Chiefly speaking

Cue up the video again of that strutting peacock, Hank Stram, with his crested blazer and his motormouth yap about 65 Toss Power Trap and matriculating the ball down the field. Haul out the photo of Lenny Dawson taking a drag on a cig at halftime of Super Bowl I. Blow half a century's dust off all those glorious names every Kansas City Chiefs' fan knows by heart.

Dawson and Mike Garrett and Otis Taylor. Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier and Emmitt Thomas. Buck Buchanan. Johnny Robinson. Sidewinding kicker Jan Stenerud, the Nordic Automatic, and the one-eyed end, Fred Arbanas.

Fifty years is a long thirsty stretch between Super Bowls, so some of those men are gone now. But their descendants are going back now, thanks to an old warhorse coach and a quarterback who matriculates the ball down the field in ways Hank Stram never could have conceived.

Andy Reid with his wizard's gift for offensive schemes. Patrick Mahomes with his magician's ability to turn those schemes into tangible results as the Matriculator of all matriculators. And Travis Kelce and Sammy Watkins and Damien Williams and Chris Jones and all the others.

They spotted the gritty, brutish Tennessee Titans leads of 10-0 and 17-7 yesterday in the AFC title game, then came roaring back again on the strength of Mahomes' arm and one dazzling touchdown jaunt you will now find in the dictionary next to the word "nifty." Twenty-eight straight points later, the Chiefs were up 35-17 and on their way to Miami for Supe LIV. And all the inhabitants of marvelous old Arrowhead Stadium were LIV-ing up, too.

Waiting for their Chiefs will be the San Francisco 49ers, who looked simply fearsome in grinding up Aaron Rodgers and the poor Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship. They did the way they've done it all season, with a vicious defense and a running game whose parts seem interchangeable.

For a lot of the season, it's been an Indiana Hoosier, Tevin Coleman, who's carried the load. Yesterday, with Coleman out, it was a Purdue Boilermaker, Raheem Mostert, who gashed the Pack for 220 yards and four touchdowns.

So the 49ers are riding to Miami in an Old Oaken Bucket. So to speak.

The Blob's heart leans toward the Matriculator, simply because watching the Matriculator play football is more fun than kittens on ether. The Blob's head, though, suspects the Bucketheads from San Francisco will get the silvery confetti shower in this one, because history says defense usually trumps offense in the Supe, and the 49ers' defense is unmatched.

This doesn't mean the Blob has any idea how the Niners slow down the Matriculator, if in fact anyone can at this point.

The Titans did their level best, switching up their coverages at halftime to briefly confound Mahomes. But he figured out what they were doing before too long, and Reid dialed up a few switches of his own, and pretty soon Mahomes was finding Watkins behind the defense from 60 yards out and it was all over.

So it'll be the Niners' D vs. Mahomes. And yet it might all come down to just how well the Chiefs' D can rise to the occasion the way it did yesterday, when it slowed the previously unstoppable Derrick Henry to at least a fast walk.

More on that later. For now, though, the Blob guarantees only one thing.

Your Super Bowl champion will be the team in red.