The San Francisco 49ers were not able to win Super Bowl 58 against the Kansas City Chiefs last night and with a game so close, every detail mattered. One detail that has emerged is that the San Francisco 49ers reportedly did not know the new overtime rules for the postseason.
That is a huge thing to find out as San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan stated he elected to receive the kick in overtime so they would get the ball if the game was tied after two possessions as it would be sudden death. He expanded on the thought process after the game.
“None of us have a ton of experience with it, but we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys, and we just decided we wanted the ball third.”
The only issue of that process would be the third possession is not guaranteed. It appears as if multiple San Francisco 49ers players did not know the overtime rules for the Super Bowl either. The 49ers were able to kick the field goal but the Chiefs were able to march down the field and score a touchdown to win the game.
Multiple 49ers players said they were not aware the overtime rules changed in the playoffs than they were in the regular season. Arik Armstead said he learned the details when the stadium displayed them on the jumbotron after regulation while Kyle Juszczyk said he figured the team chose to get the ball since that’s what they’d do in the regular season.
To read the full article by Lindsay Jones, please click here.
Does this show the difference between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs?
This was not ultimately the deciding factor but it exposes how big of a gap there is between the coaching styles of Kyle Shanahan and Andy Reid. Defensive lineman Chris Jones said the team has been talking about the new rules for postseason overtime since training camp but the 49ers never discussed it.
While at the end of the day, it only matters what Kyle Shanahan and the coaching staff knew, the players look bad in the situation, and by proxy so does Shanahan.
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