Kyle Shanahan Explains His Questionable Play Calls Against the Browns
Kyle Shanahan did something very strange near the end of the 49ers' loss to the Browns.
With 3:21 left and a one-point lead, he called three straight passes, took only 25 seconds off the clock and punted. Highly questionable time management.
On Monday, a reporter asked Shanahan about his play calling during this sequence. Here's what Shanahan said:
"You don't plan on throwing it three times in a row. You don't plan on getting intentional grounding on the first one. Second and 20, you could run, but I'm not really worried about time when you have a one-point lead and three-something left. If you get a first down, then time can become a factor. Regardless of the timeouts in the game, you know you're going to throw it one of those downs, so you're not thinking totally about the clock. Yeah, you'd love to stay in bounds, but the clock is not going to matter until you get a first down, so everything is about trying to get a first down.
"They were blitzing us, and we thought we'd have a really quick pass to Aiyuk on the 1st and 10, which is exactly what we got. We just made a mistake in where we sent our back, which made Aiyuk covered on a hot, unblocked throw, which put Brock in a bad position where he had to just get rid of it. That's why we got intentional grounding. When you're 2nd and 20 and there's three minutes left, I'm not thinking of running out the clock. I'm thinking about trying to get a first down, and we thought the best way was a quick pass to Aiyuk, which we did. It got us back in a competitive down where we had a chance on third down, but we didn't get it. That's why we punted to them. Thought we could stop them. They went down and got a field goal. Then I was very thankful that there was more time on the clock."