I come into the final game of the NFL season on a high, having picked 10 of 12 winners correctly this postseason (83%), including (and painfully) the Chiefs to beat my Ravens in Baltimore. Now it’s time to predict who will take all the marbles. In some years, making that call is a real headscratcher. Not this year, though. Before I get to the analysis and pick, I’ll offer a bit of background to Super Bowl 58.
WHAT: Super Bowl 58, for the 2023 championship of the National Football League
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. (ET), Sunday, February 11
WHERE: Allegiant Stadium; Las Vegas (71,835)
NFC champions (visitors): San Francisco 49ers, 14-5, NFC West Division champions, No. 1 NFC playoff seed
AFC champions (home): Kansas City Chiefs, 14-6, AFC West Division champions, No. 3 AFC playoff seed
TV: CBS with Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, booth; Tracy Wolfson, Evan Washburn, sidelines
RADIO: Westwood One with Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, booth; Laura Okmin, Mike Golic, sidelines
REFEREE: Bill Vinovich (third Super Bowl)
BACKGROUND TO SUPER BOWL 58
This year’s game will take place at the home of the Las Vegas Raiders, the brand-new Allegiant Stadium. It will be the first Super Bowl to be held there, following last year’s game at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., which was the fourth in the Phoenix area, following Super Bowls 30 (at Arizona State), 42 (New York Giants-New England) and 49 (Seattle-New England). Also, three different stadiums in Los Angeles have hosted the game, as well as two different stadiums in the Miami metropolitan area (Orange Bowl, Hard Rock) with a total of 11 Super Bowls, one more than New Orleans’ ten, also over two different facilities (Tulane Stadium, Caesars Superdome).
Allegiant Stadium will be the 27th different venue to host a Super Bowl. There have been 20 Super Bowls that have taken place indoors. Among individual stadiums, the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans has hosted the most Super Bowls (seven), and it is already booked to host Super Bowl 59 in February of 2025. Two different stadiums have also hosted Super Bowls in Houston (Rice Stadium, NRG Stadium) and the Phoenix area (Sun Devil Stadium, State Farm Stadium).
This year’s Super Bowl will be the 22nd to be played in the month of February, and the 21st consecutive game to be pushed into the calendar year’s second month. The first February Super Bowl was 36 (Rams-Patriots), which was moved back by necessity, as that season’s Week Two slate of games was postponed due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and made up in early January.
Because this year’s game is an even-numbered Super Bowl (58), the AFC champion (Kansas City) is the designated home team and will have jersey choice; teams with choice usually choose dark home tops with white pants, which means the Chiefs will likely wear their home red tops. Teams with jersey choice are 23-34 in Super Bowls, but teams wearing white jerseys – whether they had the choice or not – have won 16 of the last 19 Super Bowls. San Francisco is tentatively scheduled to wear white as the designated visiting team.
As the designated home team, Kansas City will have its logo painted in the right-side end zone and occupy the near-side bench at Allegiant Stadium (closest to the main television camera). San Francisco, the designated visiting team, will have its logo painted in the left-side end zone and occupy the far-side bench (furthest away from the main television camera). The NFL shield logo will be painted at midfield, and the official Super Bowl 58 logo will appear on the 25-yard lines at both ends of the field.
As is always the case with Super Bowl opponents, Kansas City and San Francisco haven’t played each other that often since they come from opposite conferences; the league’s schedule formula only has such teams meeting once every four years (since 2002). Kansas City leads the overall series, 8-7, having taken the lead with wins in five of their last six meetings, including Super Bowl 54 and a 2022 regular-season game in San Francisco, 44-23; the regular-season series is tied at 7-all. In that 2022 game, Patrick Mahomes threw for 453 yards and three touchdowns (no one has had that kind of success against the ‘Niners since), and Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey each played in their first game with San Francisco. Purdy played in fourth-quarter mop-up time, while McCaffrey had just been traded to the team that week from the Carolina Panthers.
San Francisco’s Brock Purdy will become only the third Super Bowl starting quarterback to wear jersey number 13, following Dan Marino and Kurt Warner, who combined to lose three of four Super Bowls. Last year, Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts became only the second Super Bowl starting quarterback in history to wear jersey number 1, following Carolina’s Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50, a losing effort against Denver. Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes wears the number 15 jersey, making him the fifth Super Bowl starter to ever wear that number, following the New York Giants’ Jeff Hostetler (Super Bowl 25), the Los Angeles Rams’ Vince Ferragamo (14), Baltimore’s Earl Morrall (3) and Green Bay’s Bart Starr (1 and 2). Tampa Bay and New England’s Tom Brady wore #12 – the most frequent starting-quarterback number in Super Bowl history – and those signal-callers are 17-13 in Super Bowls.
San Francisco’s Brock Purdy will start his first career Super Bowl. Quarterbacks who have started only one Super Bowl during their careers are 17-29. Super Bowl 56 (Rams-Bengals) marked only the second matchup of quarterbacks making their Super Bowl debuts against each other since Baltimore’s Joe Flacco and San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick met in Super Bowl 47. In fact, Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow became the 17th consecutive quarterback to lose in his Super Bowl debut, then never make it back to the game (at least to this point), a string that started with San Diego’s Stan Humphries in Super Bowl 29; that list includes luminaries such as Drew Bledsoe, Steve McNair, Rich Gannon, Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck, Kaepernick, and Matt Ryan.
The two teams in this Super Bowl have had rather glittering histories regarding lifetime regular-season play. Through the end of the 2023 regular season, the Chiefs have compiled an all-time record of 532-439-12 (.547), which ranks as the league’s seventh-best mark. As for San Francisco’s all-time regular-season mark is 586-501-14 (.539), which ranks as the league’s ninth-best mark. Three years ago, Tampa Bay, a team born out of expansion in 1976, had posted a 278-429-1 record (.393), a winning percentage at that point ranking at the very bottom of the NFL, but the Buccaneers ended up winning that Super Bowl.
In a lifetime postseason play, the Chiefs and 49ers have done well. The Chiefs are 23-21 (.523) lifetime, ranking 11th-best among the current lineup of NFL teams, and the 49ers are 38-23 (.623), which ranks second only to the New England Patriots.
A yet-to-be-announced football dignitary will carry The Lombardi Trophy to the post-game victory platform. This practice was instituted at Super Bowl 40 in Detroit (Seahawks-Steelers). Those who have performed this task in the past have included former Baltimore Colts coach Don Shula, Navy quarterback Roger Staubach, and Colts receiver Raymond Berry. Former Super Bowl MVP Joe Namath has performed this task twice.
Veteran referee Bill Vinovich, in his 18th season as an official and 15th as a crew chief, will work his third Super Bowl, following Super Bowls 49 (New England-Seattle) and 54 (Kansas City-San Francisco). Vinovich was also the alternate referee for two other Super Bowls, 47 (Baltimore-San Francisco) and 56 (Cincinnati-Los Angeles Rams).
CBS will air this year’s Super Bowl, its industry-record 22nd game. Last year, Fox broadcast its tenth. Two years ago, NBC broadcast its 20th, second-most to CBS. CBS and NBC each aired Super Bowl 1 (Chiefs-Packers) with different announcing teams and camera crews. ABC, which will again be part of the current Super Bowl telecast rotation three years from now, has shown seven. Fox will show next year’s game.
CBS’ Jim Nantz will handle the play-by-play for his seventh Super Bowl. Last year, Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt called his first Super Bowl, partnered with Greg Olsen, who played in Super Bowl 50 with Carolina. Burkhardt became the 11th different individual to call a Super Bowl on television. Two years ago, Al Michaels worked his 11th Super Bowl (six with ABC, five with NBC), tying the late Pat Summerall’s record of 11 (eight for CBS, three on Fox). Summerall did the color analysis on four additional Super Bowls. Nantz has called the play-by-play for six previous Super Bowls, tying him with Fox’s Joe Buck, who called his sixth three years ago.
Kevin Harlan will handle the Westwood One radio call for a 14th straight year (a record streak for anyone in radio or television. Harlan succeeded the legendary Marv Albert. Ex-Maryland quarterback and current CBS studio analyst Boomer Esiason worked with Harlan for 18 consecutive Super Bowl assignments. Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner took Esiason’s place five years ago. Warner was 1-2 in Super Bowls, splitting two as the Rams’ quarterback (winning Super Bowl 34, losing 36) and losing Super Bowl 43 with Arizona. Working the sidelines for Westwood One will be Mike Golic and Laura Okmin.
This year’s game will begin at the usual 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff time. The Super Bowl has kicked off at 6 p.m. or later (ET) each year since Super Bowl 26 (Redskins-Bills). The last Super Bowl to be played entirely in daylight was Super Bowl 11 (Raiders-Vikings) in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.
This year’s Super Bowl will pay out a record $164,000 per player to the winning team and $89,000 per man to the runners-up. Those figures are up $7,000 from last year. This year’s game marks the 11th straight year the payouts have increased. A 30-second advertising spot on television will cost $7 million, up a half-million from the previous record and setting yet another new standard.
Country artist Reba McIntire has been tapped to sing the national anthem. “America The Beautiful” will also be performed (this year by pop star Post Malone). Both songs have been sung at the Super Bowl since 2009, although “America The Beautiful” was also sung once previously, four years earlier. Actress Andra Day will perform “Lift Every Voice And Sing.” Usher will perform at halftime, while Gwen Stefani highlights the pre-game entertainment and Tiesto will be the Super Bowl’s first-ever in-game DJ.
ANALYSIS & PREDICTION
More than perhaps any other sport, football is a game of momentum, so, despite the parity and unpredictability that reigns in the NFL these days, it’s also why the cream always seems to rise to the top when it comes to the last two teams standing.
Unlike baseball, momentum is only as good as that day’s starting pitcher. Kansas City and San Francisco have had all the momentum this postseason. The Chiefs have shown it through tighter, more crisp offensive execution and the 49ers through being healthier and more consistent.
Ever since New England took some major steps backward after Tom Brady’s departure, the Chiefs have been the league’s reigning dynasty for a reason: experience, both on the field and off. Veterans like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Kadarius Toney on offense, Chris Jones and Nick Bolton on defense, and the venerable Andy Reid on the sidelines have given this team an ability to win in all situations, against all obstacles and, this year, in all locations, including the road.
Meanwhile, the ‘Niners, playing at home, had to rally to beat a pair of young teams in Green Bay and Detroit, and their young seventh-round quarterback hasn’t yet been this far. Brock Purdy is accurate and resourceful but nowhere near Mahomes’ class. And for all the praise San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan gets, he has personally thrown away two opportunities to win a Super Bowl, occasionally getting a little too cute with his play-calling and outsmarting himself quite often.
Four years ago, these two teams staged a great Super Bowl, and they probably will again. But dynastic teams win games like this much more often than not, and sometimes, they do so by pulling away at the end.
Kansas City 34, San Francisco 26
