Once again, a less-than-Super finish for Kyle
The pre-snap motion master met his match in Super Bowl LVIII.
Kyle Shanahan, the offensive genius whose 49ers feast on mismatches created by moving their players at the last moment, saw his opponent, the similarly brilliant Andy Reid, take that strategy one step further Sunday on the Chiefs’ game-winning touchdown.
With Kansas City down, 22-19, in overtime, Reid called a clever play from San Francisco’s 3-yard line that began with receiver Mecole Hardman lined up to the right.
Seconds before the snap, Hardman sprinted a few steps to his left. Then, as center Creed Humphrey delivered the ball to Patrick Mahomes, the speedy Hardman stopped on a dime, cut back to the right and reached the corner of the end zone, where he received the walk-off touchdown pass.
A pre-snap motion fake. A game-winner for the ages.
The dynamic design immediately earned comparisons to the Chiefs’ “Corndog” play in last year’s Super Bowl win against the Eagles, during which former Giants receiver Kadarius Toney scored after a similar pre-snap motion fake.
“This was ‘Corndog’ with a little mustard and ketchup,” Reid, 65, told ESPN after Sunday’s 25-22 victory.
The moment was poetic, considering the veteran Reid added a wrinkle to the younger Shanahan’s calling card and clinched another chapter in their compelling coaching rivalry. Shanahan is now 0-2 in Super Bowls as a head coach, with both losses coming to Reid and the Chiefs.
Shanahan’s Niners led the NFL with a 75.7% presnap motion rate in 2019, the first season they met Kansas City in the big game. This year, San Francisco’s 76.4% pre-snap motion rate ranked second in the NFL. The Chiefs, who ran pre-snap motion 63.7% of the time in 2023, ranked fourth.
The 49ers’ ability to move versatile pieces such as Deebo Samuel or Christian McCaffrey right before the snap gives the offense information about how the defense will match up, and it often confuses defenses or forces smaller or slower defenders to line up against them.
That trickery hasn’t been enough to overcome the roadblock that is Kansas City, however.
Shanahan, 44, remains the offensive innovator of his generation, already boasting an impressive coaching tree that includes Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel and fast-rising Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik.
Shanahan is the son of Mike Shanahan, who won back-to-back Super Bowls in the late 1990s as head coach of the Broncos. They would have become the NFL’s first father-son head-coaching duo to both win a Super Bowl.
But the big win continues to elude Shanahan, whose decision to receive the ball first in overtime Sunday became the subject of scrutiny. Sunday marked the first playoff game to require overtime since a 2022 rule change guaranteeing both teams an overtime possession.
Shanahan also lost 2017’s Super Bowl LI as offensive coordinator of the Falcons. That loss saw Tom Brady and the Patriots overcome a 28-3 deficit in what remains the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. Shanahan’s offense failed to score in the final 23 minutes and 31 seconds of regulation in that game.