Quite a few sleepless nights may lie ahead for San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan given how his team lost Super Bowl LVIII to the Kansas City Chiefs.
In the moment, it was somewhat puzzling for the Niners to take the ball after they won the overtime coin toss. The strategy only looked worse Patrick Mahomes’ three-yard touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman ended the game.
The criticism toward Shanahan has amplified in the immediate aftermath of the contest.
“Kyle not having a dedicated game strategist on staff screwed him,” one coach said to The Athletic’s Mike Sando.
It’s always easy to second-guess once the outcome is known. With Shanahan, though, the broad critiques are more than fair.
For one, the coach seemed to use a flawed logic to justify starting on offense. He told reporters the 49ers “wanted the ball third” so they could control their own fate in a sudden-death situation. But they could’ve achieved basically the exact same thing by putting Mahomes on the field to open the extra period.
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