Kyle Shanahan already knew what it was like to suffer a Super Bowl collapse and the criticisms that follow. The San Francisco 49ers head coach has been open and honest about that previous defeat. He has said there were regrets from that Super Bowl LI loss to the New England Patriots, just maybe not the ones everyone would expect.
Shanahan and general manager John Lynch sat down with reporters for about 23 minutes on Thursday. Naturally, there was a question about any regrets following the coach's latest defeat — Sunday's 31-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV.
The 49ers owned a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter but surrendered 21 unanswered points on the way to a heartbreaking loss.
Shanahan had no regrets in how he managed the game. That includes not calling for a timeout to give his offense more time right before halftime. After looking back, the coach said he would not have handled that situation any differently.
"I was as confident of what we did in that situation as anything we've done all year," Shanahan said, "and I mean that strongly. That's something you work at for two weeks, studying that team, what they're capable of doing.
"You're not going to give the ball back to them, no matter what, in that situation. The way [Patrick Mahomes] did that 3rd-and-15 at the end of the game is how he does a two-minute drive, and I felt extremely good with how we went.
"Not using the timeout there was a no-brainer, but then trying to work the clock -- if we had gotten an explosive run on the first one, then it would have been a whole different deal, but we got a two-and-a-half yard run. So the whole goal was to not let them call a timeout there."
Shanahan notes that the 49ers would have had an opportunity to score if not for the offensive pass interference call against tight end George Kittle.
Much has been made of Lynch's reaction from his Hard Rock Stadium suite. He was seen on camera gesturing for a timeout, thinking, at the time, it was the right decision to make.
"I get excited watching these games," Lynch said. "Not much I can do up there, but I've got these guys' backs. It's not my role to do time management, and I don't focus a lot on it. So I was proud of our guys getting a big stop, and that was my initial reaction."
Added Lynch: "I watch the game with emotion because I care. That's all that was."
Shanahan has no regrets regarding his game management during Super Bowl LIV. He has reviewed the matchup many times this week, and is very confident in how he called the game.
"I was very happy with how the game went from a management spot, calling the game," Shanahan said.
The coach felt they had the game won on that now-famous fourth-quarter 3rd-and-15 situation. Then Mahomes happened.
Shanahan did identify one decision that was difficult to make. It came after quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo missed the deep pass to wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders. The coach knew how exhausted his players were and wanted to take a timeout to give them a breather and time to re-energize.
"The reason I didn't is because if we didn't get that first down, we'd still have three (timeouts)," Shanahan explained, "and they couldn't run the clock out that way. But they ended up busting that long run, so it didn't matter anyways.
"In hindsight with that, I wish I had called a timeout just so they could recover a little bit more and had more energy to get away from what the DBs were doing."
