Super Bowl LVIII Picks: ATS, Total Predictions For 49ers-Chiefs

A lot can happen over 154 days. Like, for instance, an entire NFL season.

As we get set to crown a Super Bowl champion on Sunday night in Las Vegas, the Kansas City Chiefs on the final night of the season will be right where they were on Night 1: on the football field.

The Chiefs opened the 2023 season, and they are one of the last teams standing, as they prepare to battle the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium.

In the grand scheme of things, 154 days doesn’t sound like a long period of time — and it’s really not. It’s not even half of a calendar year. A football season, though, can feel like an eternity, especially for teams riding the ebbs and flows.

The Chiefs can attest to that. They lost opening night to the upstart Detroit Lions. Then, in December, they lost three of four, culminating with a Christmas Day stinker of a loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.

“They’re barely a top-10 team,” Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio wrote at the time.

The 49ers, meanwhile, stormed out of the gates, winning their first five, including a 42-10 thumping of the Dallas Cowboys in Week 5. That preceded a three-game losing streak from which the Niners bounced back — only to suffer their own embarrassing Christmas beatdown, getting worked by the Baltimore Ravens just hours after KC’s loss.

But it’s about how you respond. These veteran-laden teams with arguably the two best head coaches in the sport got off the mat and were able to right the ship — multiple times over the course of the season. Now, they’re the final two combatants left in the ring, where they will duke it out for the Lombardi Trophy for the second time in four years.

It’s hard to argue we didn’t get the right — and best — matchup for all the marbles.

NESN.com’s Mike Cole and Ricky Doyle are sure excited about the greatest spectacle in pro sports. The hosts of “The Spread,” NESN’s football picks podcast, went diving into the numbers, the trends and everything in between to concoct their best predictions for how the Super Bowl will turn out.

Listen to them in all their glory below before diving into their official against-the-spread and over/under picks.

Here’s where the records stand entering the final game of the 2023-24 season.

No more messing around. Let’s get into their Super Bowl picks for Chiefs-49ers.

(-2) San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs, 6:30 p.m ET
Total: 47.5

Mike: Chiefs, UNDER
As we talked about on “The Spread” this week, my betting card is probably going to follow a pretty specific narrative. Even if the Chiefs find a way to score first, I think the 49ers have an otherwise strong first half and could go into the locker room with the lead. This might sound crazy to say, but I do think the Chiefs’ biggest strength is that Steve Spagnuolo-led defense. He’s no stranger to the Super Bowl, orchestrating game plans that have stopped even Tom Brady in his tracks. He’ll make the appropriate halftime adjustments to allow for a KC comeback; the Chiefs have allowed just 10 total second-half points in the playoffs thus far.

That sets the stage for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Isiah Pacheco to do their thing down the stretch. Pacheco’s inclusion with those two superstars is key. The man runs angry, and if there’s a weakness on the star-studded 49ers defense, it’s the run defense. Pacheco is going to break one or two, especially as he starts to wear down that front (and perhaps offer some MVP value?). Oh, and if it does come to the quarterbacks needing to make a play to ice it, the Chiefs still have No. 15, the best football player on the planet.

Ricky: Chiefs, UNDER
I want to take the 49ers. I really do. It’s the sharp play, with the public all over the mainstream Chiefs, mostly under the premise that Patrick Mahomes is inevitable. I just don’t have the stomach for it. Especially after going against my better judgment — listeners of “The Spread” know I was pumping Kansas City’s tires during its lowest points this season — last week in the AFC Championship Game. I took the Ravens, thinking it finally was time for Lamar Jackson and company to get over the hump, only to end up with egg on my face as yet another opponent crashed and burned against a dynastic franchise with an elite quarterback, an elite head coach and now an elite defense, as well. Not to keep beating this drum, but the Chiefs are what the Patriots were at the peak of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era. Simple as that.

Regarding this particular matchup, the 49ers are no slouches. Obviously. They, too, are well coached, with an emerging quarterback and a vaunted defense. Plus, they have offensive weapons as far as the eye can see. But San Francisco just got bullied around on the ground by Detroit and Green Bay, only for those teams to make costly mistakes down the stretch. KC could have similar success in the run game. Not just with Isiah Pacheo — a certified beast — but by way of designed wide receiver (and tight end?) runs: Direct snaps. Sweeps. End-arounds. Things of that nature. The Niners’ defensive front, while excellent, tends to storm the backfield, with an eye toward generating negative plays. Unfortunately for them, the Chiefs are masters of offensive ingenuity. They’ll game plan around that.

Then, of course, there’s the quarterback discrepancy. I’m not a Brock Purdy hater, by any means. Quite the opposite, in fact. But he’s a wild card entering this game. Mahomes is a known quantity who just so happens to also be one of the best QBs in NFL history. Advantage: KC.