NFL Snapshots: Super Bowl LVIII

The Kansas City Chiefs are once again Super Bowl champions after defeating the San Francisco 49ers, 25-22, on Sunday night in front of an announced crowd of 61,619 fans at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched television program in US history, averaging 123.7 million viewers. Meanwhile, in Canada, the big game averaged 10 million viewers. As many as 19 million tuned in at some point (half the country).

So, there you go, Stephen Colbert. On his special post-Super Bowl edition of The Late Show, he said to Ryan Gosling, “I guess the Super Bowl isn’t a big deal in Canada.”

Oh, it is. Rest assured, we put our lives on hold just like you do.

The Super Bowl is rarely ever the best game of the year, but I thought this was a fantastic game filled with all the drama you could ever dream of.

• The 49ers played a great game, though I don’t understand why they got away from running the ball after half time. That seems to be a trend of Chiefs’ opponents in recent weeks. They have success on the ground and then they completely abandon it.

Well, except for the Ravens. They didn’t even bother trying to run the ball for some reason.

• In regards to the Chiefs punt that hit a 49ers player in the foot…the analysts after the game kept saying the returner Ray-Ray McCloud needed to be louder and more demonstrative in telling his teammate to get out of the way.

Okay, I trust their opinion. I’m just surprised I didn’t hear anyone say that McCloud should’ve fell on the ball instead of trying to scoop it and run.

Was he trying to make a positive out of a negative? I don’t know. He had a chance to fall on the ball and didn’t. I thought that was the bigger takeaway from the play, rather than the “he should’ve yelled louder” discourse.

• Dre Greenlaw tore his achilles while running onto the field. Deebo Samuel briefly exited with a hamstring injury. George Kittle went to the locker room to get his shoulder taped. The 49ers couldn’t catch a break.

The Chiefs attacked the side of the field where Greenlaw would’ve been. And someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s the side of the field he would’ve been on the Chiefs winning touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman.

• Speaking of that final play, why did it look like the 49ers defenders were playing at half speed?

• Tom Pelissero reported on Tuesday that Chiefs Guard Nick Allegretti played all 79 snaps despite suffering a torn UCL in his elbow in the second quarter.

• I thought Leo Chanel, Trent McDuffie, and Chris Jones had terrific games for the Chiefs.

• Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo also had a masterful performance. I think having Tony Romo explain how Spagnuolo thinks and that he wasn’t going to go down without sending pressure to the quarterback, was wonderful.

We saw it play out on a critical third down play late in the game. The Chiefs lined up as if they weren’t blitzing. All of a sudden, McDuffie timed up the snap and went unblocked to the quarterback.

• They’re going home with the Lombardi Trophy and I’m still not sure we ever saw the Chiefs offence operate at a high level this season. That being said, you can always count on Patrick Mahomes to show up and march his team down the field, inch by inch.

• You’ve heard of the show “Only Murders in the Building”? Well, the Chiefs went with “Only Trustworthy Receivers on the Field” in the playoffs.

• If the Chiefs lost the game, there might be a narrative that they imploded and we’d point to the Travis Kelce/Andy Reid collision, the Chris Jones-led defensive meeting on the sideline in the first half, and the Patrick Mahomes/Rashee Rice exchange as proof.

But winning cures all.

• As for the Kelce and Reid moment, where Kelce forcefully grabbed an unsuspecting Reid by the arm and yelled in his face – I see those two as having a father-son relationship at this point and didn’t think much of it when it happened.

Of course, Kelce shouldn’t have done that but, he did. Maybe a younger coach would’ve had a fragile ego and gone so far as to bench Kelce (if only momentarily) to prove a point to the millions (and millions) of viewers, but Reid didn’t do that, thankfully.

• Let’s talk about Overtime.
  
  The playoff overtime rule states that both teams are guaranteed an opportunity to possess the football, unless there is a defensive score. If the score is tied after both teams possess the ball, then the next score wins.

The 49ers won the toss and elected to receive. They ended up kicking a field goal.

Then it was the Chiefs turn. They had the advantage because not only did they know they needed at least a field goal, they didn’t have to worry about punting. So, Patrick Mahomes had four downs to play with.

As we all know, the Chiefs went down the field and scored a touchdown to win the game.

The question is: why did the 49ers elect to receive?

When Fred Warner told the referee they wanted the ball, it took me a few seconds to compute. Eventually, I was like, “wait, they want the ball? Did he think it was regular season overtime rules where if you possess the ball first and score a touchdown, you win? “

And then the broadcast mentioned that the 49ers defence was tired and throwing them back out there right away wouldn’t make much sense. I’ve heard this used as an excuse many times since.

Honestly, I’m not buying the “the defence was tired” argument. Sorry.

They ended up resting on the bench for 17 minutes, real time (thanks to Good Morning Football for that number), and still gave up the game-winning touchdown. So, what’s the difference? If giving the ball to Mahomes means he has three downs to work with, instead of four, throw the tired defence on the field every time.

You want the ball second in that situation. I think the 49ers know it deep down, too.

Kyle Shanahan has said that if neither team had taken the lead, the 49ers would’ve gotten the ball back with “next score wins” rules. Okay, I get it. That makes sense. But you’re planning for a situation that may not even happen, and based on the what the Chiefs said they would do had both teams scored touchdown, it wouldn’t have gotten to sudden death.

If the Chiefs had won the toss, they were going to elect to kick. Their plan was to get the ball second, score a touchdown, and go for two if the 49ers had also scored a touchdown.

As someone who has questioned coaches all year for “going for it” when they don’t need to, I would’ve supported the Chiefs decision to go for two. Otherwise, the 49ers get the ball back and use all four downs until they’re merely in field goal position. Game over.

It came out the next day that 49ers players were unaware of the new overtime rules. What an embarrassing thing to have get out. They weren’t completely aware that the Chiefs would get a chance to possess the ball even if they had scored a touchdown. There’s even a clip out now of Kyle Juszczyk saying as much on the sideline after the overtime coin toss.

Meanwhile, the Chiefs knew the rules and knew what they wanted to do all along. I believe I heard the rules had been drilled into them starting back in training camp, if not before.

• The one thing that I didn’t know was that if the game clock went to zero in overtime, they would simply go to a second overtime period. There was an brief extreme panic in me when the clock was ticking down under ten seconds and the Chiefs weren’t calling a timeout.

If that clock hit zero and the Chiefs hadn’t scored a touchdown yet, how many people in the stadium and on the 49ers sideline would think the game was over? I’m sure there would’ve been some players jumping around thinking they’d won the Super Bowl.

• These are the overtime rules in the Canadian Football League.

Each team has a chance to possess the ball. Their possession starts at the opponent’s 35-yard line. Remember, it is a 3-down league and our uprights are at the front of the end zone. So, basically, teams are already guaranteed a 42-yard field goal attempt if they don’t gain or lose yards.

If a team scores a touchdown, they MUST attempt a two-point conversion.

If the score is tied after both teams possess the ball, the process starts over again. Both teams get another shot to possess the ball starting from the 35. This continues until there is a winner.

I like the wrinkle of forcing teams to go for two because let’s be honest, these kickers aren’t likely to miss extra points.

I don’t think the NFL would adopt this rule, mainly because the CFL has a wonderful punt return rule – you must give the returner a five yard radius until they touch the ball – that they’ve failed to adopt despite wanting to allegedly improve the special teams aspect of the game.

Though if the NFL did adopt the format, I think it would make sense for them to have teams start the drive at their own 25.

• If sure I’m forgetting to mention some things, but those are my thoughts on Super Bowl LVIII!

Thank you to everyone who has read my football thoughts this season and joined along in the conversation. It may officially be the offseason, but time and time again this league has proven that there’s no such thing as an offseason. Something is always happening.

I’m sure I’ll be back with another football post before the draft.

Someone has to remind teams that they need a quarterback. Why not me?

Thanks for reading!

What are your thoughts on the Super Bowl? Were you surprised the 49ers elected to receive in overtime? Can anyone beat the Chiefs?