The fact that the 49ers defense looked exhausted after being on the field for 11 plays on the Chiefs’ final drive of regulation didn’t factor into his decision to receive, Shanahan said. Mahomes had already led the Chiefs back from a 10-point deficit in this Super Bowl, along with leading two game-tying drives. The problem was that he was planning for a future that he couldn’t guarantee would exist-quite a gamble considering Mahomes was on the opposing sideline. “None of us have a ton of experience with it, but we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys, and we just decided we wanted the ball third,” Shanahan said. He was thinking ahead to when the game would truly become sudden death-in the case that both teams scored a field goal, or a touchdown, or were held scoreless on that first possession, he wanted the 49ers in control of the ball next. So what was Shanahan thinking here? He wasn’t considering the first possession, or even the second. (Mahomes’s Chiefs lost an AFC championship game in similar fashion in the 2018 playoffs, when Tom Brady’s Patriots won the toss and scored a touchdown.) It is, in essence, a rule inspired by Mahomes, a change that was debated and then approved after Mahomes’s Chiefs won a divisional-round playoff game two years ago against Buffalo without the chance for Bills quarterback Josh Allen to touch the ball. Sunday’s Super Bowl marked the first overtime postseason game since the NFL enacted new overtime rules in 2022 that ensure each team has a possession in playoff games. But it’s probably not so simple, and there was no precedent for Shanahan or Reid to work from. It’s with hindsight that we can say Shanahan and the 49ers may have been better served to start overtime on defense.
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