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Incoming 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and the Falcons blow Super Bowl LI, so he has some explaining to do
By TIM KAWAKAMI |
tkawakami@bayareanewsgroup.com |
PUBLISHED: February 5, 2017 at 9:05 pm | UPDATED: February 5, 2017 at 9:15 pm
Soon, Kyle Shanahan will get his grand introduction as the 49ers’ new coach, he will be lauded by owner Jed York and he surely will be praised as the ideal man to lead this franchise back to a Super Bowl level.
Much of that might even be true, or is at least To Be Determined.
But along the way during his first official 49ers event this week, Shanahan will also have some serious
explaining to do.
Specific, thorny questions will be asked about his risky play-calling for Atlanta in Sunday’s epic New England comeback victory to win 34-28 in overtime, and if Shanahan doesn’t have thoughtful answers, he may mess up his best chance at a great 49ers first impression.
Actually, the incredible result–having his offense fold-up while blowing a 25-point second-half lead and watching Atlanta’s defense give up 31 consecutive New England points–fogged up most of Shanahan’s Super Bowl luster, anyway.
And now we’ll get to see and hear how Shanahan reacts to this, how he spells out his thinking, and how he responds to second-guessing on this very large scale; it’ll reveal some things not otherwise available to see.
Maybe Shanahan comes out of this wiser and steelier, which is TBD, also.
Of course, this isn’t at all how York and his 49ers braintrust planned this–they wanted to present Shanahan as a Super Bowl prince, a champion, and the best play-caller on earth.
He would’ve been deserving of much of those accolades had he just kept things going for the Falcons and MVP Matt Ryan in the fourth quarter.
He didn’t. They didn’t. And Shanahan had a large role in the greatest Super Bowl collapse of all-time, flat out, after Atlanta held a 28-3 lead over the Patriots half-way through the third quarter.
Shanahan’s offense had been roaring all game then in their last several possessions–the drives that could’ve sealed a championship for Atlanta–everything got discombobulated, Shanahan called head-scratching plays that fed directly into New England’s comeback, and the Falcons never got it put back together.
At least some of that was Shanahan’s fault.
And while it certainly doesn’t rule out the possibility that Shanahan can be a very successful 49ers coach, it does raise pressing issues:
When Shanahan kept calling passing plays, even with Atlanta holding a large lead, was that an essential part of what Shanahan believes strategically?
Instead of running the ball to wind down the clock, he preferred to risk a huge turnover and big losses (which both happened to fuel New England’s comeback) by calling slow-developing deep pass plays.
Yes, some of it is understandable–Ryan is a great quarterback who was on a hot streak and Shanahan obviously has great confidence in him–but there also was no need to keep pressing it.
The first egregious moment: After New England kicked a field goal in the first minutes of the fourth quarter to make it 28-12, Atlanta got the ball back, and on third-and-1, Shanahan called for a deep pass.
Oops: Ryan was sacked, lost the ball, and New England recovered it in Atlanta territory, then zoomed for a touchdown and two-point conversion, to make it 28-20 with 5:56 left in regulation.
The second egregious moment: On Atlanta’s ensuing series, Ryan moved Atlanta to the New England 22-yard line after a beautiful catch by Julio Jones, and, with the clock ticking under the 5-minute mark, all the Falcons needed to do was drain some clock, run the ball, and set up for 40-yard field goal to up by 11.
But after losing a yard on a run-call on first-and-10, Shanahan called a pass (Ryan was sacked), then another pass (negated by a holding call on Atlanta that moved them out of field-goal position) and then another pass (incomplete).
After that backwards march, Atlanta punted it back to New England with 3:38 left, and 10 plays, 91 yards and a two-point conversion later, New England tied it at 28
When Atlanta got it back with 52 seconds left in regulation, the Falcons could do nothing.
That sent it into OT, the Patriots got the kickoff, and drove it right into the end zone for the championship winner.
Some of this is quite comparable to Seattle offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s decision to call a pass at the goal line two years ago against New England instead of handing it off to Marshawn Lynch–the ball was intercepted to seal the Patriots’ victory…
And 49ers’ offensive coordinator Greg Roman and coach Jim Harbaugh’s decision to throw it three times at the end of Super Bowl XLVII–for three incompletions, to seal the Super Bowl for Baltimore–instead of giving the ball to Frank Gore.
The big difference in this Super Bowl: Both Seattle and the 49ers were trailing when they made their decisions and both coordinators were scrambling for the right call to get into the end zone; Shanahan was protecting a lead for these questionable calls, when prudence dictated running the ball and not risking pass plays that could blow up in his face.
By the way, none of this changes the fact that Shanahan turned in one of the great coordinator seasons in recent history and absolutely deserves a shot at running a team.
But he could’ve used the Super Bowl as his greatest advertisement–look at what I just did!–leading into his 49ers introduction, and then he started calling the wrong plays, bad things happened, and he has some things to explain about what he just did.
