Niner Noise
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5 lessons Buccaneers can learn from SF 49ers Super Bowl loss to Chiefs

By Peter Panacy

Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs with Jimmy Garoppolo #10 of the San Francisco 49ers (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs with Jimmy Garoppolo #10 of the San Francisco 49ers (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
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Tom Brady, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /

SF 49ers Lesson to Buccaneers No. 2: Offense must capitalize in the red zone

The SF 49ers went a perfect 2-of-2 in the red zone during the Super Bowl last season, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the Chiefs from coming back.

But it doesn’t take much to figure out Kansas City will score points, so those red-zone opportunities are going to be crucial for Tampa Bay to pull off the win. Ideally, the Buccaneers would prefer somewhere in the range of four or five red-zone trips, all ending with touchdown pay dirt instead of field-goal tries.

For Bucs fans, there’s good news here.

Going 2-of-2 in the red zone against the Packers was good enough, especially considering Tampa Bay’s halfway-decent 64.9 red-zone touchdown percentage during the regular season when matched up against Green Bay’s 12th-ranked red-zone defense.

The Chiefs, however, boasted the league’s worst red-zone defense during the regular season, allowing touchdowns in this area a whopping 74.1 percent of the time.

Unlike the Buffalo Bills, who regularly settled for field goals inside the red zone during the AFC Championship game, the Bucs need to take the page out of the Niners book and understand how much difficulty Kansas City has at keeping opponents out of the end zone.

Simply put, settling for field goals won’t be enough. At all.