NOTICE HOW THE 49ERS KILL SHANAHAN, AS FOOTBALL PLAYERS SHIFT BLAME
Whether it’s some not knowing the new overtime rules — or NIL and transfer portal advantages in the college ranks — it’s not a good time to be a coach, which is why Nick Saban just signed with ESPN
The players choose to thrash the coach, baby. Never mind how Patrick Mahomes went unstopped on a 75-yard drive forevermore, including a Super Bowl winner with three seconds left. The San Francisco 49ers prefer to rip their boss, Kyle Shanahan, for not making them aware of the NFL’s new overtime rules. Basically, whether they knew of the changes or not, they still win the Vince Lombardi Trophy if they stall the Kansas City Chiefs and preserve a 22-19 lead against the sport’s savant.
But Shanahan, who’d lost two previous championship games in the final minutes, is a convenient locker-room target after the defeat. This is a lame tactic, because the defenders are the ones who allowed Mahomes to ramble. Should 49ers players have been forewarned in the two weeks before the game? Sure, absolutely. Could they have read fresh stories about the rules, which gave each team a chance to possess the football before the game ends? Sure, absolutely. Hell, the receiver who caught the triumphant pass didn’t even know about the changes.
“I threw a touchdown to this dude at the end of the game, and he looked at me, and he had no idea,” Mahomes said of Mecole Hardman Jr. “I said, ‘Dude, we just won the Super Bowl!’ He blacked out, and he had no idea. He didn’t even celebrate at the beginning.”
All the brooding 49ers are wrong today, not just Shanahan. In the throes of an extra period, players win and lose, such as Sunday night. Not to hear them. “I didn't even know about the new playoff overtime rule, so it was a surprise to me," defensive lineman Arik Armstead said. “I didn't even really know what was going on in terms of that. They put it on the scoreboard, and everyone was like ‘Oh, even if you score, they get a chance still.’ ’’
This reflects a general merging of accountability in football. When in doubt, the players decide who’s wrong. The coaches accept it, though the players allowed the 75-yard crash. “You know what? I didn't even realize the playoff rules were different in overtime,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “I assume you just want the ball to score a touchdown and win. I guess that's not the case. I don't totally know the strategy there. We hadn't talked about it, no.”
Maybe as a member of the mega-starred offense, Juszczyk could have blamed Shanahan’s magical quarterback, Brock Purdy, for not coming through on two third-down failures in regulation time and overtime. Instead, they settled for field goals that allowed the Mahomes opening. Afterward, the Chiefs were piling on, including defensive tackle Chris Jones, who said Shanahan was “crazy” and said Andy Reid had spoken “for two weeks about new overtime rules.” The team was aware, Jones said, that a winning coin flip would have resulted in “giving the ball to the opponent, and if we score, we go for two.”
That said, what if the 49ers score a touchdown and Mahomes missed the so-called conversion? See how absurd all of this is? Sounds like a bunch of lost gamblers laying blame. They failed because Mahomes beat them and said groggy-eyed Monday of the back-to-back dynasty: “No one's ever done it and we knew it's legendary to win back-to-back. To be able to have our stamp on this great NFL history is something that I'll never take for granted.”
Because he counts Shanahan as a friend, Reid was clear he wasn’t bashing him about overtime. “We've talked about it all year,” he said at 65. “We talked about it in training camp about how the rules were different in regular season versus the playoffs. Every week of the playoffs we talked about the overtime rule. We knew what our game plan was — had we won the coin toss, whether we want to defer or not, and what our plan was from there. I'm not sure there's a right answer, necessarily. Ours ended up being the right one. But that easily could have gone the other way. That's what we felt was the right thing to do.”
Shanahan said he used the team’s system personnel to calculate the move. "We went through all the analytics and talked to those guys. We wanted the ball third,” he said. “If both teams matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones with a chance to go win." But Purdy missed on third down as he was blitzed, forcing an overtime field goal from Jake Moody, whose earlier extra-point attempt was blocked on a low kick.
Even Reid took a brutal knock. When Travis Kelce wasn’t in the game as Isiah Pacheco turned over the ball, he forcibly shoved Reid on the sideline like he was a stale cheeseburger. Kelce apologized before he dominated the afterparty with more Taylor Swift kisses and wearing a lucha libre wrestling mask. Wonder if Swift knew of the new rules? “I didn't care about my catches,” Kelce said. “I just wanted to ... I wanted the score to be different. Coach has asked us to speak our minds and I just wanted to let him know how much passion I had for this team. He's one of the best leaders of men I've ever seen in my life. And he's helped me a lot, with channeling that emotion, with channeling that passion. I owe my entire career to that guy and being able to kind of control how emotional I get and just love him.”
“I love that. I appreciate him,” Reid said. “He just caught me off balance.”
See? Players rule the roost in 2024. Look to the college game. Wearing an ugly pair of clogs and holding the car keys at Atlanta Autos, Carson Beck picked up a 2024 Lamborghini Urus Performante at $260,676. The price could be as high at $313,880 for the black sports car with a red ribbon on top, depending on his Name, Image and Likeness deal. “Obviously, as the quarterback at Georgia, there’s going to be plenty of opportunities for me to make NIL and things like that,” he said.
So as Chip Kelly bolts the head coaching job at UCLA to take a secondary gig as offensive coordinator at Ohio State, this while a Boston College head coach named Jeff Hafley leaves to become the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator, we are seeing NIL and transfer portals drive grown men daffy. Unless a coach is locked in at an elite program in the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference — and those slots are more mercurial than ever — we will see moves that make no sense and leave college football in a tizzy.
What we know is that the portal has buzzed and left us shrieking, while Saban signs a new ESPN deal and Jim Harbaugh is referring to a Los Angeles sportscaster as “a legend!” Kalen DeBoer still doesn’t know the Lynyrd Skynyd song in Alabama? We also know Beck, who made strides last year but ranks behind Shedeur Sanders and Quinn Ewers as a Heisman Trophy candidate and a high pick in the 2025 NFL draft, cashes in with a ride that will tempt Georgia’s horrific problem with reckless driving. One player was pulled over in a Jeep Trackhawk, which can race 60 miles per hour in 3.4 seconds and reach 180. “NIL has given some of our players, and players in general, the capacity to get faster cars,” said coach Kirby Smart, who doesn’t put a stop to it.
As UCLA enters the Big Ten, the school has been told by an administrative-backed coach that he’d rather call plays for Ryan Day in Columbus. By finishing one game over .500 in six seasons, Kelly leaves the Bruins in lower dregs as they crash the Midwest. “This is a tough job being a football head coach. Nowadays in this world, you need a CEO that embraces all aspects of a successful program,” athletic director Martin Jarmond said. “That’s NIL. That’s recruiting. That’s donor relations. That’s development of young people. It’s all of that. So we’re looking for a CEO that has that energy and a passion for that.”
He found DeShaun Foster, a former UCLA star and running backs coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Guess who pushed hard for him? The players, naturally. “We are looking for a coach with integrity, energy and passion; someone who is a great teacher, who develops young men, is a great recruiter and fully embraces the NIL landscape to help our student-athletes," Jarmond said. “DeShaun checks all of those boxes and then some. He is a leader of men and a true Bruin.”
Unlike Kelly, a phony bear.
So the college game brings in someone from the NFL, which goes against the grain of Hafley, who would rather scheme in Green Bay than deal with potential donors in New England. And it goes against the grain of Kelly, who can’t succeed at a secondary program in southern California and prefers to scheme at a top-five team, which paid a $1.5 million buyout for him. Meanwhile, Bill O’Brien bounces from NFL failures and a bad time as Patriots’ offensive coordinator to become Boston College’s head coach. He had signed on Jan. 19 as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, allowing Kelly to swoop in.
Dizzy? So many accomplished men fail and look for the best work possible. Think the 49ers know that about Kyle Shanahan? If they sack Mahomes and end the game, he’s a genius. Because the play was executed to Hardman, who didn’t know the new rules, Shanahan might be a goner someday. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be coaches.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.