14 February 2024 , 03:00
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A theory has emerged that Kyle Shanahan, the coach of the San Franciso 49ers, didn't understand the Super Bowl overtime rules.
This comes after his decision during the coin toss in Sunday's game led to a loss for his team. For only the second time in Super Bowl history, the Kansas City Chiefs and the 49ers went into overtime with the score at 19-19. Before the game continued, both teams took part in a coin toss to decide who would have the ball first in overtime.
Under the new NFL playoff rules, each team gets the ball at least once in overtime before the game ends. This is different from the regular season rules, where the game ends if the first team with the ball scores a touchdown.
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Shanahan won the toss and chose to receive the ball first. However, the 49ers could only manage a field goal, adding three points to their total. This meant the Chiefs knew a touchdown would win them the game.
Just seconds away from the 49ers claiming a record-equalling sixth title, Patrick Mahomes found Mecole Hardman for a touchdown. This secured back-to-back titles for the Chiefs with a 25-22 win. Fans on social media questioned why Shanahan made the decision they believe cost his team the Super Bowl.
"The 49ers/Kyle Shanahan deciding not to take the ball second in overtime is an underrated f*** up," one fan said.
Another added: "Wouldn't the team going second have a chance to win by going for two? I honestly don't understand this decision."
A third fan asked: "He [Shanahan] will always make a crucial mistake... how do you elect to receive the rock first in overtime under these new rules???
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The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVIII (Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)Kyle Shanahan shared why he chose to get the ball first after the game. "None of us have a ton of experience with it," he explained. "We went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We decided it would be better getting the ball third because if both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones to have a chance to go win it."
Some 49ers players were also surprised by the new NFL playoff overtime rules. "I didn't even know about the new playoff overtime rule, so it was a surprise to me," Arik Armstead admitted. "I didn't even really know what was going on in terms of that."
Kyle Juszczyk, the team's fullback, also mentioned they hadn't planned for overtime. He said: "You know what? I didn't even realise the playoff rules were different in overtime. I assume you just want the ball to score a touchdown and win. I guess that's not the case. I don't totally know the strategy there. We hadn't talked about it, no."
But the Chiefs were ready for anything. Chris Jones said they'd been discussing new overtime rules for two weeks, and Justin Reid mentioned they started during training camp. "We've talked about it all year," Reid explained. "We talked about it in training camp about how the rules were different in regular season versus the playoffs. Every week of the playoffs we talked about the overtime rule."
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* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story.