For the rest of your life don't ever let anybody tell you that you couldn't do it because you did it. The famous quote by Bill Parcels after his first Super Bowl victory against the Denver Broncos in 1986, so simple yet it's what comes to my mind after seeing Andy Reid lift that trophy in Miami. He is now an all time great coach with no buts, no he was a great coach but he never won the big one. It's easy and maybe right to assume that with Mahomes he'd eventually win one in Kansas City, but with these things you never know, Reid has been a great coach since when and hadn't won, Dan Marino after losing to the 49ers early in his caeer probably felt the same thing and that's not something you care about right now, you just want to win. Before anything let me congratulate Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Brett Veach and the entire Chiefs' roster for a wonderful season that culminated in a championship last night, well deserved.
After the Chiefs' comeback Kyle Shanahan became the first and probably the only HC/OC who'll ever lose two Super Bowls as the playcaller on offense where his win probability was higher than 95% at some point in the game, at around 7 minutes when the 49ers were up by 10, their win probability was around 96% but it surely didn't feel that way, maybe it's the Mahomes effect in the playoffs because I felt anything could happen and surely enough it did.
We can spend a lot of time breaking down Shanahan's playcalling in the fourth when they were up by 10, but the two big points for me are the clock management late in the first half and the drive where they were down by 4 in the final quarter that ended when they failed to convert a 4th and 10.
With a little under two minutes to go in the second quarter San Francisco stopped Kansas City and was going to get ball back with a lot of time leftw, but to the surprise of everyone including his General Manager in the press box Shanahan didn't call a timeout and let the clock run down to barely over a minute and on first down he ran the ball and neither coach risked calling the timeout until Andy Reid called one with 20 seconds left on third down which also wasn't very smart, KC almost got burned as Jimmy G hit Kittle for a big gain but it was called back because of pass interference by the 49ers' Tight end, the timeout by Reid didn't made sense because with 20 seconds left, San Francisco had another play and the punt that would take too much time off the block to allow Mahomes to try anything other than a Hail Mary and why would you risk giving up a score for that. The chances of getting a chance to kick a FG under that scenario are so small it's not worth it. If the referee doesn't call that which let's not kid ourselves has happened a ton, then the 49ers get another 3 and it's a different ballgame and it's be yet another "blunder" by Reid in the clock management area.
As for the criticism of Shanahan in the fourth quarter, you can't play to kill two minutes off the clock against Mahomes with seven left, that's an eternity, for the most part Kyle did a marvelous job getting easy reades for Jimmy G off the play action and for the game with a minute left he got him Sanders open on the post and Garoppolo overthrew him. That's the game right there. It's hard to put the weight of the Super Bowl in one play but at the end of the day in a close game between two talented teams, that's what it came down to.
A lot of the passing plays by the 49ers in the fourth quarter worked beautifully but Jimmy either didn't see the open receiver, got rattled and/or flat out missed him.
The fear for San Francisco was if Jimmy G was capable of delivering a consistent drive without the threat of the run to use the play action, and in the end he couldn't. Now let's not overreact, Garoppolo is still quite young and he will evolve as he gets older, most people aren't Mahomes who wins a MVP and a Super Bowl MVP before turning 25, in fact no one ever did that, you lost a close game against a great team it happens, no significant changes required.
The tough part for try the 49ers is that not only is the NFC loaded and hard to predict from year to year but their division the NFC West is maybe the best in the league, everybody thought the Rams would be back and with the new stadium and their cap situation they are all in, the Seahawks have Russel Wilson, the Mahomes of the NFC if you'd like to out it that way with him the Seahawks are always competitive and the Cardinals have room to improve with a young exciting QB, Kyler Murray, if they can find a partner for Chandler Jones look out.
It's no guarantee they will be back in the Super Bowl next year but with Shanahan and Lynch the 49ers have a great thing going and making it all the way to the Super Bowl after a 4-12 season is an outstanding accomplishment, let's not lose sight of that. Kyle Shanahan is still the best young coach in football and do not forget that.
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It goes without saying that both Reid and Shanahan know much more about football than me and these are merely my opinions on the game
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