It’s a new season for the 49ers and the Chiefs, but it’s hard to avoid thinking about the end of last season as they head into Week Seven.
The Chiefs will be at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday and that means that pre-game preparations for the Niners will include a look back at Super Bowl LVIII. The 49ers led that game going into the fourth quarter, they took another lead after the Chiefs tied the game and they scored first in overtime, but the Chiefs wound up winning their third championship in five years on Mecole Hardman’s touchdown later in the extra period.
It was the second time that the 49ers have lost a Super Bowl to the Chiefs in the Kyle Shanahan era and the head coach acknowledged on Wednesday that it is impossible to put that totally out of your mind heading into this Sunday. Shanahan also stressed that the team can’t let the past results be their main focus as they prepare for the game.
“I think everyone understands that we’ve lost two Super Bowls to them, so that can give a little post-traumatic stress when you turn on the tape, but I think that’s human nature,” Shanahan said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “But you gotta make sure you don’t get caught up in that. This game has nothing to do with past games. That was last year. We’re playing a really good AFC opponent. We’re .500 right now, and we want to stay atop of our division and get a win. I mean, you think about that stuff going into it, but in terms of [how] it plays out in a game, it really has no correlation, and you try to make sure that it doesn’t.”
No result will rewrite the history between the two teams, but that history does mean that a 49ers win would have a bit more psychological impact this week than it would against most other opponents.
