Andy Reid Gets His Celebratory Meal
It is now mandatory to put ketchup on all meat in Kansas City. Sorry, that’s just how it works now. (As a Carolina BBQ stan, I’m sorry but hahahahaha)
THE CHIEFS DID IT! THEY DID IT! I am so happy for the big red walrus. After 2 decades it feels great to see him finally get his due, and watching him during the immediate celebration you could tell he was finally letting some emotions free. I always kinda liked the walrus even when he was coaching Philly to consecutive playoff contention. He’s a big happy guy and I have to respect him. They have no choice but to put him in Canton now and it is well deserved.
Man for 3 quarters I felt like a genius for calling that game right. It pretty much went exactly as I was expecting for 50 minutes. It was a little closer than I would have anticipated (I underestimated the Chiefs defense tbh) but I felt like the Niners D-line was just going to be too much for Mahomes to handle for 4 quarters. It was for at least most of those quarters. Mahomes looked like straight garbage at times. His throws were off target and kept getting worse as the game wore on and he took more hits. His first INT was an absolutely terrible decision as he tried to force a play. His second was a tipped pass, but it was an inaccurate ball and the inaccuracy can easily be considered the reason it was tipped. Mahomes just couldn’t get it going until the end. Maybe the defense got just a bit tired by the end of the game. It is a testament to Pat that he stuck with it and beat this pass-rush. I think any immobile QB (Brady types) would have been knocked out early.
Then that one 3rd and 14 conversion deep to hill and suddenly the game took on a different vibe. I was in a 49ers bar, my usual football social haunt, and I felt the place get nervous. Make no mistake to this, I think the 49ers blew it. Credit to the Chiefs for never being down or out and they deserved to win, but I still feel like the 49ers had it. Then Kyle Shanahan went and made himself into my new favorite media narrative!
It almost felt like Shanahan was personally offended that so many people criticized his play calling in the Atlanta chokejob, and went out there to desperately prove that his playcalling wasn’t at fault but Matt Ryan was or something, and that he’d call more pass plays to ice the game and prove he was right all along…this time. And we got the same result instead. Jimmy played like ass (again credit to Spags and the Chiefs defense too) and this game coming down to the QB skills of Jimmy G vs Pat Mahomes was never, ever, going to end in Jimmy’s favor. One of the best running teams all year, and they made Jimmy throw it a bunch even when they had the lead. 49ers you deserved this. Man I can’t even go into the spineless cowardice that was the time management by Shanahan before the half. The Chiefs played to win all game, even when things looked grim. Loved those 4th down calls.
A lot of factors go into who wins a game. Kyle Shanahan is not remotely the only one at fault. But he has to wear the time management badge of shame forever now. He will only shake that shame if he makes another SB and this time RUNS THE DAMN BALL WITH THE LEAD and doesn’t fuck it up being cute. I am personally thrilled to enjoy this meme for years to come.
OTHER STRAY THOUGHTS
-I’m sorry nothing got put up for Monday, I was quite amped and drunk all night and in no state to work
-The commercials get worse every year. Fuck Baby Nut, fuck how brands are just showing up in other ads, fuck every ad just being “Here’s a celebrity being wacky!” or a terrible attempt to be random and go viral. They all sucked. Super Bowl ads aren’t fun anymore and we should stop giving them credit.
-The halftime show, from what I saw of it (I always play parking lot catch during the show), looked pretty good. Prudes seem mad that it was too sexy. Thanks prudes, now we have to go another 5 years watching old dudes perform instead.
-I will admit the Tom Brady Hulu ad bamboozled me. Well played, Hulu, well played.
-The referees largely did an alright job. It might have been my surroundings, but it did genuinely feel to me like the Chiefs got the calls and the 49ers didn’t. The OPI before half was pretty weak and there was one Chiefs offsides that somehow didn’t get noticed at all, but generally I think the game was won on merit and not being rigged. I am currently enjoying the usual flood of bitter fans screaming the opposite right now. Always a favorite post-SB tradition.
-Super happy for Andy, Pat, Spags, the fans, Honey Badger, and all the players not named Tyreek Hill, Frank Clark, or Terrell Suggs
-Super bummed out for Joe Staley
-Hahaha Nick Bosa
-Laughing at Richard Sherman and Wes Welker, especially Welker, now 0-4. He’s a curse. I should do a comic about that.
-Give me more boy band twirls on 4th down plays
-Maybe it was because my 49er crew is older and mostly gen-x, maybe it is because the recent SB loss to the Ravens is still fairly fresh, maybe it was because the 49ers were kinda playing with house money after being so bad last season, but the fans I was with didn’t seem as defeated as the last loss, even with this one being arguably worse. My 49er fan friends all seemed pretty happy that they were even there. It was a far cry from the WE HAVE RETURNED TO OUR THRONE from last time. Humility! It does a fanbase good. All the tech-bros who bandwagoned on this season though can eat shit.
-Love it when fans of the winner automatically start calling DYNASTY! The Patriots have broken people’s expectations. I should do a comic about that.
-Not the greatest SB, but honestly a great game. A million times more watchable than that slog last season.
-Congrats Chiefs!
That can’t be Kyle Shanahan in the background, the hat doesn’t have the stupid flat brim.
His ears are also WAY WAY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too small. Have you even SEEN Kyle Shanahan, Dave? He could have been the stunt double for Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings during the Battle of Helm’s Deep, when Aragorn is like, “Yo, Elfo, take the shot! We have the lead, it’s just one guy in our way… YOU’VE GOT THIS!”
And Shanahanolas is like, “Aw, man, pressure! I’m choking! I’m choking! Oh god, I just can’t do it! *sobs*”
*KAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!*
… and that’s how the Helm’s Deep Miner Niners lost to the Kansas City Orc Chieftains, from the state of Kansas-gard. *snickers*
But seriously. THOSE EARS!!!!
https://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/media/image/2019/12/01/49ers_ravens_football_78273_c0-168-4012-2507_s885x516.jpg?cb16ffdb5090f0fe561b5b64e0a2bb9e1356e8a0
Or the ridiculously tiny 49ers logo in the little black square…
Imagine Kyle Shanahan being the head coach of the 1997 Broncos, he’d under use TD and the Packers repeats.
I believe Reid is now the 2nd Walrus to ever win the Big Game. The 1st was Mike Holmgren with the Packers. Both are pretty successful coaches, leading one team to a super bowl and then a winning it with another.
I don’t know why people get on Kyle Shanahan for how he played the end of the first half. His plan worked except for a sketchy penalty. Also, for all that I question Shanahan not running the ball more, and for all that I love Garoppolo and have been hyping him up since he was coming out of college, I bet we’re all talking about Shanahan’s playcalling differently if Jimmy G makes that throw where he overthrew Emmanuel Sanders by like 10 yards.
People are on him because it’s the Super Bowl and you play to win. Kneeling out the half with almost 2 minutes left and 3 timeouts is pathetic SB play. The Chiefs even took a timeout because they sensed a chance to get the ball back. The 49ers took that opportunity to actually try (good, OPI was unfortunate), but they still played conservative cowardly football when there is nothing to lose
Yeah, and if he takes the timeout and that gives the Chiefs punter more preparation to pin them down at the 1, that’s almost certainly them going into the half trailing by 3 if not by 7. He ran the ball and showed faith in his run game, and also forced the Chiefs to burn a timeout for them. He was rewarded with the chance, and unfortunately it didn’t work.
This is bizarre logic and very indicative of exactly the mindset he was criticized for. Taking the timeout makes you more worried about getting coffin cornered? That is such a low priority and low chance thing to worry about. If you’e forced a punt, you’ve won that battle already, worrying about a pin is pointless. If you get the ball with timeouts left and enough time to try for a field goal before half, you fucking do it. It’s the Super Bowl. Fortune tends to favor the bold at this stage.
The 49ers stopped the Chiefs to force 4th down with roughly 2 minutes left. They let the clock waste away waiting for the punt. If they take one of their 3 timeouts they get the ball back with roughly 1:40 left. Then they have 2 timeouts and two minutes to try and get into at minimum field goal range. They let that time waste away instead and only tried to do something (and were successful until the OPI, which you can’t plan for) when it was effectively too late. They lost a chance to enter halftime ahead.
This “yeah, but they might have given the ball back if they failed” is dumb conservative overthinking in a situation you can’t do that in. Trust your damn defense (who were very trustworthy at that point) and go for the damn points. Andy played to win. Kyle played to not lose. Andy won.
I wouldn’t say his plan worked: the long shot to Kittle only became the plan when the Niners couldn’t run down the clock. The Niners offense was playing well, I can’t understand why you would have so little faith in your offense that you would rather run down the clock.
As for the 4th quarter, I don’t think his playcalling was awful. This article broke it down play-by-play and helped:
https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/what-kyle-shanahans-fourth-quarter-super-bowl-play-calling-should-tell-us
Niners didn’t execute across the board.
I can’t remember who was making this point on the radio, but someone (I think a former coach) was pointing out that the early play calling was the problem, because it limited his options later on. Additionally they pointed out that he didn’t change gameplans once the chiefs figured out how to beat the 49ers blocking scheme.
The game really just felt flat to me. Not actively bad, I was not bored, and it was a generally enjoyable experience, but I never really got any excitement from it, nothing seemed to pop. It felt more like the Chiefs underperformed to let the 49ers get ahead and then the Niners just slumped rather than a back-and-forth or a comeback, I don’t know, it just didn’t have it for me.
I think Mahomes is getting more praise than he deserves, I definitely would not have called it an MVP performance. He was pretty lousy for three and a third quarters, and even in the fourth his best play was just tossing it in the air for Hill to catch it like a punt return on a play with broken coverage. He’s getting played up a lot in most of the media I have seen, but he looked a lot more like a 24-year-old going shaky under the brightest lights than the Ultimate Quarterback he has played on in the regular season.
On the flip side of that, props to Reid for pulling through. He coached a team built heavily around an all-world quarterback to an SB win when that QB was having a bad night, and it’s great to see him get the monkey off of his back.
Shanahan abandoning a free two minute drive with all of his timeouts at the end of the first half is an under-the-radar big time screwup, though. He somehow played hyper conservative there, when they did not even have the lead, then just let Jimmy G throw away when he did get it. The man’s got to pick a strategy and stick to it.
Yeah but there weren’t many clear candidates to choose from. I was actually kind of hoping they would give it to Tyreek Hill for the hilarity of the potential shit storm to be had.
I can understand why it felt flat. It was hard to figure out what kind of game it was until the late fourth. It wasn’t quite back and forth, but we were waiting for any one team to break through and control the game. It was starting to look like the Niners were going to be that team, and then they collapsed.
Agree about Mahomes getting a bit more praise than he deserves. Had the Niners won, I think Mahomes would have gotten a ton of criticism (the reverse for Garoppolo). I think the NFL and media are excited to hand the spotlight and praise to someone new for a chance. That said though, Mahomes did show up much more late in the game and hung in there against a good D.
The game went pretty much how I predicted it. Close for most of it, with the 49ers holding onto a lead but letting the Chiefs hang around. Eventually the Chiefs went on a killer run and won by 10-14 points.
(Niners fan) First, hats off to the Reid and Chiefs. They kept coming and eventually they broke through and gained enough momentum to do their usual score-a-bunch-of-points-really-fast. They could easily have folded and let the Niners run over them, but they stepped up on both offense and defense to complete the comeback. Very impressive and well-deserved.
Hard not to see this as a game the Niners blew. There were a lot of things that went wrong. First, Shanahan’s iffy decisions. Why did Mostert have so few carries? Why didn’t we try to score before the half? We did kick the FG on 4th and short? Why did we go for the home run on 3rd and 10? And Jimmy just didn’t play well in the end. Other than that first INT, he was looking solid, but at some point something flipped and he started missing open receivers.
This one hurts. They always hurt.
Minor nitpick, but Reid did have one SB ring, as the assistant offensive line and tight ends coach for the Packers in 1996.
that’s like having a ring as a third-string long-snapper. not exactly gonna be regaling your grandkids with that one.
Couple things:
You get to coach on a team with Brett Farve and you probably come out of it with a story or two.
Teams only carry one long snapper so that would be like having a ring as a starter on special teams. I’d buy a Super Bowl starter a beer if I remembered liking the team they were on.
You’re telling me you don’t know your team’s equivalent assistant offensive line/tight ends coach? Do you even fan?
some kids at school think Damien Williams stepped out. They are the blind ones, not the refs.
As a Falcons fan who was in person to watch the collapse in person I would still want Shanahan as a coach. He is a great play caller. He just needs to never handle play calls in the second half of a Super Bowl ever again.
>Hahaha Nick Bosa
It was embarrassing but far from the first time an athlete has cried on the sideline
The past two seasons may have been trying in different ways for us Eagles fans, but there has been a silver lining. The irrationally confident idiots got over their talk of an Eagles dynasty PDQ.
Deebo ran for 39 yards on 3 sweep plays in the first quarter and then they never called it again. They were just like “man, 13 yards per play just really isn’t good enough. let’s dial up another Jimmy G checkdown for -2 yards”
Speaking as an SF fan, the calls weren’t awesome. I think they were more advantageous to the chiefs (mostly in that I saw the chiefs get away with a few things that probably shoulda been called), but it wasn’t really a dealbreaker. Mostly acceptable (which is a pretty stellar review for officials)
The half time show was bad but I can’t stop thinking about how they did the Vitas flblblblbl thing
Finally, some good fucking food.
Please don’t use made-up words like “stan”. You aren’t hip enough.
I’ll Stan what I want to Stan
“Wait, wait. I worry that what you just heard was ‘give us a lot of ketchup.’ What I said was ‘All. The ketchup. You have.’ Do you understand?”