Shocking admission by 49ers players prove why they lost Super Bowl
The San Francisco 49ers have not been able to get over the hump, losing the last three Super Bowls they have appeared in.
The San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs needed overtime to decide Super Bowl LVIII, and some shocking admissions by the 49ers players could indicate why they lost the game. Getting to the Super Bowl might be one of the hardest feast to accomplish in sports. Winning the Super Bowl is a whole other level of difficulty.
Well, Kyle Shanahan has appeared in two Super Bowls as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, having a double-digit lead in both games. And his team has lost both of those games. It's now becoming a trend, as Shanahan was the offensive coordinator of the infamous "28-3" game back in 2016.
Well, perhaps Shanahan and his staff are missing some of the finer details of putting together a Super Bowl team. The Niners and Chiefs needed overtime to decide the Super Bowl, and the NFL did recently change the OT rules. The new OT rules give both teams a chance to possess the ball unless the first possession ends in a safety.
Before, that was not the case. On the other side, Andy Reid and the Chiefs had apparently gone over this OT change during their Super Bowl prep and studied it up in case the game did go to OT. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case for the 49ers:
""I didn't even know about the new playoff overtime rule, so it was a surprise to me," Niners defensive lineman Arik Armstead said. "I didn't even really know what was going on in terms of that."
- Arik Armstead / ESPN.com story
"They put it on the scoreboard, and everyone was like 'Oh, even if you score, they get a chance still,'" Armstead said."
""You know what? I didn't even realize the playoff rules were different in overtime," Juszczyk said. "I assume you just want the ball to score a touchdown and win.
- Kyle Juszczyk / ESPN.com story
"I guess that's not the case. I don't totally know the strategy there. We hadn't talked about it, no.""
And here is what Chiefs head coach Andy Reid had to say about the OT rules:
""We've talked about it all year," Reid said. "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.""
- Andy Reid / ESPN.com story
The attention to detail didn't seem to be there for the 49ers,. Conversely, the Chiefs coaching staff appeared to be more prepared for the game. For Kyle Shanahan, yet another season ended in a Super Bowl-heartbreak fashion. The coach boasts an 8-4 playoff record and is an offensive genius.
However, how much does all of that matter if he can't get his team over the hump?