FIT TO BE TIED
When the San Francisco 49ers took over possession with 1:50 remaining in overtime last week and Seattle out of timeouts, playing for a tie might have been a smart strategy.
The Niners had a twogame lead in the loss column in the race for the division and top seed in the NFC and wouldn’t have been hurt too much by a tie. Instead, Jimmy Garoppolo threw three straight incomplete passes, burning only 14 seconds off the clock and leaving Russell Wilson 1:36 to drive to the winning field goal in a 27-24 win.
“Obviously when you only take a few seconds off the clock and give it back, I wish I would’ve taken three knees instead of doing that,” coach Kyle Shanahan said.
But Shanahan stands by his play calls, noting that a first-down pass was batted down at the line and Dante Pettis dropped a short one on second down. Had either of those been completed, the Niners would have been able to burn some more clock.
The players deferred to Shanahan’s strategy decisions, but were pleased with the chance to go for a win.
“It’s hard to play for a tie,” Garoppolo said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. Yeah, I’m glad we went for the win.” able to do this, getting kids to come see a play and to be able to allow people to see opportunities and give them hope,” Lott said. “Think about what they could do and think about the things that they could achieve and being able to have kids see ‘ Hamilton,’ hearing about the history and think of what they could do to possibly change history themselves.
“We’re so grateful and so blessed that we are able to put this together. And, so, that’s been our quest of really allowing kids to have a chance to see light in their lives, not seeing darkness.”
Barton and Lott founded Champion Charities in 2004 after Barton lost both of his parents to brain tumors. They had instilled their love of theater in him at a young age. The foundation hosts “Night at the Theater” fundraisers in San Francisco and New York each year. The goal is to raise money for treating and researching brain tumors and supporting patients suffering from the disease.