Chiefs vs 49ers - (Katz)
Line: KC -1.5
Total: 54.5

Passing Game Thoughts: In just his second season starting, the league’s best quarterback has reached the Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes has been nothing short of sensational in his two playoff games. He’s accounted for nine touchdowns while not turning the ball over once. The Chiefs scored fewer than 23 points in a game just once all season. The game plan is to throw and throw and throw some more and only run once a lead has been established. The 49ers allowed the fewest passing yards per game in the regular season, but that doesn’t really matter against Mahomes. Aaron Rodgers lit them up for 326 yards in the NFC Championship Game and Mahomes is exponentially better than Rodgers at this point in their careers.

Tyreek Hill hasn’t topped 72 yards since Week 10, but he’s always a threat to splash on any given play. Hill scored twice against the Titans and will be a challenge for the 49ers to contain, especially given the presence of the second best tight end in the league (and this game), Travis Kelce. The Chiefs didn’t need Kelce much against the Titans, but he rattled off 134 yards and three touchdowns on 10 receptions against the Texans. Kelce is always a mismatch for linebackers and with Hill and rookie speedster Mecole Hardman, the 49ers simply can’t afford to over commit to a single pass catcher. Sammy Watkins made an appearance in the AFC Championship Game, his first sighting since Week 1. Watkins caught seven passes for 114 yards and a touchdown. He is what he is at this point and I wouldn’t go chasing last round’s numbers. Hardman is the better contrarian play.

SF FPts Allowed vs. QBs: No.24
SF FPts Allowed vs. RBs: No.30
SF FPts Allowed vs. WRs: No.20
SF FPts Allowed vs. TEs: No.28

Running Game Thoughts: Damien Williams is the unquestioned three-down back for the Chiefs. Williams’ carries will largely depend on game script. He’s managed 17 and 12 carries over the Chiefs’ two playoff games, but the majority of those came in the second half with the Chiefs just burning clock. The good news is Williams has been a relevant piece of the passing game with six targets in each game this postseason. He’s also scored four touchdowns. He’s without question the best choice at running back in this game. The 49ers were middle of the pack against running backs this season, allowing the 16th most rushing yards per game.

Value Meter:
QB1: Patrick Mahomes
RB1: Damien Williams
WR1: Tyreek Hill
TE1: Travis Kelce
Flex: Sammy Watkins, Mecole Hardman

Passing Game Thoughts: According to the rules of football, a team must have someone in the quarterback position on every play. I had to double check after the NFC Championship Game because I didn’t see Jimmy Garoppolo anywhere. Facing arguably the most fraudulent 13-3 team in NFL history, Garoppolo wasn’t needed as the 49ers just ran all over the Packers with Garoppolo attempting just eight passes. Garoppolo’s pass attempts have decreased in every game from Week 14.

The Chiefs were one of the better teams against the pass this season, allowing just 221.4 yards per game. Given their prolific offense, I expect the Chiefs to make the 49ers have to throw a bit more. That should allow the best tight end in football, George Kittle, to put on a show. He should be the focal point of the 49ers’ passing attack, exploiting the Chiefs’ linebackers. Deebo Samuel has taken his rightful spot as the 49ers’ WR1, pushing Emmanuel Sanders into a complementary role. Samuel is the obvious choice at wide receiver for the 49ers, but Sanders makes for a nice contrarian play. You can even consider touchdown specialist, Kendrick Bourne as an outside the box option.

KC FPts Allowed vs. QBs: No.19
KC FPts Allowed vs. RBs: No.6
KC FPts Allowed vs. WRs: No.31
KC FPts Allowed vs. TEs: No.11

Running Game Thoughts: It was the Tevin Coleman show in the divisional round, but a dislocated shoulder early in the NFC Championship Game provided Raheem Mostert an opportunity to run unopposed in his own backfield and he delivered in spades. Mostert became the second 49ers’ running back to score four touchdowns in a game this season and put up career highs everywhere with 220 yards on 29 carries.

The Chiefs were more vulnerable on the ground this season, allowing 4.9 yards per carry, fourth most in the league. Unless the Chiefs build a sizable lead, even though the 49ers will have to throw more, they are still a run first team. Coleman is going to play because it’s the Super Bowl, but I have no idea how Kyle Shanahan doesn’t feature Mostert as much as possible. Mostert will be an extremely popular choice at running back in this game. If you have the emotional fortitude to fade Mostert in favor of Coleman, it could pay huge dividends if it works out, but it’s not the most likely outcome. Matt Breida is allegedly still a member of this team, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by watching the games. Even in a wire to wire rout of epic proportions where one of the top two backs got hurt early, Breida touched the ball just once. His career is on life support.

Value Meter:
QB2: Jimmy Garoppolo
RB1: Raheem Mostert
WR2: Deebo Samuel
TE1: George Kittle
Flex: Emmanuel Sanders, Tevin Coleman

Prediction: Chiefs 31, 49ers 27 ^ Top

49ers vs Chiefs - (Caron)
Line: KC -1.5
Total: 54.5

Passing Game Thoughts: It’s obvious that Jimmy Garoppolo is the QB2 in Super Bowl LIV, but the real question is just how far he is behind Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes. Garoppolo finished as the 15th-highest-scoring QB in the regular season but his production was very up and down. While he had five regular season games with over 20 fantasy points, he also failed to reach even 15 points in five other games. Perhaps most importantly, Garoppolo has not reached even 17 fantasy points in a game since Week 14, including the playoffs. If you’re a trend-researcher, you probably also know that his pass attempts have gone down every single game since his Week 14 shootout against the Saints. It culminated in a dreadful fantasy performance in the NFC Championship game when Garoppolo attempted just eight passes in the 49ers’ big win over the Packers. While there is certainly a narrative that the 49ers are now a “run-first” team, however, it’s also very possible that the Chiefs focus on shutting down the San Francisco running game which would inevitably lead to far more pass attempts for the 49ers as head coach Kyle Shanahan is rarely locked into a gameplan. He leans heavily on what’s been working for him early in games and the 49ers have simply been extremely effective running the ball down the stretch this season, most notably against the Packers. The odds won’t be high on Garoppolo reaching 30 pass attempts, but a 25-attempt day is not out of the question, especially if the Chiefs get ahead on the scoreboard.

The 49ers passing game is going to be tough to invest in this weekend but there definitely could be some value in tight end George Kittle who has been held to just 35 total receiving yards in the 49ers’ two playoff games thus far. Kittle is a player who other owners might be off this week, but fear not - he’s still playing very well when he’s been given the opportunity and there’s plenty of reason to be confident that he produces some nice fantasy numbers against the Chiefs who conceded the 11th-most fantasy points to the position and really are not equipped to match up with a physical specimen like Kittle.

The San Francisco wide receivers, however, are certainly players who fantasy owners should be worried about heading into the Super Bowl. Rookie Deebo Samuel has been the best option down the stretch, but even he has been held to fewer than 50 receiving yards in four of his past five games. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Sanders has been held under 50 yards in nine of his past ten games and was even held without a catch this past week against the Packers. There will likely be a relatively high ownership on Sanders given the alternative options, but his upside just has not been there. The third receiver on the 49ers roster, Kendrick Bourne, has actually been surprisingly efficient with the targets he’s seen. He’s caught six touchdown passes on just 36 targets from Week 9 through the Conference Championship. It’s hard to trust him for any sort of volume given that he hasn’t caught more than four passes in any game this season and he’s only been over 50 yards once, but if you’re looking for a touchdown-or-bust type of player, you could do worse than Bourne.

The trio of wide receivers does have a very difficult matchup, though, as they’ll be against a Kansas City secondary that conceded just the second-fewest fantasy points to opposing wide receivers throughout the regular season.

KC FPts Allowed vs. QBs: No.19
KC FPts Allowed vs. RBs: No.6
KC FPts Allowed vs. WRs: No.31
KC FPts Allowed vs. TEs: No.11

Running Game Thoughts: Raheem Mostert has carried quite a few playoff fantasy teams this season as the 49ers running back absolutely crushed the Packers in the NFC Championship game, rushing for a ridiculous 220 yards with four touchdowns in that contest. Mostert has seemingly established himself as the lead back in San Francisco, but it’s worth noting that he was not the lead back in the Divisional Round against the Vikings when Tevin Coleman (shoulder) nearly doubled his touches while also producing almost twice as many yards.

The reality is that the 49ers backfield is a crap-shoot. Yes, we assume that Mostert will be given the first crack to lead the backfield, but it’s very possible that Coleman ends up out-touching or at least coming close to Mostert in touches. That makes it reasonable to gamble on Coleman as recency bias will almost certainly mean a higher ownership rate on Mostert, but both players have potential for serious fantasy production in this game.

The Chiefs struggled mightily against the run when you look at the 2019 regular season as a whole, but they played much better toward the end of the season and they just held Derrick Henry to fewer than four yards per carry in the AFC Championship game. Certainly the 49ers will attempt to continue building on the success they’ve had on the ground throughout the playoffs, but there’s plenty of reason to believe that this could be a much different game script than the ones we saw in the Divisional and Conference Championship rounds for the 49ers.

Value Meter:
QB2: Jimmy Garoppolo
RB1: Raheem Mostert
WR2: Deebo Samuel
TE1: George Kittle
Flex: Tevin Coleman, Kendrick Bourne, Emmanuel Sanders
Bench: Matt Breida

Passing Game Thoughts: There were some questions about Patrick Mahomes’ fantasy production near the end of the regular season, but he has put those to rest over the past two weeks. The 2018 NFL MVP absolutely lit up the Texans with 321 yards passing and five touchdowns along with 53 rushing yards before smashing the Titans with 294 passing yards and three touchdowns while adding another 53 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground.

Mahomes’ sudden willingness to run the ball might actually speak to a slight philosophy change as the Chiefs make a run at the Super Bowl. It makes sense to avoid running the ball throughout the regular season if you’re the Chiefs who are likely to make the playoffs as long as Mahomes stays healthy. But once you’re in the playoffs, all bets are off - they have to do what it takes to defeat a much more difficult opponents and they obviously cannot afford to lose. It’d be unfair to expect a third straight 50-yard rushing performance from Mahomes this week but don’t be surprised if he continues to run the ball at a higher rate than normal, especially near the end zone. That helps boost his fantasy value even higher than it normally is, which is among, if not the best in all of fantasy football.

From a receiving standpoint, wide receiver Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce continue to be the only options that we should be excited about. Hill hasn’t reached the 100-yard mark since back in Week 10, but he’s been over 50 receiving yards in all but one of the contests over that stretch and he just got done scoring two touchdowns this past week against the Titans. Hill is still the biggest threat to have a big game among all of the wide receivers in the Super Bowl so he’s going to be the top-ranked wideout on the board even though he does have a difficult matchup against a good San Francisco secondary. Kelce, meanwhile, remains the best tight end in fantasy football. He’s averaged over 77 receiving yards per game this season, including the playoffs, which is practically unheard of at the tight end position. He was held in check against the Titans, but don’t let that cloud your judgment - he punished the Texans for 10 catches, 134 yards and three touchdowns the week before so there’s no question that he still has “it.”

Unfortunately, the other members of this Kansas City passing attack simply are not players who we can be confident about. Byron Pringle, Mecole Hardman and Demarcus Robinson are all essentially big play threats who cannibalize one another and are too unpredictable to trust as anything other than cheap touchdown-or-bust fliers. Sammy Watkins is the only other player who fantasy owners should have any excitement about as he’s performed surprisingly well during the playoffs for the Chiefs. His nine catches for 190 yards and a touchdown over the past two weeks are a reminder that there is still plenty of talent within Watkins - we just never know when it’s going to show itself.

A game against the San Francisco 49ers defense isn’t easy for any offense, but Kansas City does have the firepower to match up well against any defense. It’s probably too risky to put Watkins as the No. 2 wide receiver in the playoffs, but the 10 targets he saw in the AFC Championship game should give fantasy owners some hope that he can produce another fantasy-relevant game here in the Super Bowl.

SF FPts Allowed vs. QBs: No.24
SF FPts Allowed vs. RBs: No.30
SF FPts Allowed vs. WRs: No.20
SF FPts Allowed vs. TEs: No.28

Running Game Thoughts: While the Chiefs have deployed a multi-player backfield throughout the majority of the season, they’ve certainly seemed to narrow down things enough in the playoffs that we can now have confidence that Damien Williams should be considered the only fantasy-relevant Kansas City running back in the Super Bowl.

Williams has produced an average of over 100 total yards per game over his past four contests going back to Week 16 while also an impressive seven total touchdowns over that stretch. He’s been by far the most-used backfield in Andy Reid’s offense and there’s really no reason to risk things on any other Kansas City back.

Williams does have a very difficult matchup against a San Francisco defense that conceded the third-fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs throughout the regular season, but he’s the type of back who can get his numbers through the air even if the 49ers shut him down on the ground. Look for Williams to finish with somewhere between 75 to 100 total yards and he’ll have a good chance of scoring a touchdown, so he should be considered at worst the second-best running back on the slate. San Francisco’s Raheem Mostert will almost certainly be the highest-ranked back on most boards given his monstrous game this past week but don’t be surprised if it’s Kansas City’s Williams who sneaks in with the best fantasy day.

Value Meter:
QB1: Patrick Mahomes
RB2: Damien Williams
WR1: Tyreek Hill
TE1: Travis Kelce
Flex: Sammy Watkins
Bench: LeSean McCoy, Darwin Thompson, Mecole Hardman, Demarcus Robinson, Byron Pringle

Prediction: 49ers 30, Chiefs 24 ^ Top