Chiefs provide 49ers with perfect measuring stick in Super Bowl rematch

The 49ers have a chance to enact some vengeance against their Super Bowl nemesis, the Chiefs, in Week 7. And it comes at the perfect time.

Fans and players alike certainly circled the San Francisco 49ers' Week 7 home matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs as a potential catalytic event, one that could give the Niners some slight revenge after what happened in the Super Bowl last February while propelling the team into a midseason surge en route to another playoff push.

Judging by how things have gone for San Francisco over the first six weeks, there's much more on the line when KC comes to town.

Kansas City, a perfect 5-0 and coming off a bye week, might not be playing its best football and has a middle-of-the-pack offense. Yet the Chiefs defense remains a top-10 unit, one that could frustrate quarterback Brock Purdy and Co. in ways not unlike the Super Bowl.

Yet Purdy and the 49ers seem to have righted the ship by soundly defeating the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night Football in Week 6, getting back to the .500 mark and re-entering the conversation of being a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

But, hey. It's the Chiefs, the Niners' biggest nemesis over the last five-plus years.

While San Francisco might have preferred an easy opponent to help secure its first win streak of the season, KC might actually be the perfect obstacle in determining what kind of team the 49ers are heading into the middle portion of the season.

49ers should be happy to play Chiefs in Week 7

Getting off to slow starts is nothing new for the Niners, as was the case in 2021 and 2022. But head coach Kyle Shanahan's squad hit its stride around this point, previously, and marquee matchups frequently helped prompt the surge.

In 2021, a key Week 10 showdown against a Los Angeles Rams team coming off a Super Bowl win helped end a 1-5 skid, and San Francisco demolished LA again a year later in Week 8 after starting the year 3-4, which was preceded by a beatdown by Kansas City the previous week.

Then, in 2023, the 49ers walloped the Philadelphia Eagles in a grudge match of the previous season's NFC Championship game.

All three of those bouts were cathartic, particularly the contest in Philly, and that's precisely what the Niners need to feel about Kansas City coming to town.

Not only would a victory over the Chiefs somewhat alleviate the pain of two Super Bowl losses, but handing KC its first defeat of the year would add some proverbial sweetener, too, while giving San Francisco some much-needed momentum heading into the halfway point of the schedule where it has historically performed well in recent years.

On top of all that, the 49ers need to prove to themselves and the rest of the NFL world that they are indeed legitimate Super Bowl contenders, a sentiment that has been lost during the inconsistencies seen over the first six weeks.

A victory against a Super Bowl rival is the perfect remedy.

The Niners and Chiefs kick off on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 4:25 p.m. ET from Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.

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