The difference between the approaches to overtime in Super Bowl LVIII from the Chiefs and the 49ers was as glaring as it could have been.
The Chiefs had a plan. The players knew the plan. The Chiefs wanted the ball second, and they would have gone for two if the 49ers had scored a touchdown on the first drive.
The 49ers had a plan. But the players didn’t know it. At least one of them didn’t even know that an opening-drive touchdown would not have won the game.
Inside the NFL has the video from NFL Films of the overtime coin flip and its aftermath.
49ers linebacker Fred Warner was told to take the ball if he won the coin toss. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was told to choose to kick.
Mahomes was happy, after losing the coin toss, to learn that the Chiefs still got what they wanted.
“They want it,” Mahomes said as he approached the sideline. “They want the ball. They wanted it. Hey, they wanted it. They wanted it, baby.”
He was excited. The development gave him a lift. They had a plan, and the 49ers were stepping right into it.
“We want them to have the ball,” tight end Travis Kelce said. “They want it, they can have it.”
The clip also includes this quote from 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk: “Even if we score a touchdown, they still get the ball. I didn’t know that.”
That’s a tough look for Juszczyk, and for the 49ers. While not the same as when Donovan McNabb didn’t realize that expiration of the overtime period during the regular season resulted in a tie, it’s not good that a key player on the offense of a team that had played five prior postseason games under the revised overtime rules wasn’t even aware that both teams are guaranteed a chance at possession the ball, no matter what.
It ultimately speaks to the extent to which the Chiefs involve and empower their players. Whether it’s suggesting plays or simply being aware of — and buying into — important strategic decisions (like letting the Super Bowl come down to a win-or-go-home two-point conversion), the Chiefs treat the players not like employees but partners in the broader effort to win games and chase championships.
That’s not an indictment of the 49ers. Most teams operate on a need-to-know basis. The Patriots won six Super Bowls that way. The Chiefs, however, are showing that there’s possibly a better way.
And so, at a time when plenty of 49ers players didn’t know what the broader plan was and possibly didn’t even realize that the Chiefs were guaranteed a possession no matter what (or, perhaps, didn’t know that the game would have continued if the first overtime period had expired on Kansas City’s opening drive), the Chiefs knew what was happening. They knew the rules. They knew the plan. The fact that the 49ers played into that plan could have given the Kansas City offense just enough of a burst of confidence to make them believe that their victory was meant to be.
Which, if so, might have made it easier for them to go get it.
