Analyzing how the San Francisco 49ers should defend Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 They also talked about doubling Kelsey. One thing I wanted to mention was Luke Keekly was on with
00:05 Kay Adams and he had a great thing to say about how you stop Kelsey. He said that the key is you
00:13 have to keep your eyes on him the entire play. Don't look back to the quarterback. When you
00:17 look back to the quarterback, Mahomes sees that as a read and then Kelsey runs away,
00:22 gets separation, finds a hole in the zone, hole in the coverage, and there he is and you can't
00:27 catch up. So Keekly said you've got to maintain eye contact with Kelsey the entire play. Never
00:33 take your eyes off the guy. And then don't read his hands for the catch. Read his eyes. Kelsey
00:39 moves his hands really late to make the catch. If you can read his eyes, then you'll see when the
00:44 ball's coming and make a play and adjust. So I thought that was brilliant from Keekly and
00:49 one of the best linebackers of the last 10 years. He knows what he's talking about.
00:55 Absolutely. And it seems like so. Yeah, maybe the Niners will be playing man coverage in this game.
01:01 They tried to play zone coverage against the Lions. It didn't work in the first half. They
01:05 came out in the second half, played man to man coverage and realized, oh, we can cover their
01:09 wide receivers. Jared Goff isn't that precise. Maybe they'll try that again in this game.
01:13 Think Mahomes is great, but Kelsey's better against zone than man. And Rasheed Rice is good.
01:19 Not great. Marquez Valdez-Scanling is decent. Not great. We can cover these guys. Possible.
01:25 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it plays into his strength is that Treveri's word, Yamato Lenore,
01:31 they can both man up well. And then it's just a question of what can the safeties do?
01:36 What can Warner do? But I think that they're better man than zone,
01:41 especially with Kelsey. If you zone Kelsey, he'll find the hole. He'll beat you. You have to man up.
01:51 I would do what what Keekly advocates and see if it works.
01:55 I think it's I bet they will. I bet they will. It'll be interesting because I mean,
02:02 I think they have guys who can man it like the Ravens didn't. But do you think Fred Warner
02:08 could play man to man coverage on Kelsey or would you have a brown? Well, it depends on
02:15 just where he's lined up and what the Niners are playing in terms of their formation. But
02:20 either one of them, I think, is capable of doing it. I would have more confidence in Jair,
02:26 but we'll see. Fred could do it. And I think the other thing with Fred is that, you know,
02:32 that in this game, Fred's going to show he's had some lapses. But when the game is biggest
02:38 in Fred knows that this might be his last chance at a Super Bowl. That he's going to show up and
02:46 he's aware of the moment, the opportunity and the history. And he's had some great quotes about that
02:52 of being cognizant of the moment. It's not all the time that you get back to this. You have to be
02:57 respectful of the opportunity and play your best when it counts most.