Patrick Mahomes Explains Why 49ers Weren’t Getting the Ball Back in OT Under Any Circumstances
Kyle Shanahan’s decision to take the ball for the first possession of overtime in Super Bowl LVIII looks even worse now.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes joined SportsCenter on Monday night to discuss his team’s championship triumph, and he revealed a startling admission that will make San Francisco 49ers fans even more frustrated.
Mahomes said that even if the 49ers had scored a touchdown on their opening overtime drive, San Francisco wouldn’t have gotten the ball back for a third possession. The Chiefs’ plan all along was to try for a two-point conversion, assuming that they would have answered with a touchdown of their own.
“No, we were going for two,” Mahomes said on Monday. “I don’t know if Coach Reid wants me telling everybody, but we would’ve went for two for sure.”
That game plan ultimately became moot, as the 49ers were only able to score a field goal on their drive while the Chiefs scored the game-winning touchdown on theirs.
After the 49ers’ crushing 25—22 Super Bowl loss, many NFL pundits ripped coach Kyle Shanahan for choosing to possess the ball first in overtime.
“We went through the analytics and talked to those guys,” Shanahan said of his decision. “We decided it’d be better. We wanted the ball third. If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones with a chance to go win.”
Amid reports that some of the 49ers players didn’t even know the new overtime rules, Mahomes and the Chiefs appeared more up-to-date on the NFL handbook than their adversaries, and it was their preparation—and one Corn Dog play—that won Kansas City its third Super Bowl in the last five years.
