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49ers' Super Bowl Collapse was Collective Team Effort, Not One Person

Head coach Kyle Shanahan has been criticized heavily since the 49ers lost Super Bowl LIV to the Chiefs. However, a collapse like that takes more than just one person to create.

One of the first questions that always arises whenever a team loses a championship game is "Who?". 

As in who should be the focus of the blame for the loss? That has been the main topic of discussion when trying to decipher what went wrong for the 49ers in their Super Bowl collapse to the Chiefs. Who is it that should be at the forefront when pointing the finger as to why the 49ers gave up a 20-10 lead?

The knee jerk reaction on social media has been head coach Kyle Shanahan. When you think of a Super Bowl collapse, the most recent in memory before this one is the Falcons' 28-3 blown lead against the Patriots. A game that Shanahan is viewed as the cause of that collapse. Now that narrative is resurfacing again and becoming fortified after last night's loss.

However, the 49ers' Super Bowl collapse was a collective team effort, not just one person.

Everything that needed to go wrong for the 49ers became reality. To say that Shanahan or one facet of the team is responsible would be incredibly unfair. It's also a slight to the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, who was named Super Bowl LIV MVP, that they had no impact as to why the 49ers went on a downward spiral.

Could Shanahan have called the game differently? Sure. He could have called a few more runs, and he especially could have salvaged some time at the end of the first half. Instead, he opted to milk the clock in fear of giving Mahomes way too much time to comeback. 

"They had three timeouts, it was 10-10," Said Shanahan. "The last thing I wanted to do is allow them to get the ball with three timeouts, especially with their quarterback and offensive speed, to go in there and score before the half."

Was that a conservative way of thinking? Of course, but it isn't anything new for Shanahan to do. He did this exact same thing against the Ravens in week 13, which resulted in their second loss of the season. Replicating this method did impact the game a bit, but it certainly didn't kill the 49ers. They would end up getting the big play they needed to George Kittle, except it would be called back for offensive pass interference. A call that I deemed very questionable at the time. 

Outside of his timeout handling, his play-calling was by no means the critical factor for the 49ers losing. This team had plenty of opportunities to put the game away. They just couldn't finish the game after playing a relatively strong three and a half quarters of football, especially on defense. Mahomes was not able to enact his elite level of play until there were less than eight minutes left in the game.

To put things in perspective, 172 of Kansas City’s 397 yards came after the nine minute mark of the fourth quarter. On the third-and-15 play that Mahomes converted to Tyreek Hill, Mahomes was only 19-of-32 for 183 yards and two interceptions. That is a despicable output by Mahomes' standards. The 49ers' defense was holding up strong, but the Chiefs kept sustaining long drives.

San Francisco's defense was gassed at that point. They could only keep Mahomes contained for so long before it became such an uphill battle due to fatigue. Hats off to Andy Reid and the Chiefs. They had the right idea of how to orchestrate this game. They banked on the fourth quarter for their chance to comeback.

With the defense unraveling, that is when the offense of the 49ers should have stepped up to shoulder the burden. They had their chances to put the game away with the ball in Jimmy Garoppolo's hands, who had been playing strong for majority of the game. However, once the 49ers went up 20-10, Garoppolo ended up missing a lot of his open receivers.

NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger breaks it down exquisitely here. There were chances for the 49ers to sustain drives, but just couldn't make the most of their opportunities. It's clear that the play-calling was not the issues, but the execution. The offensive woes doesn't just fall on Garoppolo, the interior offensive line failed to consistently keep him clean. 

According to Pro Football Focus, Garoppolo went from 9 yards per attempt with no pressure to only 2.2 yards per attempt under pressure (11 drop-backs).The interior pass protection reached such a poor point in the late stages of the game and it was due to the valiant effort of Chiefs' defensive lineman Chris Jones. In the video below, notice who is in the backfield on the critical third down play.

Shanahan noticed that his interior offensive line was so mediocre that he was forced to place George Kittle in the backfield as an added security measure for Garoppolo to deliver. Doing so took away Garoppolo's best offensive weapon, thus limiting his options. 

Now the 49ers did have a good shot to take with Emmanuel Sanders running the post route to blow by his defender. It was simply a terribly missed opportunity by Garoppolo who was at least five yards off of hitting Sanders. That failed shot would essentially ice the game for the Chiefs who would hand the 49ers their second Super Bowl loss in franchise history.

Being up by two scores with less than eight minutes left is a dream scenario for almost any team in a Super Bowl. The 49ers just couldn't execute in all four quarters to come away with the win. There is no over-analyzing this game when looking to place blame for why they loss. 

Everyone on the team is to blame for their Super Bowl loss. It was a collective team effort that crushed the 49ers' hopes, along with the greatness that is Patrick Mahomes.