In the end, sometimes you just can’t stop greatness

I gotta admit it; I thought the San Francisco 49ers were going to win this game. It wasn’t just during the course of the game, either. I woke up Sunday morning feeling that way. The 2019 San Francisco 49ers were built to defeat the 2019 Kansas City Chiefs, and I think they would have had Jimmy Garoppolo hit Emmanuel Sanders with that deep pass during the final minutes of the game. Instead, we have this 31-20 Chiefs victory that isn’t, in any fashion, a true indication about just how close this game actually was.

This is my Seahawk fan breakdown of the match.

The Good

This game literally came down to the play of Jimmy Garoppolo, and when San Francisco needed big plays from him to win it, he failed. From the Seattle perspective, this is what you want to see. On top of a potential Super Bow hangover, there will be a cloud existing over this team in the former of a question mark as to whether Jimmy G is the long term answer at the most important position on their roster.

It’s pretty clear that head coach Kyle Shanahan leaned into their run game down the stretch into their post season, their schedule will be tougher next year, their roster may not be as deep, and their innovative run game will be more scouted out. Will Jimmy G have the confidence that they need from him to pull out close games with his arm, or will he be more prone to wilting under pressure? This will likely be the big story-line heading into their off-season now.  This is good news for the other teams in the NFC West.

The biggest thing emotionally for me heading into this match was that I did not want to see Richard Sherman win a Super Bowl in a 49er uniform. Call me petty on this, but I just did not want that. There is too much iconic history of Sherman in Seattle, and as a life long Seahawk fan, I did not want to see that shared with their most despised division rival. This is not to be taken that I am Anti Richard Sherman. I still love the guy, and would root for him to win another Super Bowl on a team that wasn’t a division rival, but not in that uniform ever. Just cannot do it.

It was awesome to witness Andy Reid finally win a Super Bowl and to have a generation of Kansas City Chief fans get to experience the special euphoria of Super Bowl victory. Oh, yeah, another thing, that Patrick Mahomes kid is pretty easy to root for.

The Bad

The San Francisco 49ers feel like a team that is likely here to stay for a while. They have a talented young roster, and a brilliant young head coach, and a quarterback who still has room to grow. Seattle might top them in 2020, or maybe the Rams will, but if I were to step back, and objectively look at their roster, they feel like a team that should remain a major pain in the division for the next few years. Seattle has a lot of work to do to figure out how to beat them, especially that run game.

With the Kansas City Chiefs winning, this will likely stoke the flames of the Fire Pete crowd on Seahawks Twitter who want to see Seattle become more of a passing team. A San Francisco victory would have dampened those flames considerably. I am all for “letting Russell cook” more, but to think Pete Carroll is suddenly going to become Andy Reid just isn’t dealing with reality, and to think that Jody Allen is ever going to fire him while he continually produces playoff teams is silly talk. How about we find a happy medium with this, and give Russell a few more weapons to where they can open things up a bit more on first downs, and call this thing good? Good? Great. Moving on.

The Ugly

I didn’t get to see the halftime show because I had to watch my toddler, but I heard it was pretty “pole dance-y.” Whatever. I’m fine to have missed it.

Moving Forward

As much as I would like to believe that this was the 49ers’ window, I think it is more likely that their window is just now opening. Seattle has got to figure out how to more properly beat them. With Russell Wilson, they have the quarterback to do it, as we have seen him do it, and we just seen Patrick Mahomes do it similarly with his legs and his deep ball, but Seattle needs to figure it out on defense. Kyle Shanahan’s play calling it just too good.

I think Seattle’s main off-season agenda has got to be fixing their defense in a way that can counter San Francisco’s explosive running game and to get Jimmy Garoppolo passing on third and longs. It feels like speed needs to be vastly improved on all three levels of their defense for that to happen, and it will be a major chore to get it done.

Seattle must figure out how to properly rush with four players while stopping the run. That probably means enough size up front combined with speed on the edges, and another play-maker or two on the defense either in the secondary or linebacker. They will have at least $60 million in cap space to do this defensive renovation. They also need to probably add another weapon or two on the offense to “let Russell cook.”

John Schneider, you have lots of work to do over these next few months. I’m going to be excited to see how you get it done.

Go Hawks!