Having seen his San Francisco 49ers side lose out to the Kansas City Chiefs in their Las Vegas Super Bowl clash, head coach Kyle Shanahan has had to come to terms with a third defeat in the showpiece event and is, to say the least, disappointed with how things panned out.
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Having completed the regular season with a 12-5 record and eased past the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions to set up a Super Bowl clash with the Kansas City Chiefs, Shanahan’s men once again fell at the last hurdle, losing 25-22 to Andy Reid’s side in Las Vegas.
That made it three Super Bowl losses for the San Francisco 49ers head coach, the last coming four years ago against the same opponents and the first back in 2016 when he was offensive coordinator at the Atlanta Falcons as they threw away a massive 25-point lead to lose to Tom Brady’s New England Patriots.
On those defeats, Shanahan had a rather somber assessment, stating,
“When you go against guys like Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes, you never feel comfortable with a lead,”
“Those guys are two of the best to ever play the game.”
In overtime, the 49ers could only manage a field goal before the Chiefs’s drive brought them the winning touchdown,
“It looked like there was a protection bust up the middle,” Shanahan said of Brock Purdy’s key incomplete pass.
“We were going to Jauan (Jennings). It looked like Jauan killed him pretty good (on the route). But Chris Jones got loose up the middle. I think there was a mistake. I’m not sure. Obviously, he’s a hard guy to block.”
It’s now 29 seasons without a Super Bowl win, and though this is a run that San Francisco should have brought to an end by now, it’s a situation that Shanahan was rather sanguine about,
“It’s part of sports, it’s part of football, it’s part of life,”
“I thought we put ourselves out there. I love our team. We’ll recover and we’ll be back next year strong.” Shanahan added.
On his decision to receive the ball first in overtime, Shanahan explained,
"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." He concluded.
It was a decision that, in the end, backfired and is no doubt going to be spoken about at length, at least until the new season gives Kyle Shanahan a chance to change the subject.
