super bowl reactions … during & after

zn wrote:

Nick Wagoner@nwagoner If you want to quibble with Kyle Shanahan’s decision to take the ball first in OT, no problem. Can see both sides of that.

On that… Shanahan evidently said he wanted the ball third. That he expected to score, then KC to score, then it turns to sudden death. The offense got only 3, and the defense didn’t hold KC to 3, so it didn’t work, but that was the thinking.

Also, as someone else pointed out, the 9ers defense was gassed. They had been on the field a lot in the 4th quarter, and starting with them on the field may have been a bad idea anyway. Additionally, two guys in the secondary were banged up on the final drive of the 4th, and the 9ers had two scrubs in at that point. Taking the ball first enabled those two secondary guys a little time to shake it off and get ready to go back in.

Bottom line to me is that the SF defense didn’t keep KC out of the end zone.

9er Nation is demoralized. There may be Recency Bias at work, but consensus is that this was the worst because the expectation was there all season, and they seemed to control the game all the way through. They allowed KC only one TD during regulation, and that was helped substantially by the muffed punt that set them up. Otherwise, they controlled the game.

The play-by-play guy for the 9ers says that the hour-long bus ride back to Henderson, NV where the teams stayed was like being in a morgue. Nobody said a word the entire trip.

Next year is the 30th anniversary of the last 49ers SB victory.

IMO, it hasn’t been long enough.

Billy_T wrote:

It’s weird that it worked out this way for me, but I’m a diehard SF Giants fan, since the days of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Juan Marichal. In baseball, the Dodgers are the bad guys for me, and this year I can’t stand that they’re buying a championship. Not fair!!

I get the “buying a championship” accusation, but it’s not really true. The Dodgers currently stand at 4th in MLB for homegrown talent (i.e. from their own farm system) on their roster. And the Dodgers did not outbid other teams for Ohtani and Yamamoto. For both players, there were larger offers on the table that they declined in order to sign with LA. Just sayin’.

JoeMad is also a Giants fan, btw. And maybe OzoneRanger.

The 9ers may have a down year next year. We can always hope so. It takes a lot out of a team to work their butts off for one goal from July through February, only to have it crumble in seconds. For some guys, hitting the weight room and film study with the same amount of energy might be hard to do. It would be different if you weren’t expected to be there in the first place, but the 9ers had this thing in their reach all season long, and they all believed it was their year. That has to be harder to bounce back from.

Good to hear, Zooey. That’s to be expected. Exceptions exist, of course, but the trend is for the losing team in the Super Bowl to decline the following year. And the season is just so long now. Incredibly grueling for the players. It’s actually amazing that KC returned this season.

And it seems the NFL isn’t finished yet, milking all of this to the max. A game in Brazil, and a likely extension to 18 games on the horizon. Money money money and more money. To hell with the quality of the game and the health of the players, of course.

I know it sounds like “get off my lawn” stuff, but I really think the game would be a hell of a lot better, more enjoyable, and healthier for the players if they went back to 14 games, no Thursdays, no Sunday nights or Mondays. End the exhibition season entirely, and force every team to plant real grass. No more turf.

Focus on making Sundays essential, much-watch, etc. And, finally, offer a team-only package for fans, at much, much lower prices than all out-of-market games. I’d plop down a bit to see all the Rams games. I don’t need to watch the other teams . . .

But don’t do the usual capitalist BS and create artificial scarcity. Offer up the rights to all the networks, streaming services, and so on. Not exclusively. All of them. Give fans the benefits of real competition. It’s supposed to be better than sliced bread, right?

mirriam webster

Dynasty

Lotta talking heads blaming Shanahan for the loss, and crowning Andy Reid as the best ever, etc.

But, put Mahomes on the 49ers, and how does Reid look, and how does Shanahan look?

w

v

wv wrote:

SF fires their DC. w v

Brandon Staley is still available for hire.

Steve Young thinks the next ten super bowls will be won by quarterbacks who can run.

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

Steve Young thinks the next ten super bowls will be won by quarterbacks who can run.

Interesting that Young must consider Stafford to be a running QB. I wouldn’t put him in that category myself.

Yeah, i was a bit surprised Steve Young put things in such black and white terms.   I would have agreed with him, if he had just said something like “with the new rules changes the QB position is more important now, than ever before, and an elite QB who can also run, is more valuable than an elite QB who cant run”.    Or somethin close to that.

I mean, Brady could still win in this new era.  And Stafford, obviously.  And what is Joe Burrow btw?   Is he a pocket guy, or something else?   Steve Young said you need to have a QB nowadays who can get 60 yards or more, in playoff games.  Is Burrow a 60 yard-guy?

I think i would agree that maybe its ‘harder’ now for a non-running-QB to win a super bowl, than say, in Trent Dilfer’s day or Kurt Warner’s day.   But i still think it can be done.  I mean Purdy came within a hair of doing it a few days ago.

Despite the rules changes, i still kinda think its a mistake to limit discussions to whether a particular QB  ‘can win a super bowl.’    Still seems to me, you have to look at what the rest of the team looks like.   If you have the 85 Bears defense, and an all-star cast on offense, then thats one context.   If you have the 97 Rams personnel, then thats a different context.

Given enough surrounding talent, I would think about half the QBs in the NFL can ‘win the super bowl.’

w

v

nittany ram wrote:

wv wrote:

SF fires their DC. w v

Somebody had to pay.

Yeah, I don’t think this is a scapegoat situation. There were some problems between Wilks and Shanahan throughout the season, and they had different philosophies for the defense. Wilks was supposed to embrace Shanahan’s system, but there were times he didn’t do it.

Shanahan and Lynch overruled Wilks on his gameplan against Seattle, and Shanahan called a timeout in the Super Bowl to overrule a defensive play call at one point. There was also some kind of fiasco at the end of the first half against Minnesota.

This wasn’t the 49ers throwing somebody under the bus for the loss.