49ers defense would have chance for extremely sweet revenge in potential Super Bowl matchup
It was the most common prediction Chris Berman made, the 49ers to face the Bills in the Super Bowl. This season, the sports broadcasting legend might finally get to see it happen. On Monday, Aaron Schatz, editor of the FTN Football Almanac, was asked to make his prediction for Super Bowl 58 on an appearance […]
It was the most common prediction Chris Berman made, the 49ers to face the Bills in the Super Bowl.
This season, the sports broadcasting legend might finally get to see it happen.
On Monday, Aaron Schatz, editor of the FTN Football Almanac, was asked to make his prediction for Super Bowl 58 on an appearance of Good Morning Football. Schatz plumped for the 'Chris Berman Special', picking the 49ers to finally get over the NFC Championship Game hump and reach their second Super Bowl in five seasons.
Niners fans can afford to be hopeful of Schatz's pick proving prescient. Last year, he correctly predicted the Eagles would reach the Super Bowl.
Explaining his reasoning, Schatz pointed to one of the 49ers' main rivals for NFC superiority, the Cowboys, having questions at offensive play-caller after head coach Mike McCarthy took that responsibility this offseason.
The matchup makes sense from a statistical standpoint. Last season, the Bills and 49ers were one and two in DVOA, the metric Schatz founded. In weighted DVOA, which gives greater weighting to recent games, the positions were flipped.
San Francisco will still have to overcome some tough competition to make it all the way to the Super Bowl, most notably from the Eagles and Cowboys but also from inside their own division, with the Seahawks likely to pose more of a threat than last year.
But there is no doubt the 49ers possess a Super Bowl roster with All-Pro players at every level on both sides of the ball. With Kyle Shanahan mitigating some of the quarterback uncertainty with his play-calling acumen, they will be a popular pick to make it all the way to Las Vegas.
A matchup with the Bills would be an extremely challenging one. Dual-threat quarterbacks have traditionally been the 49ers' kryptonite on defense and Josh Allen eviscerated San Francisco on Monday Night Football back in the pandemic-affected 2020 season, throwing for 375 yards and four touchdowns.
Allen's performance that night has been referenced as a factor in Shanahan's decision to trade up to the third pick in the 2021 draft and select Trey Lance.
Right now, it looks likely it would be Brock Purdy, rather than Lance, in a potential Super Bowl matchup, but defensive players such as Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw, Arik Armstead and Javon Kinlaw who played that night would no doubt be keen to exact the sweetest revenge for the humiliation they suffered.
One player who was not in that game, however, was star edge rusher and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa. With Bosa and Javon Hargrave joining Armstead on the defensive front, the 49ers have significantly more pass-rush firepower to help them contain Allen than they did in 2020.
San Francisco obviously would not have the quarterback edge in a Super Bowl with the Bills, but its defense heads into 2023 much better prepared to potentially prevent the quarterback who grew up a Niners fan lifting the Lombardi Trophy.
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