Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers just lost their second Super Bowl in five years against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. This time, it was a crushing 25-22 defeat in overtime.
The 49ers held the Chiefs’ offense to only three points in the first half, but, once again, they couldn’t maintain a double-digit lead as it happened in Super Bowl 54 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
This was a great opportunity for San Francisco to become the winningest franchise in the NFL alongside the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
When the game at Las Vegas went to overtime, Kyle Shanahan had the advantage to choose what to do first. Then, the head coach shocked the world by taking the ball instead of deferring.
Why did Kyle Shanahan take the ball in overtime against Chiefs?
The San Francisco 49ers won the coin toss in overtime against the Kansas City Chiefs and chose to receive the ball. It’s important to remember that the rules had changed in the playoffs and now each team would get a possession regardless of what happened with their rival in the first series.
Considering this scenario, many experts thought the right call would have been to defer. That way, the 49ers and Kyle Shanahan would have known what they’ll had to do in their first possession. Nevertheless, the head coach was thinking way ahead in overtime.
“It’s just something we talked about. None of us have a ton of experience with it, but we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We just thought it would be better. We wanted the ball third. If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had the chance to go win. Got that field goal, so knew we had to hold them to at least a field goal, and if we did, then we thought it was in our hands after that.”
