SUPE TO NUTS
Shanahan, Garoppolo fail on biggest stage
MIAMI — In sports, legacies are built on what players and coaches do in the biggest moments of the biggest games.
The 49ers went 13-3 this season, won the NFC West, earned the No. 1 NFC seed in the playoffs and got to the Super Bowl a year after going 4-12. They’re good. And with a nucleus of young talent, a sharp general manager and head coach, they’re built to be formidable for a while.
It would surprise no one if San Francisco is back in the Super Bowl a year from now.
None of that, however, matters in the immediate aftermath of the Niners’ devastating 31-20 Super Bowl LIV loss to the Chiefs on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.
The 49ers loss brought to mind one of boxer Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’’
After a postseason run during which they’d played the part of the bullies, controlling both sides of the line of scrimmage in one-sided victories over the Vikings and Packers and doing the same thing to the favored Chiefs for more than three quarters Sunday night, the 49ers finally got punched in the mouth by Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
And when they did, they went down and couldn’t get back up.
The 49ers were exposed in the two most critical areas: Coach and quarterback.
For all of his innovative genius as a whiz-kid head coach who’s unafraid, Kyle Shanahan wilted under the bright lights Sunday night, at times coaching too cautiously and failing to have an answer when the Chiefs erased the 10-point deficit.
And, for his 23-6 career record as a starting quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo left even the most ardent 49ers fans wondering whether he’s good enough to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.
As the 49ers methodically built the 20-10 lead they took into the fourth quarter, Garoppolo was good enough, but he wasn’t great. Remember, he wasn’t asked to do a lot in the passing game in the previous two playoff wins, during which the 49ers ran the Minnesota and Green Bay defenses into submission.
Garoppolo finished 20 of 31 for 219 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions Sunday, but he completed just 2 of 9 passes for 24 yards in the 49ers’ final three drives. The killer was the kill shot he badly overthrew to receiver Emmanuel Sanders on third-and-10 from the San Francisco 49-yard line. Sanders, who would have scored the go-ahead TD had he caught it, never had a chance with the pass sailing some 10 yards too long.
The 49ers failed to convert the fourth down on the next play and their season was over.
Rather than trying to keep the chains moving, still with plenty of time on the clock, Shanahan left Garoppolo with a fourth-and-10, which they would not convert.
The irony here is that Shanahan went bold with that third-and-10 call when, late the first half, he went into a conservative shell with his play-calling, tiptoeing on a two-minute drive with no hurry-up urgency because he feared giving Mahomes the ball back.
Shanahan’s play-calling, at times, left you wondering whether he was comfortable putting the game in Garoppolo’s hands. In the final 10 minutes of the game, Garoppolo went 2 of 10 for 24 yards and an interception. His fourth-quarter quarterback rating of 2.8 was the lowest in Super Bowl history.
Garoppolo, who’s signed through the 2022 season, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But you have to wonder after his performance against the Chiefs whether he’s good enough to carry his team to a Super Bowl title.
It’ll be a difficult offseason for both Garoppolo and Shanahan, who now carries with him the baggage not only of Sunday’s loss but of the 2016 Falcons’ Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, who erased a 28-3 second-half deficit. He was Atlanta’s offensive coordinator at the time and didn’t do a good job of shortening the game with his playcalling.
In a touch of irony, on a night when Chiefs coach Andy Reid unburdened himself of his heavy baggage as the winningest coach in NFL history without a Super Bowl title, Shanahan walked out of Hard Rock Stadium with a heavier load of baggage.
So, as the 49ers move forward from this, the questions about Shanahan and Garoppolo will persist until they win a Super Bowl together.
If they win one.