Why Kyle Shanahan shouldn't be blamed for 49ers Super Bowl 58 loss this time

[Fired For A Reason]

Steve Wilks gets fired for a reason, usually poor performance
and losing.

Before the San Francisco 49ers hoisted the George Halas Trophy,
which is what the winners of the NFC Championship Game receive,
the narrative was already being written for Kyle Shanahan.
Keyboard warriors were looking like linebackers waiting to
blitz, with their fingers hovering on the edge as if it were the
line of scrimmage just to write: Kyle Shanahan blows another
lead.

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"There's no right words right now. It hurts." - Kyle Shanahan to
our @EvanWashburn

Kyle Shanahan can’t outlive Super Bowl ghosts
Shanahan will forever have to live with Super Bowl 51 when he
was the offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons. As the
play-caller in that game, which the Falcons were up 28-3 late in
the third quarter, the offense didn’t score a single point the
rest of the game. The Falcons, Matt Ryan, head coach Dan Quinn,
and Shanahan now have to forever be known as part of the team
that had the greatest collapse in Super Bowl history. Ryan is
now all but retired from playing, Quinn just took his second
head coaching job with the Washington Commanders, and Shanahan
has now fallen victim to another close loss in his third Super
Bowl appearance.

The good news for Shanahan (and Quinn) is that unlike his then-
quarterback, Ryan, in Super Bowl 51, he has chances to redeem
himself and to at least ease the pain from that loss and change
his own narrative. The bad news is, Shanahan has now lost two
more Super Bowls, this time as a head coach for the 49ers, where
even more of the blame is cast on him.

In Super Bowl 54, Shanahan led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in
just his third season, going 13-3, the best record a San
Francisco team since 2011. It was Game 1 of what would end up
being a rematch four years later between the 49ers and Chiefs,
where, in retrospect, a dynasty was set to begin in one way or
another. Unfortunately, for Shanahan and the 49ers, it went the
Chiefs’ way.

With 8:53 remaining in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 54, the
49ers had a 20-10 lead, yet the Chiefs and Mahomes rattled off
21 unanswered to win the game 31-20. It was too close of a
reminder of just three years prior, and everyone was quick to
point that out, but this time the finger was almost solely being
pointed at Shanahan because he was the easiest target.

Not only was Shanahan the head coach then like he is now, but
he’s also still the offensive play-caller. When you couple all
that together, it makes him the easiest scapegoat in the NFL.
But he didn’t quite deserve the blame this time around.

Kyle Shanahan doesn’t deserve the loss for Super Bowl 58
A loss is a loss and there will always be room to point fingers,
as the job didn’t get done. However, it can be argued that
Shanahan coached one of his better games for the most part in
Super Bowl 58, especially against one of the tougher defenses in
the league. His play call in the second quarter to have Jauan
Jennings — a former high school quarterback — throw back across
to Christian McCaffrey for the game’s first touchdown was pure
genius. He also did a solid job of making play calls to adjust
to Chiefs blitzes throughout the evening.

Shanahan was by no means perfect, though. His lack of use of
Christian McCaffrey in the second half, specifically in the
third quarter, was baffling. But that’s not even where upset
49ers fans are pointing. They want to know why Shanahan decided
to accept to receive the ball to begin overtime instead of
electing to kickoff.

This again all goes back to Super Bowl 51 and the Falcons’ loss.
That was the first time the Super Bowl had ever gone into
overtime, and Sunday’s Super Bowl 58 was just the second. There
was a distinct difference in those games, however. The overtime
rules for the postseason have changed in seven seasons, most of
which no one really knew about, including Shanahan and most of
his players.

Back in Super Bowl 51, fortune had to be on your side to win the
coin toss and receiving the ball because if you scored a
touchdown, the game was over. Only a field goal would have given
the opponent a chance to tie or win the game. In Super Bowl 58,
no matter if it was a touchdown or field goal, the team who lost
the coin toss still received a chance to tie or win the game.
That’s why Shanahan is being roasted today for electing to
choose to receive and not kickoff to begin overtime.

Honestly, if that’s you, then you’re just looking for excuses.
Sure, it’s debatable on whether to elect to kick or receive, but
at that point in the game, everything is going to be nitpicked.
The 49ers were likely gassed as defense, trying to contain
Mahomes and the Chiefs, who had just gone 11 plays for 64 yards
to tie the game.

Plus, it’s not as if the 49ers didn’t have their opportunity to
score a touchdown. They went 13 plays for 66 yards and were just
nine yards short of paydirt before having to rely on Jake Moody
to nail a 27-yard field goal.

For Kyle Shanahan’s critics, they all live off the ghosts of
years past, most notably those from Houston, TX back in February
of 2017. Even though this was another haunting Super Bowl loss
for the 49ers’ head coach, these weren’t the same ghosts.

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