When the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers meet in Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11, it will be 476 days since the last game between the two teams.
They played in Week 7 of the 2022 NFL season in what appeared to be an ordinary regular-season game, with the 3-3 49ers hosting the 4-2 Chiefs at Levi’s Stadium.
Going into the game, however, both teams could have never known how significant it would be.
For the Kansas City Chiefs, who won the game in dominating fashion, 44-23, it was the beginning of something special.
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Kansas City Chiefs roll all the way to the Super Bowl
At the time, the Kansas City Chiefs were coming off a home loss to the Buffalo Bills and were looking for a bounce-back game. They got against the 49ers, with Mahomes throwing for 423 yards and three scores and the Chiefs scoring 30 points in the second half.
The victory was monumental for the Chiefs in that it started a five-game winning streak and a stretch in which Kansas City won 13 of its next 14 game, with win No. 13 being a 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII.
As for the San Francisco 49ers, who suffered their worst loss of the season, they got a brief yet important glimpse at a hidden gem, one that would be instrumental to their 2022 season and especially one after that, leading to Super Bowl LVIII.
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Brock Purdy makes his NFL debut
The San Francisco 49ers were scuffling at the time, coming off a road loss to the Atlanta Falcons in which starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo threw a pair of interceptions
Against the Chiefs, Garopollo threw another pick and was sacked five times, once for a safety, as Kansas City scored 16 points in the fourth quarter.
But with the game all but decided, head coach Kyle Shanahan kept Garoppolo on the sidelines in favor of rookie Brock Purdy, who began the season as the No. 3 quarterback and whose only previous NFL game action had been a kneel-down on the last play of a game against Carolina two weeks earlier.
With the 49ers down 44-23, Purdy entered the game with 3:39 left and promptly completed his first NFL pass, a 20-yard completion to Ray-Ray McCloud.
Purdy connected on four of his first eight passes and drove the 49ers 67 yards on nine plays to the Kansas City 18-yard line, where he then threw an interception in the end zone to safety Juan Thornhill.
Purdy didn’t appear in another game until four weeks later, when he had a five-yard run and two kneel-downs in a victory over Arizona.
But two weeks later, the 49ers’ offense suddenly became his to run when Garoppolo suffered a season-ending foot injury on the first series of the game against Miami.
Purdy took over and never looked back, leading the 49ers to a victory over the Dolphins and every week after that — 12 consecutive victories in all — until the NFC Championship Game, when he suffered an elbow ligament tear in his right elbow.
Brock Purdy elevated his game in 2023
Purdy not only recovered from the elbow surgery during months of rehab in the offseason; he’s taken his game to another level since that first encounter with the Kansas City Chiefs.
In his first full season as a starting quarterback. He’s led the NFL in several key passing numbers, including QB rating, QBR, TD percentage and yards per attempt.
He’s won 21 of his first 25 NFL games as a starting quarterback. He’s guided the 49ers to two consecutive NFC Championship and now one Super Bowl after two straight come-from-behind playoff victories.
Going to Super Bowl LVIII, Purdy has evolved into one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks who has the 49ers on the cusp of a sixth Super Bowl victory. And it would be more than fitting if it came against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.