The 49ers get a chance to erase their Super scars

They let the Chiefs get away four years ago.

Jimmy Garoppolo

It’s been only four years, yet the cast is so different. Raheem Mostert no longer carries the mail for the 49ers. Jimmy Garoppolo was last seen wearing a headset in Las Vegas. Mike McGlinchey is in Denver. Richard Sherman is on the Amazon Prime sideline.

But there are enough 49ers who still deal with the hole in their hearts, the kind that can only be known to Super Bowl losers. 

Coach Kyle Shanahan, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw, Nick Bosa…yeah, they all remember being up 20-10 over Kansas City, with seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

The 49er fan base calls itself The Faithful. It also can be Fitful. San Francisco had won five Super Bowls without a loss until it met Baltimore in New Orleans, and until the Superdome lights went out at an inappropriate time, and until Colin Kaepernick had missed a fourth-and-goal pass to Michael Crabtree. 

That was at the end of the 2012 season. This was at the end of 2019, after a brief trip to hell and back, and these 49ers had blown out Minnesota and San Francisco in its two playoff wins and hadn’t trailed for a second (Kansas City had trailed Houston, 17-0, and Tennessee, 14-0). The forefathers of The Faithful can talk about living under a bad sign, about all the playoff disappointments borne by John Brodie and Joe Perry and the Million Dollar Backfield, but all of that was dispelled by Bill Walsh and Joe Montana. Then it was replaced by worse signs.

The 49ers lost that Super Bowl to the Chiefs, 31-20. The next season, injuries robbed them of Garoppolo, Kittle, Samuel and 15 other players who were on injured reserve at the end of the season, and Covid-19 chased them out of Santa Clara and into Phoenix for three games.

In 2021, the 49ers squeezed into the playoffs, survived a frostbitten evening in Green Bay, and appeared to have beaten the Rams in the NFC Championship Game when Matthew Stafford floated a pass into the hands of Jaquiski Tartt, the 49ers safety, who dropped it. That gave the Rams a chance to win and they cashed it.

In 2012, the 49ers arrived in Philadelphia for a cosmic showdown with the big bad Eagles, but Brock Purdy, the quarterback, got hurt. They postpone boxing matches when that happens. Here, they played, and the Eagles won, 31-7.

Now the 49ers are back, faithfully, after they wheezed their way past Detroit and Green Bay. And they get to play the Chiefs again, who also retain little else but their nucleus: coach Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones.

“That game scarred me for life,” said Warner, who has played through those scars to become one of the best NFL linebackers. “To this day, if it’s a preseason, regular season or postseason game, I never get excited until the clock gets to zero.”

It was the game that, if you’re Shanahan, will forever be marred by a phantom offensive pass interference call on Kittle near the end of the first half, when the tight end had taken Garoppolo’s 42-yard pass to the Chiefs’ 13.

It was the game that, if you’re an exasperated member of The Faithful, was blemished by Shanahan’s refusal to use any of his timeouts with :59 left in a first half that ended 10-10.

It was the game that launched a thousand cheesy insurance commercials. And yet Patrick From State Farm was the second-best quarterback on the field for most of the night. 

Garoppolo completed 18 of his first 21 passes. Mahomes was sacked four times and was hit eight times. He went 26 for 42 overall and threw two interceptions, including a misfire that bounced off Tyreek Hill’s hands and into Tarvarious Moore’s. The other pick was Warner’s, in the third quarter, and it led to San Francisco’s longest play of the game, a 36-yarder to Kendrick Bourne. Mostert followed that with a one-yard touchdown and the 49ers led 20-10.

Moore’s interception gave the 49ers a chance to build that lead and burn all the boats. A false start penalty by Joe Staley stopped that drive, and the Chiefs got it back with 8:53 left. 

“I was looking at Patrick and saying, ‘How are you going to pull this one off?’’’ Hill said.

On third-and-15, Hill slipped into a crack between defenders and Mahomes, given time at last, zapped him with a 44-yarder. An interference call on Moore put the ball on the one-yard-line, and Mahomes connected with Travis Kelce, for 20-17.

Now, 6:13 remained. The web of blitzes weaved by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who is also an important Chiefs’ holdover, was finally entangling Garoppolo.  Ben Niemann, an undrafted linebacker, sprinted through the front door and hassled Garoppolo into a third-down incompletion, and the end of a possession that lasted only 53 seconds.

And just like that, the legend of Mahomes was hatched, in front of 102.7 million witnesses.

He ran seven plays. He was sacked on one, ran on another, and threw successfully on the five others, including a 38-yarder to the aging Sammy Watkins against the aged Sherman. Damien Williams, who pinballed his way to four NFL stops in his career, took the fifth pass and held it over the goal line. Kansas City led, 24-20, with 2:44 to go, and now the ball was on Garoppolo’s racket, and it was ticking.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Garoppolo overthrew his career on third and 10. Chris Jones had already tipped two of his passes, and now Garoppolo was throwing from the Chiefs’ 49 on third-and-10 with 1:40 left. He had Emmanuel Sanders free and clear, behind Spagnuolo’s defense, and he threw it maybe two yards too long. Then Frank Clark swallowed up Garoppolo on fourth down, the Chiefs’ only sack of the night. Things never got as good for Garoppolo after that.

Williams was given the responsibility of running out the clock and, instead, ran for a 38-yard touchdown, and Kansas City had won its first Super Bowl since Hank Stram and Otis Taylor and Lenny Dawson beat the Vikings in the fourth edition, 50 years prior.

Ah, the Vikings. They had three other tries and lost them all. Buffalo is 0-4. Denver was 0-5 until John Elway, with shoulders too big for the burden, led the Broncos to back-to-back wins, and then Peyton Manning followed suit.

Joe Gibbs’ Washington teams lost only one Super Bowl in four. The Steelers won their first four and have won six of eight, and each of their three coaches since 1970 (Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin) won at least one.

“Scarred For Life” is not the desired title of anybody’s highlight film. The 49ers shouldn’t look at the 58th Super Bowl, and their answered-prayer rematch with Kansas City, as the defining moment of their careers, their lives, and the residue of their very existence. 

Everyone else will do that for them. Faithful or otherwise.