Kyle Shanahan was Correct for Overtime Call in the Super Bowl

Plenty of criticisms have been handed upon Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers for their loss in the Super Bowl.

Arguably one of top, if not the top, criticism resides with the 49ers' decision to receive the ball first in overtime. Initially it was strange to see the 49ers do that. Usually Shanahan elects to differ because he prefers for his offense to have the ball last. Well, he approached overtime differently due to the overtime rules being different in the Super Bowl. That is something he was asked about immediately after the game.

“This is something we talked about," said Shanahan. "You know that none of us have a ton of experience of it but we went through all the analytics and talked with those guys and we just thought it would be better, we just wanted the ball third. If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had the chance to go in. We got that field goal, so we knew we had to hold them to at least a field goal. And if we did then we thought it was in our hands after that.”

The logic behind receiving the ball was odd from Shanahan, and he's been getting grilled for it. However, Shanahan wasn't wrong at all for wanting the ball first. It was the correct call to make at the time. The 49ers' defense desperately needed a break. They were just coming off a draining series in which Mahomes led the Chiefs down the whole field. Not to mention that they were going up-tempo for most of that drive.

If Shanahan chose to have his defense go out first, then they would've stood even less of chance in stopping the Chiefs. Now, it is easy to see in hindsight that they couldn't stop him anyways. But at that time, it was clear that the defense needed a break badly. Get some rest to catch your breath and hopefully come up with a plan on how to defend better on the final drive.

The decision for wanting to be on offense first was correct, but the logic wasn't. Shanahan basically conceded that the Chiefs were going to score a touchdown when they got their shot on offense. That is why he cited about having the third possession in overtime to end the game that way. Shanahan thought that is how it would play out, so elected for the 49ers to start overtime on offense.

He over thought that one for sure, but really the whole decision for the 49ers to start out first is completely overblown, and so is their ignorance of not knowing the overtime rules. What difference did that really make? The 49ers needed to score a touchdown and hold Mahomes to less than a touchdown anyways. They failed at both. The execution on both sides of the ball failed and the new overtime rules had nothing to do with it.

Not understanding the rules isn't what cost them that. Shanahan deserves plenty of criticism for the Super Bowl loss, but the decision to receive the ball first in overtime isn't one of them at all.