When Kansas City and San Francisco meet in Super Bowl LVIII (SB 58), it will be their 16th meeting (not counting pre-season games), with one of those coming in SB 54. In the regular season, the teams have met 14 times since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970, and both teams have won seven games apiece. With KC’s victory over the Niners in SB 54, KC holds an 8-7 edge all-time in games that “count.” A victory by SF would mean the teams are knotted at 8-8 overall, and 1-1 in the Supe.
Since their first meeting in 1971, both teams have remained amazingly consistent in their uniforms, although San Francisco has gone through more tweaks and changes than KC. In fact, if you compare their uniforms from their 1975 meeting with what they’ll be wearing in the Big Game, it’s amazing how closely they resemble their predecessors sartorially! Dig:
Granted, there were a bunch of slight changes in between, but that’s pretty cool how both teams don’t look much different from 50 years ago! The most noticeable changes are the much smaller sleeves, which as a result have pushed both teams’ TV numbers from the sleeve to the shoulder.
Let’s take a look at all the times the two teams have met during the regular season (and once in the Super Bowl). Apologies for the poor quality on a couple of the images.
December 6, 1971:
KC 26 | SF 17
October 5, 1975
SF 20 | KC 3
December 26, 1982
SF 26 | KC 13
November 17, 1985
SF 31 | KC 3
December 14, 1991
SF 28 | KC 14
September 11, 1994
KC 24 | SF 17
November 30, 1997
KC 44 | SF 9
November 12, 2000
SF 21 | KC 7
November 10, 2002
SF 17 | KC 13
October 1, 2006
KC 41 | SF 0
September 26, 2010
KC 31 | SF 10
October 5, 2014
SF 22 | KC 17
September 23, 2018
KC 38 | SF 27
February 2, 2020 (Super Bowl LIV)
KC 31 | SF 20
October 23, 2022
KC 44 | SF 23
Some Fun Facts:
• The home team (including the designated “home” team in Super Bowl 54) has always worn red jerseys.
• In their first three meetings, the road (white jersey) team won all three games.
• In the subsequent 11 meetings (including SB 54), the team wearing the red jersey won every game.
• In their final meeting before this year’s Super Bowl, the team wearing white jerseys won.
• The team wearing red is 11-4 all time.
• KC is 2-4 all time when wearing white/red; 0-1 when wearing white/white
• KC is 7-2 all time when wearing red/white (which they will wear in SB 58)
• SF is 7-1 all time when wearing red/gold; 0-1 when wearing red/white
• SF is 2-5 all time when wearing white/gold; 0-1 when wearing white/white (they will wear white/gold in SB 58)
I prefer the 49ers unis without the dropshadowed numbers. I wonder what the percentage of Niners fans like them (or don’t mind them) and what percentage of Uni-Watch fans like them (or don’t mind them). BTW I love the thick dropshadows on the Showtime Lakers jerseys.
I’m not a Niners fan and I don’t like the drop shadow either. I also don’t like the present helmet logo with the thicker black outline, and would prefer they go back to the 1968 – 1995 helmet logo (see link). The less black the better on their uniforms, IMHO.
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Which 1964-88 or 1989-95 helmet logo do you prefer? The former looks like the S and the F do not have a black outline.
It’s thin, but it’s there
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Like Phil said. :)
Why does it look like it doesn’t?
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Because that version of the helmet logo, used from 1962 to 1988, didn’t have a black outline around it: link. The bigger question is why did the 49ers’ front office have that helmet on display next to the infamous “one-day helmet” when it had been retired 3 years earlier?
It’s even more confusing, because the SF logo on the helmet did NOT have a black outline, as Kary points out (link)
However, the OFFICIAL logo, which was identical but not used on the helmet, did have a black outline (link)
Why the two were different I do not know.
…hence my original question to TomInNJ and my follow-up question to Phil.
@Phil: 49ers switched to the new logo in 1989, and since they played in Superbowl XXIII in 1989 for the 1988 season, you ended up with helmets both with and without the black outline around the SF on the helmets, as seen in this photo: link
So my question to TomInNJ remains, since he said that the less black the better.
…hence my original question to TomInNJ and my follow-up question to Phil.
I prefer the 1964 – 1988 helmet logo because, as you indicated, the S and F didn’t have any black outline.
Me, too, but the 1989-95 one is a (super) close 2nd for me.
Niners’ drop shadow: I vote yes, especially on the white jersey.
Only two weak links in an otherwise strong chain of matchups. And both were in the 90s. At least ’94 looked good.
‘91 was clearly the best looking matchup in this series. I think you know why this is so.
Damn straight. Just wish KC had a gray mask, then it would be perfect.
The 1994 game just looks…wrong.
I don’t understand why the 49ers would change to the black and red stripes on the helmet and pants? Glad they corrected this mistake.
Well, it started when they redesigned in 1996 to make their unis echo the 1994 (1955) throwback look. They wore white pants that season, and those carried the black/red/black stripe. (It was also their first season with reebok, after having been with Wilson and Wilson Staff in 94/95). That 1996 redesign also featured the black/red/black on the helmet. In 1998, they ditched the white pants, and wore gold pants (home and road), but the striping on the pants was actually thin black/thiner gold/thick red/thiner gold/thin black. It never actually matched the helmet striping, which always struck me as very odd…and messed with my OCD. I’m not sure why the pants weren’t *just* black/red/black like the helmet.
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I love how comically wide the pants stripes got with both teams at one point. At a time when all-white practice pants are suddenly the rage, the pants stripes need to come back, wide and visible.
The other big difference in both teams’ uniforms between 1975 and today, besides the length of sleeves and location of TV numbers, is the design of the socks.