-calling.

The script was the same this time, and it was once again written by Shanahan.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had one of the worst games of his young NFL career, and yet it was still enough to beat San Francisco. It wasn’t Mahomes magic that took over the 4th quarter, it was Shanahan foolishness.

Sure, Jimmy Garoppolo missed some open receivers. He got rattled and couldn’t put the team on his back.

But he never should have been put in the position where he had to.

There’s a saying in baseball many starting pitchers adhere to when the game is on the line – don’t get beat throwing your second-best pitch. If you give up the game-winning run on your best pitch, you tip your hat to the other guy.

But that’s what Shanahan did. He abandoned the screaming fastball and tried to get cute throwing some breaking junk. Kansas City hadn’t been able to stop the run for most of the night. The creative ways to get wide receiver Deebo Samuel involved in the run game as well as pounding it inside with Raheem Mostert had stymied the Chiefs defense.

Shanahan let them off the hook.

With a 10-point lead and 12 minutes left in the game, Shanahan’s best options; run the ball, milk the clock, rest your defense and keep Mahomes from ruining the game for you.

Shanahan’s decision; four running plays and 13 pass plays in the 49ers final four drives, taking a total of only 5:41 seconds off the clock in all four drives. The Niners’ defense barely had a chance to catch their breath before being called on to stop Mahomes over and over again.

Kyle Shanahan needs to get a tattoo on the arm that most commonly holds his playsheets during a game, and it should read “Dance with the one that brought you”. Make no mistake, running the ball and marauding the opposing defense is who brought the 49ers to the dance, and Shanahan sent the run game to go get a glass of punch while he danced with the drunk girl who was giggling and flirting.

San Francisco fans were horrified. Atlanta fans were a case study in schadenfreude. Kansas City fans welcomed the gift horse.

The very thing Shanahan casually laughed off when questioned about it prior to the game — his poor play-calling in the 4th quarter of a Super Bowl– came back up like a bad piece of meat and choked his team…

Again.

Unfortunately for him, that’s something Shanahan won’t be able to turn off or tune out if he ever gets back to a Super Bowl again.

The post An inconvenient truth about Kyle Shanahan and the Super Bowl appeared first on Bet Sunday.

The San Francisco 49ers lost on Sunday, largely because of conservatism and missed opportunities in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIV.

MIAMI — Kyle Shanahan had largely been aggressive all year. In Super Bowl LIV, he went conservative.

Two moments will stick out to Shanahan for as long as he lives. The first came in the final moments of the second quarter. Instead of calling one of his three timeouts after stopping the Kansas City Chiefs on third down on the first play out of the two-minute warning, Shanahan opted to let the clock run, burning almost half the remaining time. He then ran twice into the line.

Starting the third quarter, the 49ers reached Kansas City’s 24-yard line and faced a 4th-and-2. Instead of attempting a conversion, Shanahan sent kicker Robbie Gould out for a 42-yard field goal and a 13-10 lead.

Two consecutive drives that could have, maybe should have resulted in 10 or every 14 points came out as three.

Maybe Shanahan didn’t trust quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. After all, it sure felt that way in real time. But this is the Super Bowl. Scared money doesn’t win.

Shanahan was fanning out bills, and those greenbacks were terrified.

Still, it wasn’t only Shanahan. Garoppolo had his opportunities to convert third downs, including on the aforementioned drive that made the game 13-10. All-Pro tight end George Kittle came open quickly, but the veteran quarterback dumped the ball down quickly to running back Tevin Coleman, resulting in a three-yard gain on 3rd-and-5.

Defensively, the 49ers weren’t conservative, but they’ll have their own share of regrets.

San Francisco had stymied Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes all night by successfully rushing with four and covering deep zones. Coordinator Robert Saleh bet Kansas City couldn’t drive on long jaunts all night, and he was right. Through the first 50 minutes of the game, the Chiefs had a paltry 10 points.

Then, suddenly, the lights went out for the Niners. Mahomes lit the fuse for Kansas City with a 44-yard bomb to Tyreek Hill on 3rd and 15 with 7:13 remaining. After that, pass interference in the end zone against tight end Travis Kelce. The next play, Kelce for six.

On the ensuing drive, it was future Hall of Fame cornerback Richard Sherman being beaten on 2nd-and-7 by Sammy Watkins on a 38-yard catch down the right sideline. Soon thereafter, the eventual game-winning score.

The 49ers had played the perfect game defensively for so long. Then, quickly, everything fell apart.

Now comes the next dose of reality.

Getting back to the Super Bowl for any team is hard. Doing so without an elite quarterback is doubly so. San Francisco must attempt to keep defensive tackle Arik Armstead and maybe receiver Emmanuel Sanders while continuing to build around Garoppolo. It’s not easy.

On their long flight back to the Bay Area, Shanahan will be thinking about chances he should have taken. Garoppolo will be thinking about throws he should have made. Saleh will be thinking about a masterpiece gone awry.

Moments and glory are fleeting in the NFL. The 49ers will be thinking about what could have been for quite some time.

The post The 49ers will forever be haunted by chances missed appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Demone Harris, Kansas City Chiefs. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

The post Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory confetti has tweets on them appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers had the Chiefs right where they wanted them in Super Bowl 54, but just like with the Falcons three years ago, couldn’t close the deal

At some point in his still-young coaching career, Kyle Shanahan won’t be able to help looking down at his bare fingers knowing he let two Super Bowl rings slip off them with a series of bizarre play calls.

Shanahan found himself in a familiar position in Super Bowl 54 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on Sunday … a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter after holding down an MVP quarterback for most of the game.

His San Francisco 49ers led the Kansas City Chiefs by 10 points with less than 12 minutes remaining after Patrick Mahomes was intercepted for the second time, this time by Tarvarius Moore. After gaining a first down on a pass play to tight end George Kittle, the 49ers handed the ball off to Raheem Mostert for a one-yard gain from their own 38-yard line. As precious seconds ticked off and the Chiefs hopes for a comeback were evaporating, Shahanan then did the same thing that cost him the Super Bowl three seasons ago, abandon the run game. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo dropped back to pass on back-to-back plays, throwing an incomplete pass on second down then, after a false start, scrambling for three yards on third down but getting pushed out of bounds to stop the clock.

That gave the ball back to Mahomes and the Chiefs, who went on a 10-play drive that ended with Mahomes throwing a touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce in the back of the end zone to cut the deficit to 20-17. On their next possession, the 49ers managed to run just 1:03 off the clock after Mostert gained five yards on first down before Shanahan again called for two pass plays that were both incomplete.

The Chiefs drove down the field once again and took the lead with Damien Williams’ touchdown reception with 2:44 remaining, putting the Chiefs ahead 24-20. Mostert gained 17 yards on the first play of the next drive, and the 49ers had the ball at midfield with 1:49 left and all three timeouts, a touchdown the only thing separating them from lifting the Lombardi Trophy for the first time in 25 years. But Mostert wouldn’t touch the ball again as Garoppolo threw three straight incomplete passes before getting sacked on fourth down by Frank Clark.

After Williams ran in for another touchdown that broke the hearts of fans in the Bay Area, the 49ers lost 31-20, walking off the field wondering how they let a game they controlled for the better part of it get away. They gained 6.4 yards per rushing attempts on the Chiefs defense, constantly getting around the edge with Mostert or with wide receiver sweeps to Deebo Samuel. In a game where they held a double-digit fourth-quarter lead, Garoppolo threw 31 passes compared to 22 rushing attempts by 49ers running backs.

It’s not the kind of strategy that the 49ers used all season to get this far. Shanahan uses the same zone-running scheme that his father used so successfully in winning two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos in the 1990s. The 49ers ranked second in the NFL this season in rushing attempts, behind only the Baltimore Ravens, and were one of only three teams to run the ball more often then they passed. In the NFC Championship game two weeks ago, Mostert put the Green Bay Packers away with a championship game record 220 yards on the ground. Against the Minnesota Vikings in the divisional round, the 49ers ran just one pass play in the fourth quarter after coming in protecting a 14-point lead. Garoppolo threw just 27 passes combined over their two playoff victories.

Shanahan got away from what his team does best when it mattered the most, but it’s not the first time. In Super Bowl 51, Shanahan was the offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons team that gave up a 28-3 third-quarter lead to the New England Patriots.

Up by eight points with four minutes remaining and the ball inside the Patriots 25 after a spectacular catch along the sideline by Julio Jones, Shanahan ran the ball on first down before calling for three straight pass plays that resulted in a sack, a holding penalty, and an incompletion, three plays that took only 18 seconds off the clock. Instead of running out the clock and kicking a field goal to essentially end the game, the Falcons gave Tom Brady and the Patriots time to come back and tie the game before winning in overtime in the most stunning comeback in Super Bowl history.

Shanahan didn’t have time to dwell on that loss; he was hired to lead the 49ers just a day later. But perhaps he should’ve taken the time to assess what went wrong three years ago, because Super Bowl 54 showed he learned nothing from it and made the same playcalling mistakes that cost his team a second Super Bowl ring.

The post Oh my God, Kyle Shanahan cost his team the Super Bowl again appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Though the San Francisco 49ers came up short in Super Bowl 54 to the Kansas City Chiefs, here is why they can get back to the big game next year and win it.

No, it was not the result the San Francisco 49ers were hoping for but they’ll be back.

Though they held a lead late in Super Bowl 54, they ran into some Patrick Mahomes magic in the fourth quarter, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-20. It was a magical night for the Chiefs and they will celebrate. However, don’t hang your head, 49ers fans. Here’s why you can get back to the Super Bowl next year.

This does not feel like a flash in the pan. This team has been marvelously built by general manager John Lynch. Kyle Shanahan has shown he can help get multiple teams to the Super Bowl now. Jimmy Garoppolo played well at times in this game. George Kittle is the best tight end in the NFC. This offensive line is ferocious. You also have the best defensive line in football.

The 49ers’ defensive line is chock full of former first-round picks. Nick Bosa had one of the greatest rookie seasons we’ve ever seen out of a defensive player. DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead and Dee Ford are all spectacular, too.

You can never have enough good pass-rushers and the 49ers have the best defensive weapons in that department entering next year.

While repeating as NFC Champions is incredibly difficult, this 49ers team is built for sustained success.

They should repeat in the NFC West, as the Los Angeles Rams are trending down, the Arizona Cardinals are still rebuilding and the Seattle Seahawks don’t have as many good players as the 49ers.

Winning the NFC West again will be the first step in the right direction in 2020.

You also have to remember half-a-decade ago, your head coach was Jim Tomsula and then Chip Kelly for two horrendous years in franchise history. Shanahan is the best young offensive mind in football. You also have an elite defensive coordinator returning in Robert Saleh, who didn’t get an NFL head coaching gig in this offseason cycle.

Plus, you can’t discount the unfinished business angle that should fuel them all offseason and throughout 2020.

Ultimately, this loss to the Chiefs will still for a long time. Any Super Bowl loss does. But this doesn’t feel like it’s going to linger.

It’ll hurt for a long time, but this 49ers team is too good to not contend for Super Bowl 55.

The post Why the San Francisco 49ers will be back in Super Bowl 55 appeared first on Bet Sunday.

Mitch Holthus, the voice of the Kansas City Chiefs, gives us the epic call of the Chiefs winning Super Bowl 54 over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

The Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions once again. After a 50-year absence from the title bout, Kansas City punched its ticket to Super Bowl 54 after defeating the Tennessee Titans at Arrowhead. Despite being down to the San Francisco 49ers for much of the game, Kansas City won its second Super Bowl as a franchise, winning Super Bowl 54 by the score of 31-20.

In Miami to deliver us the radio call we needed was, of course, Mitch Holthus. The voice of the Chiefs gave us an unforgettable call that every member of Chiefs Kingdom will never forget. It was a call 50 years in the making and well worth the wait. Kansas City, it’s time to celebrate.

Once running back Damien Williams scored the late fourth-quarter touchdown to take a 24-20 lead, you could just tell that Kansas City was going to win this one. Jimmy Garoppolo and the rest of the 49ers offense looked rattled. While they had their opportunities for a comeback, it was not mean to be for Niners Nation. Instead, it was Kansas City’s day in the sun, in Miami of all places.

In only his second season as the starting quarterback, Patrick Mahomes is now 1-for-1 in Super Bowls. He became the youngest Super Bowl MVP at only 24-years-old. With him still on his rookie contract, we just might have the next dynasty in the AFC. The NFL’s future is bright with a player as well-liked and as celebrated as Mahomes. It’s great to be a Chiefs fan now and going forward.

Ultimately, the Chiefs may very well win a few more Super Bowls before Mahomes retires sometime into his late 30s or early 40s. However, no Super Bowl victory will be sweeter than the first. He is building his legacy to Canton already. By winning on Sunday in Miami, head coach Andy Reid’s ticket to the Pro Football Hall of Fame has been punch. Congratulations, Chiefs Kingdom!

The post Mitch Holthus’ call of the Chiefs winning Super Bowl 54 is everything appeared first on Bet Sunday.