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Why Christian McCaffrey & Isiah Pacheco will determine Super Bowl LVIII

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz chimes in on the list of the most influential players in Sunday’s game and explains why the pair of running backs will be crucial.

Video Transcript

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JASON FITZ: Frank Schwab has given us the list of the 10 most important people in the Super Bowl, and the list is flawed, follow me here. At number 1 is Christian McCaffrey. Now that makes a ton of sense because we all know how important Christian McCaffrey is to the 49ers. I follow you here, Frank. Where I don't follow you is that at number 10, you have Isiah Pacheco. That's right, number 10 for the Chiefs' star running back. Here is why that is wildly low. Think about the numbers. If you look at the playoffs so far, look at the prop bets.

Isiah Pacheco has hit the over in total rushing attempts and total rushing yards in every single playoff match-up. What does that tell us? That tells us that the Kansas City Chiefs are actually going to run the football because they've been doing it throughout the course of the playoffs. They are now a running team. That's how they've gotten here. You cannot have a running team with the star running back that is ranked at number 10. In my mind, it is going to be clear that both teams will try to establish the run, which means if you're looking at the most important players, number 1, Christian McCaffrey, fine, I'll give you that, but you can't have Isiah Pacheco ranked any lower than number 2.