Travis Kelce told how to beat 49ers as defence has "fallen off" since big trade

09 February 2024 , 22:34

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The Super Bowl is the crescendo of the early Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift love story for the Kansas City Chiefs, and the tight end has been given advice on how to win by a former San Francisco 49ers player.

The Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five seasons, but this year is the biggest occasion yet due to all of the noise surrounding the franchise. Swift has been dating Kelce since last summer, and despite performing in Tokyo on February 10 she's expected to fly to Las Vegas to make it in time for the Super Bowl that takes place the following day.

Swift has had a huge impact on Kelce, the Chiefs, and the NFL, generating an estimated brand value of £262.5million according to Front Office Sports. But although the Chiefs have enjoyed recent success, they're underdogs for the game on Sunday and the Niners will be keen to seek revenge.

The Chiefs beat the Niners at this stage four years ago, when Kelce won his first Super Bowl ring in a 31-20 victory. The Niners are known for their strong defensive play and their attack is better than ever, but former Champion Dennis Brown believes they have "fallen off" recently, and believes Kelce can have a huge say in the final result.

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This season running-back Christian McCaffrey has been unstoppable, scoring 25 total touchdowns and being named Offensive Player of the Year at Thursday's NFL Honours. He's made up a ferocious attack with tight end George Kittle, wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk, and it's all held together by quarterback Brock Purdy.

Their defence has been solid for five seasons, especially since defensive end Nick Bosa was drafted in 2019. It looked as if they'd strengthened it even further when trading for Chase Young during the season, but Brown, the former defensive end for the Niners who started in their last Super Bowl win, has called for him to step up and explained their current weakness.

"Nick Bosa is important to any game. But I think the last two weeks you've seen this defensive line struggle a little bit for some reason, especially against the run," Brown told Mirror Sport. "We know the pass rush is there, but teams want to be balanced. Teams want to run the football and they want to throw the football, they want to be ahead of the chains.

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Dennis Brown is concerned about the Niners recent drop off when stopping offensive players (Mirror)

"So that means first and second down, you want yards. You want five, six yards first and second down, and then you have something third down, and you have third and fourth, third and five. Then you can kind of manage that. So this defence, I think, has kind of fallen off a little bit.

"You have Chase Young coming into the mix. He's a pass rush guy. He's got to get better at his run defence. Teams start game planning. You've seen the last two weeks, the game has been planned where they wanna shorten the edge. Nick Bosa and Chase Young."

Brown believes that the Niners weakness has been targeted, which will be music to the ears of Kelce and the Chiefs. Brown went on to explain why: "We used to call it when I was playing 'wham blocks'. That's when the tight end lines up close to the line of scrimmage, about three yards off the defensive end, and you just ram down. That makes a corner shorter. Running backs can hit that corner, and you've seen that the last two weeks in the playoffs.

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"Technique is gonna be huge, and tackling. This team's missed a lot of tackles the last couple weeks, especially in the first half. So, I think when this team is playing on all cylinders, defensive front, and you can stop the run first and second down, or first down, then you kind of earn the right to rush to passer. And we know what the pass rush is about."

The Niners may have McCaffrey, but this season Chiefs running-back Isaiah Pacheco has really broken through and could be a huge problem in the Super Bowl. Brown has told Young to contain the rushing game, and also given Bosa one clear target: Mahomes.

"If quarterbacks have to run around, they don't like it. Now, Mahomes kind of likes it. He succeeds in it. So you really have to contain him. But if you can rush and get quarterbacks off their mark and get to them, make them throw some balls off their back foot, throw some balls awkwardly, sidearm, things like that, then you have a chance."