Raise your hand if you didn't know the NFL had different overtime rules specifically for overtime. It's okay if your hand is raised, mine is too -- along with much of San Francisco 49ers'.
San Francisco won the overtime coin toss and elected to take the ball, which is generally accepted as the proper move -- in the regular season. There, the extra session is only 10 minutes and the game can end if the receiving team scores a touchdown on the first possession.
In the postseason, though, the clock no longer becomes a factor and both teams are guaranteed to touch the ball at least once. And in any scenario where both teams are sure to get the ball, you want your team to get it last.
Though neither team had played a playoff overtime game since the rules changed in 2022, the Chiefs were still the more prepared team.
“We talked through this for two weeks,” Kansas City defensive lineman Chris Jones told The Ringer. “How we was going to give the ball to the opponent; if they scored, we was going for two at the end of the game. We rehearsed it.”
From that same article:
The 49ers did not do the same. Multiple San Francisco players said after the game that they were not aware that the overtime rules are different in the playoffs than they are in the regular season, and strategy discussions over how to handle the overtime period did not occur as a team. Defensive lineman Arik Armstead said he learned the details of the postseason rule when it was shown on the Allegiant Stadium jumbotron during a TV timeout after regulation. Fullback Kyle Juszczyk said he assumed the 49ers asked to receive when they won the toss because that’s what you do in the regular season, when a touchdown wins the game. “I guess that’s not the case. I don’t really know the strategy,” Juszczyk said.
In Kyle Shanahan's defense, he knew the rules and had a prepared strategy for the coin toss. However, is it really a defense when your strategy invites a scenario where Patrick Mahomes has a chance to win the game with the ball in his hands and the clock is not a factor?
"None of us have a ton of experience with [the new overtime rules]. But we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys," Shanahan said after the game. "We just thought it would be better. We wanted the ball third. If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had the chance to go win. So got that field goal, so knew we had to hold them to at least a field goal and if we did, we thought it was in our hands after that."
Kansas City went 75 yards in 13 plays to win the game, winning the game on a 3-yard pass from Mahomes to Mecole Hardman. That score came with three seconds to play in what was essentially the first quarter of a new game.
Shanahan has now coached in -- and lost -- both Super Bowl overtimes. In the first, Shanahan and his clipboard watched as the New England Patriots accepted the ball to open the extra frame in Super Bowl LI and promptly drove 75 yards in eight plays to end the game on a 2-yard James White run.
There was also some thought that putting the offense on the field first was smart given San Francisco's defense had just been on the field defending Kansas City from notching a game-winning touchdown at the end of regulation -- which they did, barely. The Chiefs opted for a game-tying, overtime-forcing field goal on 2nd-and-10 from the 11-yard line with six seconds left in regulation.
And maybe that's true. The Niners' defense was no doubt gassed. But now they'll have the next six months to recover and reflect.