For the second time in four years, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan found himself answering questions about blowing a double-digit lead late in a Super Bowl.
The 49ers were up 10 points in the fourth quarter against the Chiefs when Tarvarius Moore picked off a Patrick Mahomes pass with 12 minutes left in the game, but they took just 4:07 off the clock on their next two possessions while running the ball three times and calling five passes.
When Shanahan met the media after the 31-20 loss was in the books, he said that he felt the Niners had “to move the chains” and that the clock was “not an issue” because the Chiefs still had three timeouts. There are sure to be those who question whether passing the ball was the best way to move the chains given how well the 49ers have run the ball and there will also be those who wonder why Shanahan wasn’t more aggressive at the end of the first half.
Shanahan opted not to call a timeout after the Chiefs were stopped on a third down, which allowed 40-odd seconds to run off the clock before the 49ers ran their first play. He said he didn’t want to give the Chiefs the ball because “the last thing we’d do was allow them to score before half,” but it turned out that the 49ers needed those points when all was said and done on Sunday night.