TACKLE FOR A GAIN
Greenlaw’s last-second stop propelled 49ers’ run
MIAMI — No one from the 49ers cares to play the “what if ?’’ game, because they don’t have to.
After all, what’s done is done, right?
But what would have happened if 49ers rookie linebacker Dre Greenlaw doesn’t stop Seattle tight end Jacob Hollister an inch or two short of the end zone on fourth-and-goal last month with the purest, most technically sound tackle you’ve ever seen to clinch a San Francisco win and — most importantly — the No. 1 overall NFC seed in the playoffs?
If Greenlaw hadn’t followed the instruction of linebacker coach DeMeco Ryans from just days before that game in practice, San Francisco doesn’t get home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs, doesn’t get to suffocate the Vikings in the divisional round and overwhelm the Packers in the NFC title game at Levi’s Stadium.
If Greenlaw went low on Hollister instead of high and allowed him to fall forward across the goal line with the winning touchdown, the 49ers would have entered the playoffs as a wild-card entrant, as the fifth seed, having to win three road playoff games to get Miami this week.
If Greenlaw doesn’t stone Hollister at the goal line, there’s a good chance the 49ers aren’t playing the Chiefs on Sunday in Super Bowl LIV.
This, of course, is a hypothetical the 49ers have little interest in analyzing. They prefer to believe that they’re a team of destiny, that they were a good road team in 2019 (7-1) and that they’d be here anyway.
They can think whatever they want, but Greenlaw, the 148th overall pick last spring, saved their season with that tackle, the play of the year in the NFL.
Greenlaw’s play quite possibly changed the course of history for the 49ers, who are trying to win their
first Super Bowl since the 1994 season.
“It’s gotten brought up quite a few times this week,’’ Greenlaw told The Post with a smile. “And I’m more than comfortable talking about it.’’ Why shouldn’t he be? “It was one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen being made live,’’ 49ers defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said.
Should the 49ers beat the Chiefs, you can make the argument that was one of the biggest plays in 49ers history. Here’s how it went down: On Dec. 29 in Seattle, the Seahawks trailed the 49ers, 26-21, in the final seconds and, on a fourth-and-goal from the San Francisco 6-yard line, Russell Wilson completed a pass to Hollister, who was met almost instantly by Greenlaw, effectively ending the game with nine seconds left and beginning the 49ers’ home ride through the playoffs.
“I had my eyes looking back on the quarterback for anything that might come into my area,’’ Greenlaw recalled. “We’d practiced a play similar to that where they were trying to push me outside and [Ryans] said, ‘Look back at the quarterback and read the quarterback’s eyes.’ ’’ He did. “I remember rushing and turning around once the ball left Russ’ hand and Dre was at the goal line and delivered a hit and I saw the guy go down, but I didn’t see where the ball stretched and my heart kind of sank,’’ Buckner said.
“I just remember a hard hit … and the sound, a loud noise,’’ 49ers safety Jimmie Ward said.
No one was prouder than Greenlaw’s position coach.
“A perfect-form tackle at the perfect time,’’ Ryans said.
Making the story as perfect as that tackle is Greenlaw’s success story — a 22-year-old who was shuffled through six different shelters and foster homes as a youth in Arkansas before finally being adopted when he was in the ninth grade.
“I went through a lot of stuff that kids who grow up in poverty go through — but maybe a little worse, not having my mom or dad around and going through foster care and living shelter to shelter in different group homes,’’ Greenlaw said. Football turned his life around. “When I got to a group home and I started playing football, I realized in order for me to play football I can’t screw up and get in trouble or there would be no football,’’ Greenlaw said. “Now I’m in the Super Bowl. It gives you a different perspective on life. I don’t take things for granted. “It’s a crazy story.’’ Much like that 49ers result in Seattle, a story riddled with “what ifs?’’