Louisa Thomas writes about the role momentum may play in the fate of the Kansas City Chiefs as the face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, on Sunday.
For evidence, Kittle could point to the third quarter of that night’s game. When the quarter began, the Lions were up 24–7. The 49ers kicked a field goal on the opening drive, then the ball went back to Detroit, who, in the first half, had been moving downfield almost at will.
The Lions got into 49ers territory and then, on fourth-and-two, tried for a first down instead of attempting a field goal. They failed. On the next drive, the 49ers’ quarterback Brock Purdy threw a long pass that hit a Lions player, Kindle Vildor, in the facemask and bounced into the hands of the 49ers’ receiver Brandon Aiyuk, for a fifty-one-yard gain. Purdy found Aiyuk for a touchdown three plays later. The sound of the crowd swelled through the stadium. The 49ers could sense it. The Lions could sense it. Fans watching the drama unfold through television screens, even thousands of miles away, could sense it. Momentum. “You could just kind of feel an energy,” Kittle went on. “We go down and score. ‘All right, this is huge.’ Turnover. I was, like, ‘Ah, man, all bets are off now.’ Bang bang.” The final score was 34–31, San Francisco. Afterward, the 49ers’ head coach, Kyle Shanahan, described the players’ mind-set at halftime. The vibe, he said, was “We’re not going out like this. Guys didn’t want today to be the last day.” In the second half, Shanahan said, “We were able to get the ball to bounce the right way.” A headline in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, “49ers Are Going to the Super Bowl Thanks to a Force That Can’t Be Measured.” Momentum, Barnwell found, didn’t reliably carry over from the regular season to the postseason. Teams that surged at the end of the season were not reliably more likely to win the Super Bowl than teams that had got off to a hot start. Momentum also didn’t appear to carry over from week to week or minute to minute. Looking at data from games in the National Hockey League, he found that teams which scored late to force overtime were not more likely to win that game. In football, he found that stopping a team on downs—as the 49ers had done, in the third quarter, against the Lions—did not create any measurable momentum. The team that then received the ball was not more likely to score on the following drive than if the opposing team had punted to them instead. Barnwell dug deep. He read academic papers from decades before. He conducted more studies. He scrutinized the ways that commentators, coaches, and fans used the word “momentum” to see whether he could find any consistent patterns. He learned that a Cincinnati Bengals quarterback named Virgil Carter had used computers to analyze reams of data and had come to some of the same conclusions that Barnwell did—in 1970. The problem with momentum, in Barnwell’s view, was not that it doesn’t exist. He actually had no idea whether it existed—and, these days, he’s willing to concede that it probably does. The problem was that it isn’t well defined. In physics, momentum is a measure of mass in motion: the product of a particle’s mass and velocity. In the analysis of football games, though, the concept seems to abide by no rules. It is “an arbitrary, abstract idea that you can mold into just about anything you want to tell the story you’re looking to tell,” Barnwell wrote in “Nomentum.” That makes it a poor basis for play-calling—such as whether to kick a field goal on fourth-and-two instead of trying to get a first down—and a poor basis for criticizing the plays a coach decides to call. Teams generally win or lose football games because of some combination of sound decision-making, good execution, and luck, not because they are carried by a mystical force unleashed by a dropped pass or a goal-line stop. The tricky thing, the thrilling thing, is that this feeling is unstable, and its effects are unpredictable, and likely unmeasurable. Some people seem to wilt under pressure. Others—probably most of us—have good moments and bad, rising and falling in unsteady fashion. And some people are Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback, didn’t have the best regular season, by his standards. But, when the playoffs arrived, he became his dominant self again. Mahomes has yet to throw an interception since the regular season. He’s been completing more passes, throwing more touchdowns, and running more effectively. In the A.F.C. Championship game, against the Ravens, in Baltimore, he comfortably connected on thirty of his thirty-nine passes for two hundred and forty-one yards and a touchdown. The game never seemed in doubt. The Chiefs didn’t need a force that can’t be measured. They just needed Mahomes. But the Chiefs tell their story as one of momentum, too. Their story starts not in Baltimore, nor during their previous playoff-game win against the Miami Dolphins. Their tale begins on Christmas Day, shortly after a loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. It seemed demoralizing at the time, but now the Chiefs say it inspired them. They won the next two games, the final games of the regular season. “We carried that momentum in the playoffs,” Mahomes said a few days ago. He inspires so much confidence—and so much respect on the part of his opponents—that he seems to be momentum itself. How’s this for a swing? Mahomes has led eighteen potential game-tying or go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter or overtime and converted twelve of them. He’s 4–2 in the playoffs in games when the Chiefs have trailed by ten points or more. The last time the Chiefs faced the 49ers in the Super Bowl, in 2020, he led the Chiefs back from a 20–10 third-quarter deficit; the Chiefs scored twenty-one points in under seven minutes, as Mahomes, after a miserable start, made a series of spectacular throws. If I had to place a bet on Mahomes vs. momentum, I would bet on Mahomes. ♦
Please follow us on Google to support us United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Super Bowl 2024 picks: Who we like in Chiefs-49ers to win Super BowlThe Field Gulls staff makes its predictions and picks for the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas.
Read more »
Super Bowl LVIII: What time, what channel, who is the halftime headliner?Pro football’s biggest game has arrived. Super Bowl LVIII will be played Sunday in Las Vegas, the first time the game has been played in what has been called “Sin City,” “The Entertainment Capital of the World” and the city of “Lost Wages.”
Read more »
Weird Super Bowl Bets: Taylor Swift-Themed Props, Gatorade Color And ‘Scorigami’ Among Legal WagersI cover breaking news for Forbes. Before Forbes, I worked as a reporter for USA Today in Asheville and Black Mountain, North Carolina. I received my bachelor's degree in journalism from Auburn University and my master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.
Read more »
Super Bowl 2024: How to Watch, Stream the Chiefs vs. 49ers Game for Free TodaySuper Bowl Sunday is here. Here are the best ways to watch the big game for free today.
Read more »
How to Watch Kitten Bowl Live For Free 2024: Where to Stream Great American Rescue BowlGet ready for some furry first downs.
Read more »
Super Bowl Sunday: The game, the parties, the teams—what's America's favorite part?A CBS News poll on the 2024 Super Bowl finds rooting is split over Chiefs and 49ers teams.
Read more »