10 Reasons You SHOULD Care About Super Bowl LIV
4. There'll Be Plenty Of Defensive Football!
But if you tend to prefer defensive play to boatloads of scoring, there'll be no shortage of that here, either.
The San Francisco 49ers possess the most feared defensive line in the league in the aptly nicknamed “Gold Rush”. Their front four have terrorised opposing QBs and stopped running backs in their tracks all season, and there’s no reason that won't be the case on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, they’re well equipped to prevent the Chiefs from doing damage through the air, with the far ends of the field commanded by the vocal cornerback Richard Sherman. You might remember him making his name with Seattle’s famous “Legion of Boom” outfit in the mid 2010s, and he’s still just as wily, bringing his grizzled experience to the 49ers' ranks.
The Chiefs, too, present a highly capable unit built to stop the pass. While a total sieve last season, they’ve drastically improved that facet of their defence this year, largely through their acquisition of safety Tyrann Matthieu, AKA “Honey Badger”! Don't ask.
What’s more, although the statistics would suggest that the Chiefs defence struggles against the run, they did an admirable job in the semifinals in slowing down Tennessee's Derrick Henry, who’d led the NFL in rushing yards for the 2019 season.
Both teams, then, will be well prepared and well motivated to stifle opposing threats with big defensive stops.